The principal author and the adjoining contributors, two of whom are the editors of the volume, have gathered together important historical data into this valuable sourcebook, which serves as a guide both to certain of Nicholas of Cusa's ideas and to his contemporary associates and his spheres of activity. The volume is encyclopedic in character, providing thumbnail sketches of each of the topics with which it deals. It includes a brief biography of Nicholas's life that is accompanied by a helpful chronological table that lists the dates of the main events of his life and that cites the titles and dates of his major writings. These writings are then annotated. Although the book is mainly important for the compact sketches that it presents of his activities as priest, bishop and cardinal, it also serves to locate him within the framework of his historical period by including rich sketches on such topics as the devotio moderna, Islam, the Great Schism, the Fall of Constantinople, conciliarism and the rise of humanism. In addition, the volume includes seven personalising illustrations (for example of Nicholas's birthplace, hospice and library) as well as three maps that help to situate him geographically and that trace his journey as papal legate to the German Nation (1451–2). A wealth of other material is provided: (1) an excellent set of bibliographies placed, respectively, at the end of each article; (2) a list of the five historically successive major editions of Cusa's Latin texts (known as the Strasbourg, the Milan, the Paris, the Basle and the Heidelberg editions); and (3) a list of the major international congresses and symposia devoted to Cusanus and his works. Furthermore, the volume contains a trove of often-overlooked detail. For example, we are told that Cusanus was instrumental in introducing into Italy Gutenberg's invention of the printing press (p. 91); we are given a clarification of his relationship with his father (p. 228); and we are even given a list of the wines that may be purchased nowadays at his still-functioning hospice in Bernkastel-Kues. Watanabe's assessments are critical assessments. He weighs his sources, pointing out, for example, that Geoffrey Barraclough's verdict on Pope Pius ii seems overly harsh (p. 167) and that Nicholas probably knew more Greek than Martin Honecker in 1938 judged to be the case (p. 286). Moreover, the volume contains informative summaries of the lives of individuals with whom Nicholas was well acquainted – individuals such as Peter von Erkelenz, Heimericus de Campo and Juan de Segovia. But it also contains listings of contemporaries with whom Nicholas may or may not have had contact and by whom he may or may not have been influenced – individuals such as Johannes Rode, János Vitéz and Lodovico Pontano. Similarly rich information is provided regarding such cities as Kues, Koblenz, Basle and Orvieto and such places as Cusa's library, his hospice and the universities of Heidelberg, Cologne and Padua. Nor does Watanabe neglect mention of women: for example the Sisters of the Common Life; the thirteen convents found in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands (pp. 342–4). And, once again, the bibliography here is extensive and significant.

This volume is the culmination of work that Morimichi Watanabe has been engaged in over a period of years. Although many, if not most, of the items included first appeared in the American Cusanus Society Newsletter, they have been reworked for the present book; and they are accompanied by newly written items. The volume constitutes an excellent contribution to scholarship and belongs in libraries as a reference work. Individual scholars who are concentrating on Cusanus studies will also want to obtain a copy.

The book is not without a number of problems, although these are all minor. Most striking is the fact that the various bibliographies contain occasional minor errors with respect to spelling, foreign accents, case endings, italics, punctuation. En passant I noticed such difficulties in at least one entry on each of some eighty-eight bibliographical pages. These infelicities occur in titles written in German, French, Italian, Latin and even English (p. 370). Rarely, a date is wrong (pp. 99, 208) or an author's name is misspelled (p. 249). Yet, none of these blemishes are such as to prevent a reader from locating the referenced material. Only a few misspellings, misprints and suchlike (for example at pp. 29, 145, 182, 212, 263, 319) occur in the text proper, which is well-written. On p. 71 the Greek word taken from the primary source is wrongly transliterated; and the first accent should be changed to a smooth breathing. The annotated list of Cusa's works refers often to ‘Hopkins, I’ and ‘Hopkins, II’ without ever indicating what the referents are. To correct this problem, the Hopkins entry on p. 291 should also be placed on the abbreviations page (p. xxix). Likewise, under the annotation for De docta ignorantia (p. xxi) the reference to Hopkins should be clarified so as to make plain that ‘I’, ‘II’ and ‘III’ refer not to Hopkins's volumes but to the three books of De docta ignorantia found in Hopkins I. Similarly, the page numbers for the citations of Hopkins should generally be corrected, because some of them include the end-notes and some do not. One might also quibble about Watanabe's calling Nicholas's hospice a ‘hospital’, which in the ordinary sense it is not. (Only on p. 357 does Watanabe clarify his use of this word.) And one might also quibble about the translation of the title of Nicholas's De pace fidei as On the peace of faith, when a paraphrastic rendition is called for (for example, On the peaceful unity of faith). The brief autobiography might have mentioned the span of time within which Nicholas was ordained a priest (namely, some time between 1436 and 1440), even though the exact date is unknown. Certain portions of the book are repetitious. For example, in three places (pp. 34, 338, 357) we are told that as a young boy Nicholas was not a student at Deventer. And part of the section of the text on the devotio moderna (p. 35) is repeated in much the same words on p. 337. Yet, these repetitions are not irritating. Indeed, they are even expedient, given the encyclopedic character of the entries.

All in all, Nicholas of Cusa: a companion to his life and his times is a remarkably fine work of historical scholarship that sheds a brighter light on the events of Nicholas's life and on the influences of his times.