Between dialogue and the war: two positions on the Turkish from the West at the end of the Middle Ages

Abstract

Four authors of XV central century (Nicholas of Cusa, Juan de Segovia, the humanist Eneas Silvio Piccolomini –pope Pio II– and the Bohemian King George Podiebrad) and another of the beginning of Modern Age (Erasmus of Rotterdam) show correctly the occidental reaction face to the Ottoman pressure, from the fall of Constantinople (1453) to the Hungarian defeat in Mohacs (1526). They consider two ways to solve the problem: the religious dialogue that leads Turkeys to convert to Christianism and then make legitimate their conquest, for example, the short work of Nicholas of Cusa De pace fidei, and partially the Epistula ad Mahumetem of Pius II), and the foundation of a great alliance of Christian princes: vg. the paneuropean project of George Podiebrad, inspired by the old idea of crusade.