John Wenck (†1460) at the Crossroads of Scholasticism and Humanism

This PhD project aims to offer a nuanced portrait of John Wenck’s thought and legacy, in which his best-known controversy with Nicholas of Cusa appears as only one aspect within a broader framework that challenges simplistic views of this milieu.

Professorship of History of Philosophy

Project Description

A magister artium in Paris, later professor of theology and rector in Heidelberg, an active voice at the Council of Basel, a polemicist against heretics, and an enthusiast of Lullist and Humanist studies, John Wenck of Herrenberg seems to have occupied a complex and ambivalent position in the intellectual turmoil of the 15^th century. This PhD project aims to offer a nuanced portrait of John Wenck’s thought and legacy, in which his best-known controversy with Nicholas of Cusa appears as only one aspect within a broader framework that challenges simplistic views of this milieu. Furthermore, by studying Wenck’s documents and personal manuscripts, this research seeks to analyze his working practices as a reader and writer, as well as the network of affiliations to earlier and contemporary figures that shaped the development of his thought.

Everything at a Glance

Duration
1 April 2025 – 31 March 2028 (expected)
Research Area
History of Philosophy
Funding
Doctoral scholarship from the HYT Young Academy, University of Siegen

PhD Candidate: Andrés García-Rengifo

Short Vita

since April 2025: PhD scholarship holder of the HYT Young Academy, University of Siegen.
March 2025–January 2026: Research assistant at the University of Siegen as part of the DFG project “Nikolaus von Kues als Leser Platons und Aristoteles’: Kritische Edition und Studie der Cusanus-Marginalien.”
since October 2024: Doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Siegen, at the Chair of History of Philosophy (Univ.-Prof. Dr. Mario Meliadò).
January 2024–February 2025: Visiting researcher and assistant at the Kues Academy for European Intellectual History.
2015–2023: Study of Philosophy and Fine Arts at the Universidad del Valle (Colombia).

Research

Philosophy of the 15^th Century

Theories of the soul and cognition; philosophy of memory and images; late medieval mysticism; manuscript studies and paleography.

Iberian Neo-Scholasticism

Latin philosophical manuscripts in the Spanish colonies; reception of early modern philosophy in Hispano-America.

Publications

2025 – “Nicholas of Cusa's Concept of Imaginatio in the Context of Heymeric of Campo's Tractatus Problematicus,” in: S. Carannante, G. Venturelli (eds.), I campi della sapienza. A partire dal De venatione sapientiae di Nicola Cusano, Mimesis, Milano, 157–170.
2024 – “Theology as Poetry in John Wenck's Commentary to the De coelesti hierarchia: Sources of a Quasi-Humanist Idea in 15th-Century Heidelberg,” in: Mario Meliadò (ed.), From Paris to Heidelberg: The Teaching of John Wenck († 1460) in the Mirror of His Unedited Works (Special Issue of Rivista di Storia della filosofia 79/3), 582–610.

2024 – “Physica colonialis in the Viceroyalty of New Granada,” blog post for Forma Fluens. Histories of Microcosm, Blog of the Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance.

Talks

2026 – “Notetaking, Patchwork and Mnemonics: John Wenck’s Working Practices through His Manuscripts” (Paratextual Elements: Tables, Indexes, Marginal Notes, Diagrams, etc., Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai, February 27–28, 2026).
2026 – “John Wenck of Herrenberg: A Missing Link of 15^th-Century German Lullism?” (Forschungs- & Doktorandenkolloquium, Thomas-Institut, Universität zu Köln, February 3, 2026).
2025 – “Descartes desfigurado y los santos caníbales. Particularidades de la transmisión de conocimiento en dos cursos de Física neogranadinos” (9^th International Congress Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval, Universidad de Córdoba, December 3–5, 2025).
2025 – “John Wenck at the Crossroads of Scholasticism and Humanism” (AG Philosophiegeschichte im Gespräch, University of Siegen, October 22, 2025).
2025 – “Looking Into Shadows: the Mystical Vocabulary of Vision and Blindness” (Perspectives on Mystical Vision and Aesthetic Experience, Twentieth Biennial Conference of the American Cusanus Society, United Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg (PA), September 18–21, 2025).
2025 – “Cusanus' Annotations to Bonaventure's Collationes in Hexaemeron” (Leeds International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 7–10, 2025).
2025 – “Figures that Remember: Reading and Textual Mnemonics in the Tradition of the Lullian Art” (Reading and Philosophizing in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, University of Siegen, June 18, 2025).
2025 – “Cusanus's Mystical Vocabulary and Meister Eckhart's Responsio” (L'apport de la Théologie Mystique d'Eckhart et de Nicolas de Cues, Université de Lorraine, April 29–30, 2025).
2024 – “Contra abstractam vitam: The Role of Meister Eckhart in John Wenck's Opposition Against Nicholas of Cusa” (Zur Auslegung des Johannes-Evangeliums bei Meister Eckhart und Nikolaus von Kues, Kueser Akademie, December 4, 2024).
2024 – “Symbols and Knowledge in Nicholas of Cusa and John Wenck” (AG Philosophiegeschichte im Gespräch, University of Siegen, November 28, 2024).
2024 – “Nicholas of Cusa's Metaphysics of Darkness” (XI. Jungcusanertagung, Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, September 11–13, 2024).
2024 – “Nicholas of Cusa and John Wenck on Representing God: A Disagreement at an Epochal Shift” (Session of the Cusanus Society UK and Ireland, Leeds International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 1–4, 2025).
2022 – “Sine omni aenigmatico phantasmate: Nicholas of Cusa's concept of imaginatio in the context of Heymeric of Campo's Tractatus Problematicus” (X. Jungcusanertagung, Kueser Akademie, July 21–24, 2022).