An imagined gathering
1530 · Augsburg, Germany
Charles V meets Erasmus, More, and Copernicus during the Diet and confronts the division of Christendom he cannot heal.
The Diet of Augsburg has brought the empire's princes to the city, and Charles has set aside an evening for the scholars among them. Erasmus, who has been trying to hold the middle ground between Rome and the reformers, is there; More, still in the king's service, has come on English business; Copernicus, whose book is nearly finished, has been drawn into the imperial circle.
Charles speaks plainly about the failure of the colloquy: the Lutherans will not yield, the pope will not compromise, and the empire cannot be both. Erasmus pleads for patience and for a faith reduced to essentials; More says little and thinks of the oath he may one day be asked to swear. They eat marinated eel, a herb frittata, mushrooms, and candied fruit, and part without a solution.
Host: Charles V
Desiderius Erasmus — Hoping to mediate between the confessions, and distrusted by both.
Thomas More — In imperial company while England's own religious crisis gathers.
Nicolaus Copernicus — A canon whose mathematical work has caught the emperor's notice.
First course
a period dish
Dessert
a period dish
Drink
a period dish
Charles V
The collision between the emperor's duty to defend the church and the Protestant movement he could not suppress.
Charles V
The patchwork of kingdoms Charles V inherited and the impossible task of ruling them as one.
Desiderius Erasmus
The humanist program of returning to original texts and languages, and the tools of editing and translation it produced.
Nicolaus Copernicus
The claim that the Sun, not the Earth, sits at the center of the planetary system — and the slow, contested work of making it fit observation.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.