 Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus Cryfftz or Krebs in German, then Nicolaus Cusanus in Latin) was born in 1401 in Kues (now Bernkastel-Kues) on the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier. He was one of four children in a bourgeois family. His father, Johan Cryfftz, was a prosperous merchant who became one of the landed gentry in Trier. The first record we have of Nicholas’ early education comes from his study of the liberal arts at University of Heidelburg in 1416–17. He then moved to the University of Padua where he studied canon law, receiving his Doctor of Canon Law in 1423. In Padua he met the physician and mathematician Paolo Toscanelli, the canonist Giuliano Caesarini, and the humanists Guarino da Verona and Vittorino da Feltre.