Mercurino Gattinara is however mostly famous for having served as Emperor Charles V's “Grand Chancellor of all the realms and kingdoms of the king.” Upon the death of Charles' counselor Chièvres, Gattinara would become the king's most influential advisor. He was a Roman Catholic, humanist, Erasmian, jurist and scholar—at the same time idealist in his goals, and in his tactics. He was a scholar of jurisprudence, the classic theory of the state, and the Christian doctrine of duty. Gattinara would guide Charles away from both his roots in dynastic Burgundy, and from the prevailing secular political theory of Spain at the time, toward a Christian humanist conception of Empire. His ideas of the primacy of the Empire in Europe were in direct contradiction with the growing trend toward the theory of the nation state.