Lorenzo Valla
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Lorenzo Valla (; also latinized as Laurentius; 1 August 1457) was an Italian Renaissance humanist,
rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
ian,
educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...
and
scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...
. He is best known for his historical-critical textual analysis that proved that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, therefore attacking and undermining the presumption of temporal power claimed by the
papacy The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
. Lorenzo is sometimes seen as a precursor of the
Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
.


Life

Valla was born in
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, with a family background of
Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...
; his father, Luciave della Valla, was a
lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...
who worked in the
Papal Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes us ...
. He was educated in Rome, attending the classes of teachers including Leonardo Bruni and Giovanni Aurispa, from whom he learned Latin and Greek. He is thought otherwise to have been largely self-taught. Bruni was a papal secretary; Melchior Scrivani, Valla's uncle, was another. But Valla had caused offence, to Antonio Loschi, by championing the rhetorician
Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quin ...
in an early work. In 1431, he was ordained as a priest; the same year Valla tried in vain to secure a position as apostolic secretary to China. He was unsuccessful, despite his network of contacts. Valla went to Piacenza, and then to
Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...
, where he obtained a professorship of eloquence. His tenure at Pavia was made uncomfortable by his attack on the Latin style of the jurist Bartolus de Saxoferrato. He became itinerant, moving from one university to another, accepting short engagements and lecturing in many cities. Invited to Rome by
Pope Nicholas V Pope Nicholas V (; ; 15 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death in March 1455. Pope Eugene IV made him a Cardinal (Catholic Chu ...
in 1447, Valla worked there on his ''Repastinatio''. He became a papal scribe and, in 1455, a papal secretary. Valla died in Rome. He was originally buried beneath the monumental bronze '' Lex de imperio Vespasiani'' behind the altar of Saint John Lateran. His tomb and epitaph were last seen by Seyfried Rybisch in 1570. In 1576,
Pope Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake ...
, a staunch believer in the ''Donation of Constantine'', had them destroyed when he removed the bronze to the
Palazzo dei Conservatori The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill ( ; ; ), between the Roman Forum, Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The hill was earlier known as ''Mons Saturnius'', dedicated to the god Saturn (mythology), Saturn. The wo ...
. Today, there is a memorial to Valla in the Lateran.


Reputation

Older biographies of Valla give details of many literary and theological disputes, the most prominent one with Gianfrancesco Poggio Bracciolini, which took place after his settlement in Rome. Extreme language was employed. He appears as quarrelsome, combining humanistic elegance with critical wit and venom, and an opponent of the temporal power of the Catholic Church. Luther had a high opinion of Valla and of his writings, and
Robert Bellarmine Robert Bellarmine (; ; 4 October 1542 – 17 September 1621) was an Italian Jesuit and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was canonized a saint in 1930 and named Doctor of the Church, one of only 37. He was one of the most important figure ...
called him "Luther's precursor".
Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
stated in his ''De ratione studii'' that for Latin grammar, there was "no better guide than Lorenzo Valla".


Works


On the Donation of Constantine

Between 1439 and 1440, Valla wrote the essay, ''De falso credita et ementita Constantini Donatione declamatio'', which analyzed the document usually known as the '' Donation of Constantine''. The ''Donation'' suggests that
Constantine I Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...
gave the whole of the
Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...
to the
Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. This was supposedly an act of gratitude for having been miraculously cured of
leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a Chronic condition, long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the Peripheral nervous system, nerves, respir ...
by Pope Sylvester I. From 1435 to 1445, Valla was employed in the court of
Alfonso V of Aragon Alfonso the Magnanimous (Alfons el Magnànim in Catalan language, Catalan) (139627 June 1458) was King of Aragon and King of Sicily (as Alfons V) and the ruler of the Crown of Aragon from 1416 and King of Naples (as Alfons I) from 1442 until his ...
, who became involved in a territorial conflict with the
Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...
, then under
Pope Eugene IV Pope Eugene IV (; ; 1383 – 23 February 1447), born Gabriele Condulmer, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 March 1431 to his death, in February 1447. Condulmer was a Republic of Venice, Venetian, and a nephew ...
. This relationship possibly motivated his work; in any case, he was put on trial before the
Catholic Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic judicial procedure where the ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various medieval and reformation-era state-organized tribunal ...
in 1444, but was protected from imprisonment by the intervention of Alfonso V. Valla demonstrated that the internal evidence in the ''Donation'' told against a 4th-century origin: its vernacular style could be dated to the 8th century. Valla argued this thesis in three ways: # By stating that the Emperor Constantine could not have legally given Pope Sylvester the powers that the ''Donation'' claimed. # From the absence of contemporary evidence, Valla reasoned that it was implausible that a major change in the administration of the Western Roman Empire had taken place. # Valla doubted that Emperor Constantine had given Pope Sylvester anything at all, suggesting a mistake involving an earlier Pope. Supplementing these points, Valla argued from
anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...
: the document contained the word ''
satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median kingdom, Median and Achaemenid Empire, Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic empi ...
'', which he believed Romans such as Constantine I would not have used. In addition, Valla believed that the quality of Latin for such a supposedly important text was undeniably poor, evidencing this by the fact that the text constantly switched tenses from "we have proclaimed" to "we decree", for instance.


Textual criticism

A specialist in Latin translation, Valla made numerous suggestions for improving on
Petrarch Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's redis ...
's study of
Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...
. The emendation of Livy was also a topic discussed in book IV of his ''Antidotum in Facium'', an invective against Bartolomeo Facio. In this part of the treatise, which also circulated independently under the title ''Emendationes in T. Livium'', Valla elucidates numerous corrupt passages and criticises the attempts at emendation made by Panormita and Facio, his rivals at the court of Alfonso V. In his critical study of the official Bible used by the Roman Catholic Church,
Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...
's
Latin Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, of his own initia ...
, Valla called into question the church's system of
penance Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of contrition for sins committed, as well as an alternative name for the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. The word ''penance'' derive ...
and indulgences. He argued that the practice of penance rested on Jerome's use of the Latin word '' paenitentia'' (penance) for the Greek ''metanoia'', which he believed would have been more accurately translated as "repentance". Valla's work was praised by later critics of the Church's penance and indulgence system, including
Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
.


Manuscript works

Valla made a contemporary reputation with two works: his dialogue ''De Voluptate'' and his treatise ''De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae''. Richard Claverhouse Jebb said that his ''De Elegantiis'' "marked the highest level that had yet been reached in the critical study of Latin".


Printed editions

Collected editions of Valla's works, not quite complete, were published at Basel in 1540 and at Venice in 1592, and ''Elegantiae linguae Latinae'' was reprinted nearly sixty times between 1471 and 1536. * ''Opera omnia'', Basel 1540; reprinted with a second volume (Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1962). * ''Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie'', ed. G. Zippel, 2 vols. (First critical edition of the three versions: Padua: Antenore, 1982). * ''Elegantiae linguae Latinae'', Venice 1471, edited by S. López Moreda (Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, 1999). * ''De vero falsoque bono'', edited by M. de Panizza Lorch, Bari, 1970. * ''Collatio Novi Testamenti'', edited by A. Perosa (Florence: Sansoni, 1970). * ''De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione'', ed. W. Setz (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1976; reprinted Leipzig: Teubner, 1994). * ''Ars Grammatica'', ed. P. Casciano with Italian translation (Milan: Mondadori, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 1990). * ''On the Donation of Constantine.'' The I Tatti Renaissance Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007). * ''Dialectical Disputations.'' The I Tatti Renaissance Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, London, 2012). * ''Correspondence'', ed. Cook, Brendan. The I Tatti Renaissance Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013).


English translations

* ''On the donation of Constantine'' translated by G. W. Bowersock, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008. * ''Dialogue on Free Will'', translated by C. Trinkaus. In: 'The Renaissance Philosophy of Man', edited by Ernst Cassirer et al., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. * ''The profession of the religious and selections from The falsely-believed and forged donation of Constantine'' translated, and with an introduction and notes, by Olga Zorzi Pugliese, Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1998. * ''De vero falsoque bono'' translated by A. K. Hieatt and M. Lorch, New York: Abaris Books 1977. * ''In Praise of Saint Thomas Aquinas'', translated by M. E. Hanley. In ''Renaissance Philosophy'', ed. L. A. Kennedy, Mouton: The Hague, 1973. * ''Dialectical Disputations,'' Latin text and English translation of the ''Repastinatio'' by B. P. Copenhaver and L. Nauta, Harvard University Press, 2012 (I Tatti Renaissance Library, two volumes).


Notes


Further reading

For detailed accounts of Valla's life and work see: * G. Voigt, ''Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums'' (1880–81); * John Addington Symonds, ''Renaissance in Italy'' (1897–99); * G. Mancini, ''Vita di Lorenzo Valla'' (Florence, 1891); * M. von Wolff, ''Lorenzo Valla'' (Leipzig, 1893); * Jakob Burckhardt, ''Kultur der Renaissance'' (1860); * J. Vahlen, ''Laurentius Valla'' (Berlin, 1870); L Pastor, ''Geschichte der Päpste,'' Band ii. English trans. by FI Antrobus (1892); * The article in Herzog-Hauck's ''Realencyklopädie, Band xx.'' (Leipzig, 1908). *
John Edwin Sandys Sir John Edwin Sandys ( "Sands"; 19 May 1844 – 6 July 1922) was an English classical scholar. Life Born in Leicester, England on 19 May 1844, Sandys was the 4th son of Rev. Timothy Sandys (1803–1871) and Rebecca Swain (1800–1853). Livin ...
, ''Hist. of Class. Schol.'' ii. (1908), pp. 66‑70. * Lisa Jardine, "Lorenzo Valla and the Intellectual Origins of Humanist Dialectic," ''Journal of the History of Philosophy'' 15 (1977): 143–64. * Maristella de Panizza Lorch, ''A defense of life: Lorenzo Valla's theory of pleasure.'', Humanistische Bibliothek 1/36, Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1985, * Peter Mack, ''Renaissance Argument: Valla and Agricola in the Traditions of Rhetoric and Dialectic'', Leiden ; New York : E.J. Brill, 1993. * Paul Richard Blum, "Lorenzo Valla - Humanism as Philosophy", ''Philosophers of the Renaissance'', Washington 2010, 33–42. * Matthew DeCoursey, "Continental European Rhetoricians, 1400-1600, and Their Influence in Renaissance England," ''British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500-1660, First Series'', DLB 236, Detroit: Gale, 2001, pp. 309–343. * Melissa Meriam Bullard, "The Renaissance Project of Knowing: Lorenzo Valla and Salvatore Camporeale's Contributions to the Querelle Between Rhetoric and Philosophy," ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 66.4 (2005): 477–81. * Brian P. Copenhaver, "Valla Our Contemporary: Philosophy and Philology," ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 66.4 (2005): 507–25. * Christopher S. Celenza, "Lorenzo Valla and the Traditions and Transmissions of Philosophy,” ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 66 (2005): 483–506. * Lodi Nauta, ''In Defense of Common Sense: Lorenzo Valla's Humanist Critique of Scholastic Philosophy'', Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2009. * Marsico, Clementina. "Radical reform, inevitable debts: Lorenzo Valla, Alexander de Villa-Dei, and recent grammarians." ''Historiographia Linguistica'' 44, no. 2-3 (2017): 391-411. * Marsico, Clementina. "Su quia nelle Elegantie di Lorenzo Valla e nel latino umanistico." Su quia nelle Elegantie di Lorenzo Valla e nel latino umanistico (2020): 27-42. * Magnani, Nicolò. 2020. "Aristotelismo e metricologia nel De poetica di Giorgio Valla." . Studi e problemi di critica testuale : 100, 1, 173-197. * Blanchard, W. Scott. "The negative dialectic of Lorenzo Valla: a study in the pathology of opposition." ''Renaissance Studies'' 14, no. 2 (2000): 149-189. *


External links


Lorenzo Valla, Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of Constantine
* Lorenzo Valla
''Elegantiarum Laurentii Vallae''
Naples (c. 1473). A
Somni


;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Valla, Lorenzo 1400s births 1457 deaths 15th-century Italian writers 15th-century writers in Latin Christian humanists Critics of the Catholic Church Italian Renaissance humanists Italian Renaissance writers Italian rhetoricians Italian Roman Catholic writers Proto-Protestants Writers from Rome Year of birth uncertain Burials at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran