Work · Renaissance & Humanism
On the Donation of Constantine
Shows by historical and linguistic arguments that the document in which Emperor Constantine supposedly gave the Pope rule over the West is a later forgery.
Introduction
Valla wrote the declamation in 1440 as secretary to King Alfonso of Aragon, who was then in conflict with Pope Eugenius IV over the Kingdom of Naples. The “Constitutum Constantini” claimed that Emperor Constantine, cured of leprosy by Pope Sylvester, had given him and his successors rule over Rome and the western provinces. Valla attacks the document in the form of an oration: no source from Constantine’s time mentions the gift, neither emperor nor pope could have given or accepted it, and the Latin of the text, with anachronisms such as “satraps”, belongs to a much later age. Nicholas of Cusa had raised doubts a few years earlier. The text circulated in manuscript and became widely known in the 16th century through Ulrich von Hutten’s printed edition, which Luther read in 1520. Today the document is generally dated to the 8th or early 9th century.
More works by Lorenzo Valla
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