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Lorenzo Valla's Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Harold J. Grimm
Harold J. Grimm
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
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Extract

Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457), whose major writings were produced during the second quarter of the fifteenth century, is one of the most disputed figures among the humanists of the Italian Renaissance. His character and work were of such a nature that he aroused the admiration or antipathy of scholars from the beginning of his literary activities to the present day. It is largely because he dared to put into writing the critical ideas entertained, but seldom published, by many of his contemporaries, that he has ever since been considered either a hero or a scoundrel.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1949 , pp. 75 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1949

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References

1 Published in Florence by G. C. Sansoni, 1891. See Remigio, Sabbadini's book review in Giornale Storico defla Letturatnra Italiana, XIX (1892), 403–414Google Scholar, which is in general agreement with the views of Mancini. Another favorable account is that of von Wolff, Max, Lorenzo Yalta, Seine Leben und seine Werke (Leipzig, 1893)Google Scholar, as is that of Barozzi, L. and Sabbadini, R., Studi sut Panormita e sul Valla (Florence, 1891)Google Scholar.

2 Mancini, , Valla, 1.Google Scholar

3 See particularly the excellent annlysis of Pogglo's invectives against liorenzo in Walser, Ernst, Poggius Floreritinus, Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1914), 267–276.Google Scholar

4 History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (London, 1899), II, 197.Google Scholar

5 The Renaissance and the Reformation (New York and London, 1934), 266, 271.Google Scholar

6 Ernst Walser, Poggius; “Die Religion des Luigi Pulci, ihre Quellen und ihre Bedeutung,” 10. Beiheft zu Die Neueren Sprachen (Marburg, 1926)Google Scholar; Gesarnmelte Biudien zur Geistesgeschichte der Renaissance (Basel, 1932).Google Scholar

7 Davidsohn, Geschichte von Floreiw; von Martin, Alfred, Soziologie der Renaissance (Stuttgart, 1932), esp. 44–45Google Scholar; Baron, Hans, “A Sociological Interpretation of the Early Renaissance in Florence,” The South Attantu, Quarterly, XXXVIII (1939), 427ff.Google Scholar

8 See especially Léontiue, Zanta, La Renaissance du Stoicisme an XVIe siécle (Paris, 1914), 1–14.Google Scholar

9 See his Apologia ad Eugeniets IV, in L. Vaflae Opera (Basel, 1540), 795ffGoogle Scholar; also Zalilen, J., Opusoula tria, in Sitrungsberichte der Wiener Akademie der Wisenschaften., LXI–XXVI (1869), 135–137; 50–66.Google Scholar

10 See especially the analysis of Jassirer, Ernst, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, Vol I (Berlin, 1922), 123Google Scholar; and Individuum und Kosinos in des Phiiosophie der Renaissance (Leipzig-Berlin, 1927), asp. 82–84.Google Scholar

11 Monrad, D. G., Die erste Kontro'verse üiber den Ursprung des a, ostotisohem Glau bensbekentressses, tr. from the Danish by Miehelsen, A. (Gotha, 1881), 218–220.Google Scholar

12 Erasmus was the first to publish Valla's Annotatioaes in No'vum. Testamenturn in 1505.

13 The first printed edition appeared at Louvain in 1483. It was entitled Eloquentissimi doctissuniqui yin Laurentii de Yafla in Librum suum pangeticon de nero bono prohernium. The revised text, although enlarged, remained substantially the same and was printed twice in Basel, in 1519 and 1540. It is entitled De Voluptate ac de nero bono. A copy of the edition of 1519 is in my possession.

14 See Freudenthal, , “Lorenzo Vafla als Philosoph,” Neue Jahrbüoher fur das klasnische Attertum., XXIII (1909), 724ff, esp. 734–735Google Scholar; Voigt, Georg, Die Wiederbelebung des cassischen Alterthums, 3d ed., I (Berlin, 1893), 465.Google Scholar

15 Cassirer, , Individuum und Kosrnos, 84.Google Scholar

16 Rossi, Vittorio, Il Quattrocento (Milan, 1933), 82.Google Scholar

17 Included in L. Vallae Opera (Basel, 1540)Google Scholar, and in an abbreviated form in German in von Wolff, , Lorenzo Valla, 38–43Google Scholar. See the detailed criticism in Maier, Ernst, Die Willensfreiheit bei Laurentius Valla und bei Petrus Pomponatius (Bonn, 1914)Google Scholar.

18 In L. Vallae Opera; also Dialecticae disputationes contra Aristoteles (Venice, 1499)Google Scholar, and Dialecticarum disputationum (Cologne, 1541)Google Scholar. See Prantl, Carl, Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1927), IV, 161–167.Google Scholar

19 This work was first published in printed form by Ulrich von Hutten in 1517 and was supplied with a preface by that humanist. An English transiation by Christopher B. Coleman was pubiished by the Yale University Press in 1922. A recent critieai edition was published under the title, Lanreatii Vallae De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio, recensuit et apparatu critico instruxit Walther Schwahn (Leipzig, 1928).Google Scholar

20 Vahien, , Laurentii Vaflac Opuscuda Tria, IIGoogle Scholar. Vallenais, LaurentiiDe professions religiosorum, Sitrungsberichte, LXI (1869), 99–134.Google Scholar

21 See the detailed discussion in D. G. Monrad, Die erste Kontroverse.

22 Vahlen, , Laurentii Valise, Opuscula Tria, II: Ex Laurentii Talkie Apologia ad Eugenium Pontificein Maxinum, Sitzb., 135–137.Google Scholar

23 Laurentii Valkie Annotationes n Novum Testamentum (Paris, 1505)Google Scholar.