Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla (Italian: [loˈrɛntso ˈvalla]; also latinized as Laurentius; c. 1407 – 1 August 1457) was an Italian Renaissance humanist scholar, rhetorician, educator, and Catholic priest. He is best known for his historical-critical textual analysis that proved that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, therefore impugning and undermining the presumption of temporal power claimed by the papacy. Lorenzo is sometimes seen as a precursor of the Reformation.

Life

Valla was born in Rome, with a family background of Piacenza; his father, Luciave della Valla, was a lawyer who worked in the Papal Curia. 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 in an early work. In 1431, Valla was ordained as a priest; the same year he 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, 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 in 1447, Valla worked there on his Repastinatio. He became a papal scribe and, in 1455, a papal secretary.