16 Facts About Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla was an Italian Renaissance humanist, rhetorician, educator, scholar, and Catholic priest.

Lorenzo Valla 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.

Lorenzo Valla is sometimes seen as a precursor of the Reformation.

Lorenzo Valla was born in Rome, with a family background of Piacenza; his father, Luciave della Lorenzo Valla, was a lawyer who worked in the Papal Curia.

Lorenzo Valla was educated in Rome, attending the classes of teachers including Leonardo Bruni and Giovanni Aurispa, from whom he learned Latin and Greek.

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Lorenzo Valla is thought otherwise to have been largely self-taught.

In 1431, Lorenzo Valla entered the priesthood and tried in vain to secure a position as apostolic secretary.

Lorenzo Valla went to Piacenza, and then to Pavia, where he obtained a professorship of eloquence.

Lorenzo Valla became itinerant, moving from one university to another, accepting short engagements and lecturing in many cities.

Older biographies of Lorenzo 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.

Lorenzo Valla appears as quarrelsome, combining humanistic elegance with critical wit and venom, and an opponent of the temporal power of the Catholic Church.

Between 1439 and 1440 Lorenzo Valla wrote the essay, De f credita et ementita Constantini Donatione declamatio, which analyzed the document usually known as the Donation of Constantine.

From 1435 to 1445, Lorenzo Valla was employed in the court of Alfonso V of Aragon, who became involved in a territorial conflict with the Papal States, then under Pope Eugene IV.

Lorenzo 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.

Specialist in Latin translation, Lorenzo Valla made numerous suggestions for improving on Petrarch's study of Livy.

Lorenzo Valla made a contemporary reputation with two works: his dialogue De Voluptate and his treatise De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae.