The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine (Classic Reprint)

T HE Donation of Constantine-the most famous forgery
in European history; papal authority-since the triumph
of Christianity the most perennial question of European
society; historical criticism-one of the most comprehensive, most
alluring, and most baffling enterprises of the modern mind;
Lorenzo Valla-the greatest of the professional Italian humanists;
these lines of study have converged, accidentally perhaps, to
call forth the following pages. Much of the subject matter which
might properly form their introduction I have already treated
more fully in an earlier work/ and a brief statement will suffice
here.
The Donation of Constantine (Constitutum Constantini),
written probably not long after the middle of the eighth century,
became widely ~known through its incorporation in the PseudoIsidorian
Decretals (about 847-853). Parts of it were included in
mOSt of the medieval collections of canon law; Anselm's, Deusdedit's,
and Gratian's great work (the Decretum, or Conc

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