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[Expositions 8.1 (2014) 1–28]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747–5376 
 
 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine in Historical Context, 1439–40 
 
THOMAS RENNA 
Saginaw Valley State University, Emeritus 

 
 

ABSTRACT 
 
Lorenzo Valla’s refutation (1440) of the forgery The Donation of Constantine (ca. 757-800) has 
been variously interpreted as a rhetorical and philological exercise, an attack on papal temporal 
power in general or the Papal States in particular, an invective against Pope Eugenius IV, an 
apology for Alfonso V, a proposal for clerical reform, a satire on the clergy, a defense of the 
Council of Basel. But little attention has been given to the role of Emperor Frederick III in 
Valla’s implied suggestions for the improvement of circumstances in warring Italy. It is argued 
here that Valla wrote the Declaration in part to encourage greater imperial involvement in the 
papal schism and especially in the affairs of Italy and the City of Rome. 
 
 
The Donation of Constantine is the most influential forgery in Western history. Lorenzo Valla’s 
refutation of the document is the most famous debunking of any literary fraud. The renown of 
the humanist’s Discourse1 stems from the historical fact that it was the first systematic refutation 
of the Donation of Constantine, itself widely cited in 1200–1400.2 Although the Donation was 
probably composed in the second half of the eighth century,3 it did not become the subject of 
intense discussion until the twelfth century, when it was cited by the defenders of the pope’s 
claim to crown German kings (after being elected Kings of the Romans) with the title of 
Emperor of the Romans and retain some degree of control of the emperor and the empire. By the 
time of Popes Innocent III and IV, the Donation’s claims were extended to the Papal States and 
the pope’s temporal authority in general, particularly in the right to intervene indirectly in 
imperial elections and jurisdiction.4 According to some modern scholars,5 by the time of Lorenzo 
Valla, the Donation was not taken very seriously, although Valla thought—or pretended to 
think—otherwise.6 

In general, the past century of scholarly investigation of Valla’s Discourse has concentrated 
more on his literary technique—his use of rhetoric and philology7—than on his attempt to make 
his rebuttals relevant to his own day. (He seems to have written the bulk of the Discourse in 
April-May 1440,8 although he may have started the work in late 1439.) Much less attention has 
been given to the historical context of the writing of the Discourse, except to note Valla’s 
apparent support of the Council of Basel, Pope Felix V,9 and, above all, his antagonism to Pope 
Eugenius IV. In particular, Valla’s defense, often unstated in the Discourse, for King Alfonso V 
of Aragon, the nemesis of Eugenius IV, is emphasized.10 At times the references in modern 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 2

studies to contemporary events are merely recited, as if the connections with Valla’s comments 
are self-evident. Modern historians often praise the Donation as a compelling work which 
definitively demolished the counterfeit document.11 In fact, the piece is sometimes a rambling 
collage of disparate arguments only loosely connected. The odd choice of formula—a quasi-
courtroom dialogue held at royal courts—seems to support those modern critics who emphasize 
the Discourse as largely a rhetorical exercise, albeit replete with contemporary allusions. Perhaps 
the reason for the unwieldy, composite character of the work is that Valla wrote it for several 
reasons and for several audiences. 

In the opinion of the present author, some of the misunderstandings of the treatise are the 
result of focusing too narrowly on the antipapal rhetoric and not enough on the German emperor. 
By neglecting the latter, the reader may be misled by Valla’s use of the literary device of the 
“straw man,” especially Pope Eugenius IV,12 who must be assessed within the context of the 
time Valla was writing. This concentration on Eugenius is understandable, since Valla himself 
virtually ignores contemporary emperors (Frederick III is not even mentioned) or near 
contemporaries (Albert II is missing; Sigismund III is mentioned just once13) This is not, of 
course, to suggest that the Discourse is a tract on empire or that it is primarily a reform proposal 
for the ills of society. The work is, after all, about an event (or non-event, since Constantine, 
Valla assures us, never made such a donatio) and its subsequent evil effects. Hence Constantine 
and Pope Sylvester14 get more attention, with allusions to later emperors and pontiffs, only to 
show how naively uncritical they could be in accepting the Donation’s genuineness. Strangely, 
Valla does not speculate on the circumstances of the forgery itself, except to imply that it was 
made some centuries after the time of the first Christian emperor.15 

The role of the Western emperor in 1440, however, was of great concern to Valla, who, it is 
argued here, placed more hope in the new emperor than in his patron, Alfonso V of Aragon, to 
restore sanity to Christendom. The Discourse is not, to be sure, a reform program or a speculum 
principum for Frederick III. The Discourse is a difficult work to assess as a historical source not 
only because of the relative paucity of references to external events, but also because of Valla’s 
too few allusions to contemporary circumstances in his other writings, including his letters.16 

 
Holy Roman Empire and Italy, 1436–39 
 
Valla in fact wrote the Discourse in part, we contend, to induce Frederick III and his supporters 
to intervene in Italy. Our humanist—never the optimist—did not envision imperial troops 
marching over the Alps. Those days were gone. Rather, he sought to convince Frederick—who 
seemed to be content with the neutrality of his Electors—and Italian leaders that a greater role 
for the emperor (as yet uncrowned)17 was required to resolve the conflicts in Italy. For Valla the 
settlement of the Basel-Vatican standoff was but a means to an end. He envisioned Frederick and 
Eugenius working together to achieve peace south of the Alps. Valla wrote the Discourse 
partially to promote the short-term gain of restraining the expansionist impulses of Filippo Maria 



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Visconti, Eugenius IV, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and, indeed, even Alfonso V. His long-term 
objective was to achieve a balance of power in Italy, end the schism between the two popes, 
buttress the Union between Byzantine East and West, and get pope and emperor to organize a 
pre-emptive attack on the Turks. 

The political situation in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire in 1438–40 was chaotic. The 
turmoil, confusion, broken promises, complexity, shifting alliances, profusion of unreliable 
condottierri, and uncertainty must have been almost unbearable. There seemed no end to the 
series of crises. The candidates for European-wide leadership—Council of Basel, Frederick III, 
Charles VII of France, Eugenius IV—appeared anything but ecumenical.18 The hope of a 
reconciliation between Council and Pope was dashed when Basel suspended Eugenius IV from 
office in January 1438, and elected Felix V (so named in November 1439), who reigned until 
April 1449.19 As the Council had increased its claims to be superior to the papacy during 1436–
37, Eugenius responded by rejecting the proposal to transfer the Council to Avignon and 
proposed Ferrara instead. The more hard-line conciliarists voted to declare Eugenius, who 
frantically searched for supporters in France, Italy, and the Empire, deposed.20 The situation was 
complicated by the delicate negotiations which were then occurring between the Byzantine John 
VIII and the Western powers as to the location of the council where the union between Latin and 
Greek churches was to occur.21 John VIII himself demanded the site to be on the Dalmatian coast 
or at least in Italy. The kings of France and Germany pressed for a northern site, as did many 
conciliarists. While Eugenius had supporters in the Holy Roman Empire, some Electors, 
universities, and religious orders sided with Basel. For his part, Eugenius thought he could fend 
off the Baseleans better from an Italian base, such as Bologna or Ferrara. Rome remained hostile 
to the Pope. 

When the Council was later moved to Florence the tensions in Italy actually increased. 
Eugenius’ alliance with Venice was uncertain, as were his relations with the Visconti nemesis, 
Francesco Sforza in the Romagna.22 When the Council of Florence did in fact achieve union with 
Constantinople, few believed it was permanent or that it would lead to a successful crusade 
against the infidels in the Balkans. Neither did anyone in the German empire feel complacent 
with the doctrinal concessions made to the Hussites in Poland in May 1439. The threat of a 
renewed Turkish assault on Hungary was always present to the Emperor Sigismund III and his 
successor, Albert II of Luxemburg (March 1438–October 1439). Both Sigismund and Albert 
attempted to remain neutral in the Basel-Eugenius conflict, lest the Catholic Church fall into 
schism and the division in the German empire worsen.23 Charles VII of France remained neutral 
as well, perhaps as a counter to his papalist bishops and the Baselean universities. Just as the two 
popes, Felix V and Eugenius IV, were maneuvering to obtain adherents throughout Europe, 
Sigismund died (9 December 1437), introducing another element of uncertainty. 

For the new emperor, Albert II, this Basel-Eugenius business complicated his more pressing 
concerns: get the Bohemians and Hungarians to accept his election as king of the Romans; 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 4

establish a uniform policy of church reform; solidify the union with the Greeks; muster a defense 
against the Ottomans; adopt a more equitable policy in Germany loosely based on the French 
Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges; maintain good relations with Eugenius; establish a semblance of 
authority over his Electors; enforce the Mainz council decrees; maintain free elections and 
prohibit annates.24 Yet, despite the discussions at Mainz, both the Council of Basel and Eugenius 
in the end rejected many of these Mainz proposals. All hopes were left to a new universal 
council, still to be determined. By April 1439 Albert II seemed unable to choose among the 
neutrality of the Electors, the Acceptation of Mainz, the legitimacy of the Council of Basel and 
its decrees, and the recognition of Eugenius as pope without conditions. Basel’s deposition of 
Eugenius in effect rebuffed Albert’s attempts at a reconciliation of the Baselean reforms and the 
papal schism. After more months of proposals and counter proposals, Albert II tried to reach an 
agreement with his Electors at Frankfurt in November 1439. To the horror of the Electors, news 
arrived that the Council of Basel had just elected Felix V on 5 November 1439. Then another 
distressing report arrived: Albert II had passed away on October 27. The Electors responded by 
renewing the Protection of Neutrality, which would be adopted by the next king, Frederick of 
Habsburg. 

 To add to the confusion, the emperor after Albert II, Frederick III of Habsburg, refused to 
take sides in the papal schism, since he was engaged in numerous struggles: against the 
Ottomans in 1439, Matthius Corvinus of Hungary, the Swiss Confederation which sought 
independence, the Bohemians who opposed Albert II’s son Ladislaus, and the Electors who 
chose different sides in the Basel vs Eugenius (who deposed two archbishop-Electors) dispute. 
The unintended result of Frederick’s declaration of neutrality was to encourage both the 
Baseleans and the Eugenians to step up their efforts to get the Germans—and Frederick—to their 
side. The big question was: Who would Frederick support, Council or Pope? Where would the 
next council be held? What would Frederick’s attitude be toward Italy? his attitude toward 
Alfonso V of Aragon? So uncertain was Frederick’s position that he was not to be crowned king 
of the Romans until 1442 (although he had been elected February 1440), and Emperor of the 
Romans until 1452—the last emperor to be crowned in Rome. While modern historians often 
characterize Frederick III as a Habsburg who put his House ahead of imperial concerns, he was 
certainly active on many fronts during the years 1439–40. 

Frederick was stymied as to how to respond to the (uncompromising) demands of both Basel 
and Eugenius, who effectively required the clergy of the Holy Roman Empire to attend the synod 
at Ferrara. The mood among the Electors and the bishops was to seek a compromise between 
Council and Pontiff. The Elector-Archbishops of Mainz and Trier proposed a moderate solution 
which protected both Eugenius and the Council decrees. As each mediation failed in 1438, the 
new Emperor-elect, Frederick (III), was caught between Scylla (the Protestation of Neutrality) 
and Charybdis (accept Eugenius as true pope and move the council to Ferrara). Albert II had 
summoned imperial diets to attempt to find a formula acceptable to both Basel and Eugenius. 
Pressure now mounted on Frederick to agree to a third city—other than Basel or Ferrara—for the 



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council. The German delegation argued strenuously at Basel during December 1438–January 
1439 in favor of the general council, a third city, and common imperial policies for the church in 
the Empire. Eugenius responded by unilaterally transferring his council from Ferrara to Florence 
(10 January 1439)! The German princes meeting at Mainz (March–April 1439) were convinced 
that they had found a winning formula; they even accepted many of the Baselean reforms for the 
church in the Empire. But to their consternation, the Council of Basel rejected them and deposed 
Eugenius (June 1439). The result was an impasse. These disappointments notwithstanding, 
however, Frederick never gave up on his efforts to conciliate Basel, Pope, and the German 
church. In 1441 he issued a surprise series of reform proposals to establish more imperial 
authority over his principalities, intending to rule in the manner of the legendary Emperor 
Charles IV on the model of the Golden Bull of 1356. 
 
Alfonso V and Lorenzo Valla 
 
Where was Alfonso V of Aragon during these bewildering developments of 1438–39? Alfonso’s 
actions indicate that he was neither a Baselean nor a Eugenean. He seems to have had no 
ideological leaning in any direction. His priority was his new kingdom in Naples, while keeping 
contact with events back in Spain. Alfonso spent much of his time in 1436–40 engaging in 
military and diplomatic activity designed to expand his Sicilian empire and tighten the blockade 
around the city of Naples, which he would finally capture in 1442.25 His alliance with Filippo 
Maria Visconti was opportunistic, as were his ties with Venice, Francesco Sforza in Ancona, 
and, it might be added, Felix V and Basel. Alfonso’s later dramatic shift to Eugenius—when this 
pope discarded René of Anjou, son of Louis II of Anjou and rightful King of Sicily—is but one 
example of Alfonso’s Realpolitik. It is unlikely that Alfonso considered Eugenius the source of 
all his difficulties in Italy, as Valla appears to think. Perhaps Valla magnifies his case against this 
Pope because he deems that this is what his patron wants to hear. 

How did these rapid movements of Alfonso V influence Valla’s political thinking? It is 
probable that Lorenzo Valla as Alfonso’s secretary—an undefined position—accompanied him 
on military campaigns during 1437–39, and may have participated in minor diplomatic forays. 
(Valla’s extensive amount of writing during his stay at court, Gaeta then Naples, suggests, 
however, that he had ample time to research and write. Alfonso’s famous library was a boon.) 
Valla was kept well informed about the events in Europe, and may have been an advisor of sorts 
to the monarch.26 It is possible that Valla’s Discourse on the Donation of Constantine was 
influenced by his involvement—either as a factor in Alfonso’s formation of policy, or as an 
observer of events as a man about court—in high politics. Was the Discourse really the academic 
exercise that some modern historians take it to be? 

As Valla observed the fast pace of events in Italy from the vantage point of the Aragonese 
court, whether at Gaeta or in via, he must have been amazed at the inconstancy of Fate. If he had 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 6

a perverse sense of humor he would have enjoyed the topsy-turvy course of events of 1436–40, 
which were often the result of chance. Alfonso V’s Fortuna often depended on unreliable 
mercenary captains on all sides. The uncertain flow of cash from Aragon and the Sicilian areas 
endangered the financing of his campaigns; the alliances (often casual, often broken) with towns 
and regions throughout Italy made his friends of today the enemies of tomorrow. The position of 
Florence and Venice was never clear. Alfonso’s steadfast “ally,” Filippo Maria, was one of 
convenience; the Visconti constantly complained of the King’s half-hearted offenses against 
Genoa, Venice, and Francesco Sforza. Typical of Italian potentates was the Count of Caserta, 
who switched sides no fewer than five times in two years! Alfonso’s on-again off-again marriage 
proposals with Filippo Maria’s relatives infuriated the Visconti. Many rulers attempted to use 
Alfonso in their attempts to snatch a piece of the Papal States; Eugenius was usually out of town. 
Alfonso had no long-range policy—except to seize Naples—as he reacted to the initiative of his 
enemies, such as Giovanni Vitelleschi’s incursion into the Abruzzi.27 This papal condottiere, the 
butcher of Rome, embodied Valla’s notion of the misuse of papal authority. The vicissitudes of 
Vitelleschi’s career—he had to retreat from the Abruzzi because he ran out of money to pay his 
soldiers!—may have convinced Valla of the need for outside—that is, imperial—military or 
diplomatic intervention. 

It would be inaccurate, moreover, to view the battle for the Regno as simply a war between 
René of Anjou and Alfonso V. The weak support for René can be seen in the hasty withdrawal of 
many of his partisans in 1439–40 as the position of Alfonso improved with the death of Jacobo 
Caldora in November 1439—and the welcome landing of provisions from Spain. The situation in 
the Kingdom of Naples fluctuated with some unexpected deaths (such as Alfonso’s brother 
Pedro) and the arrival of family members (such as his natural son, Ferdinand, in August 1438). 
Alfonso was actually not a Baselean or an ally of Felix V. Basel and the antipope were for 
Alfonso simply expedients to blackmail Eugenius into granting him legitimacy in Naples. 

One has to wonder if Valla in early 1440, when he was writing his Discourse, was getting 
worried about what would happen to his beloved Rome once the city of Naples finally fell to 
Alfonso. Would the king then attempt to conquer the Papal States? What would happen to the 
equilibrium of Italy? And the union with the Eastern Church? and to the Byzantine Empire, 
under permanent siege? Was Valla feeling guilty about encouraging his King to pursue his 
territorial designs? Above all, what would become of Rome and Italy after the settlement 
between the Council of Basel and Eugenius? But where was Frederick III? If Valla had dreams 
of making Gaeta, and later Naples, a center and model of humanist studies, he would have been 
dismayed at the growing instability in Italia, where all true learning began. Far from being a 
lackey of Alfonso V, Valla may have been troubled by the rapid turn in the King’s favor in late 
1439. But how can Valla send a message to Alfonso, Eugenius (who seemed stronger every day), 
Basel, other humanists, and Frederick III? Surely a polemical blast against Eugenius or some 
other scapegoat would simply inflame the followers of both Council and Pontiff. Why not 
something more scholarly and objective, a calm wind above the fray which would speak to a 



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fundamental problem that bedeviled Italy? Who, if anyone, gave the scholar at Gaeta the idea to 
write an attack on the renowned Donation of Constantine which would at the same time intimate, 
however circuitously, how to rescue Italy from the morass of division and competition? 

Sometime after 1433, Valla came upon a version of Nicholas of Cusa’s Catholic 
Concordance, which referred to the Donation of Constantine. Cusa deemed it fraudulent and 
implausible as a historical document. Given Valla’s temperament for exposing fakes and his 
receptiveness for anything hostile to popes and especially Eugenius, he was impressed and 
wished he had written the piece. The cantankerous Valla found it hard to resist a confrontation. 
The insertion of the questioning of the veracity of the Donation in the treatise of Cusa was a 
refutation and no more, although he makes a link to the Translation of Empire. Valla gave the 
passages no more thought at the time. Years later (1438?) he considered the implications of the 
forgery as they applied to his own day. Cusa, Valla realized, missed the staggering implications 
for immediate political relevance. But, if Valla were to pick up on Cusa’s insights, he would 
have to be careful not to appear to be simply repeating what the master had said, and not to 
appear to criticize the great theologian/philosopher. And Cusa wrote in an academic style not 
suited to Valla’s flair for high-flown rhetoric and dramatic bombast. Not that Valla ever hesitated 
to challenge anybody, but one must keep one’s employment opportunities open. Alfonso was not 
immortal, and could fire Valla on a whim. The humanist’s enemies at court needed little 
encouragement to attack him. 

What did Valla make of these stupendous events? The simple answer is that he wrote as a 
publicist for his royal paymaster. Although Valla does not mention Alfonso in his Discourse, 
there are plenty of indirect allusions,28 as modern scholars have noted. Eugenius IV is the bête 
noire of the treatise because this prelate more than anyone obstructed Alfonso’s designs in Italy, 
especially in the areas that were part of the Papal States. Such an approach to Valla’s intention 
does not, runs this argument, negate the fondness for the humanist’s use of rhetoric and 
philology. 
 
Lorenzo’s Five Straw Men 
 
Yet this pro-Alfonso interpretation of the Discourse is simplistic. It makes Valla a petty cynic 
and court sycophant, driven by hatred of the Pope. Valla’s portrayal of papal prerogatives is, 
admittedly, not always consistent. Pope Sylvester, the model pontiff, is introduced as denying all 
possessions; yet later popes in the Discourse seem to be legitimate owners of the Papal States. 
The “Franciscan” pope Sylvester does not always match what Valla considers the rightful duties 
and possessions of later popes, such as Eugenius. Yet modern historians may have taken Valla’s 
diatribe against Eugenius too literally, without realizing, in the opinion of the present author, that 
this pope was to some extent a “straw man” in the Discourse set up to leave room for imperial 
action from the North. Valla’s fulminations against Eugenius notwithstanding, it is unlikely that 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 8

Valla judged Eugenius the primary cause of all the problems in the church and society. But these 
violent outbursts against Eugenius are in fact rhetorical devices to deflect from Valla’s larger 
goals of promoting concord and justice in Italy, with the help of the new emperor. This is not to 
say that Valla’s negative portrayal of the Venetian pope was entirely insincere, but only that the 
latter is also a literary construct which the humanist builds only to demolish. 

Strictly, Valla’s straw men are not usually entirely fictitious. “Straw man” is here taken to 
mean an informal fallacy in which the polemicist pretends that the argument he is refuting is in 
fact the one proposed by his opponent. Thus the writer somewhat dishonestly disproves a 
proposal other than the one he alleges his adversary set forth. In Valla’s case it might be more 
accurate to say that the errors he purports to destroy are only half-straw men, in the sense that 
Valla implies that at least in some way the proposition is valid. But Valla exaggerates what he 
claims the Donation of Constantine is supposed to be alleging. This use of exaggeration of the 
detractor’s case is a technique he employs throughout the Discourse. Accordingly, many of his 
arguments against the forgery are irrelevant, even trivial, and often strain a point. Valla’s heavy 
resort to sarcasm makes some of his “arguments” appear more like witty remarks than as serious 
objections to the Donation.29 Actually there is not one straw man in the Discourse but five, all 
interrelated. The modern reader should be wary of taking Valla’s outbursts at face value. 

 
1) Pope Eugenius IV loudly proclaims the truth of the Donation of Constantine, and 

frequently threatens “certain kings and princes as if you [Eugenius] were exacting 
vengeance for a purloined empire.”30 Eugenius demands subjection from the emperor, 
when he has to be crowned, “as well as some other rulers, such as the King of Naples and 
Sicily [Alfonso V].”31 Really? Did Eugenius—or Nicholas V or Felix V for that matter—
ever make such a demand? Indeed, did any supreme pontiff assert such a right during the 
Great Schism? Is Valla misinformed or is he maintaining this papal claim to make 
Eugenius the arch-villain and thus more vulnerable to attack? Why does Valla overstate 
Eugenius’ policies toward the Holy Roman Emperor and “some”—why “some”?—
secular princes? It is amusing to hear Valla declare his courage in standing up to 
Eugenius for daring to expose the Donation as a forgery!32 He boasts of his fearlessness 
before the certain punishment which the Holy See will impose upon him! But Valla was 
actually very aware that his invective would not threaten his comfortable stay at Gaeta 
and Alfonso’s well-guarded entourage on the march. Eugenius had plenty of critics at the 
time, least of which was this Italian pen-pusher. There was little risk in lampooning this 
Pope’s ambition and avarice. 

2) Pope Sylvester refused the Donation—if such a thing were in fact offered—because he 
wanted to live the life of the poor Christ. Thus it was unlikely that so holy a pope would 
have acceded to such an extraordinary honor.33 Valla might have seen the irony of his 
acceptance of the description of Sylvester in the later Vita of this pope, a document Valla 
ridicules. The Donation, of course, adds that Sylvester did in fact refuse the honor, and 



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subsequently permitted others to rule in his stead. It is a non sequitur, however, to 
contend that Constantine’s offer of the Western Empire to the pontiff was somehow 
invalid because the latter would never have accepted. Valla’s praise of this pope’s love of 
poverty is a not-so-subtle criticism of the prelates in the Italy of the 1430s. The 
prototypical disciple of mammon is Eugenius IV, who could never measure up to a 
Francis-like vicar of Christ.34 We should not be fooled by Valla’s arguments in favor of 
the poverty of monks and friars in his The Profession of the Religious, which was written 
shortly before the Discourse.35 This eulogy to the ascetic way of life of the genuine 
religious (members of religious orders) seems prima facie incompatible with his earlier 
On Pleasure, a work which was widely criticized—probably exactly what he wanted and 
expected! The Profession of the Religious reads more like a diatribe on pretentious 
religious—and religious at Alfonso’s court who think of themselves as humanists?—than 
an apology for mendicant poverty. 

 Any reader of the Discourse could have inserted Eugenius IV as the anti-Sylvester, who 
behaves as if he were an “emperor.”36 But, in point of fact, Eugenius never claimed—
Valla is not consistent here in describing this Pope’s temporal assertions—extensive 
power over the empire or all of Italy as the Discourse declares.37 The literary-Eugenius—
more of a topos than a historical figure—is a caricature of the historical Pope, who would 
be quite content just to maintain control of the Papal States while keeping at bay the dogs 
of Milan, Venice, and Naples. Valla implies that Eugenius wants to abolish the Council 
of Basel so he can become the de facto “emperor”38 of the West, or at least have the 
princes of Europe recognize his de iure rights of universal sovereignty. Valla 
misrepresents the nature of Eugenius’ disagreements with Basel and the major states of 
Italy. (Of course, a supporter of Eugenius could plausibly argue that it was Alfonso V who 
was the aggressor in the Papal States and elsewhere!) He implies that the Pope claims the 
de iure rights of the Holy Roman Emperor. Somewhat anachronistically, Valla refers to 
the oath the emperor takes to become Emperor of the Romans, an oath “by which today’s 
Caesars are bound.”39 Perhaps Valla borrowed this theme of the pope as the cause of all 
wars in Italy from Dante’s De Monarchia or, more likely, from Marsilius of Padua’s 
Defensor pacis. Valla simply injected Eugenius as the prototype bogus-pontiff, in the 
manner of the Vatican painter who depicted the face of Pope Sylvester as the 
contemporary Clement VII in the fresco of the Donation of Constantine.40 

 Valla’s appeal to a primitive church model for the papacy and the clerical church is 
somewhat incongruous for the 1430s. Criticisms of clerical wealth and even calls for 
clerical dispossession were, to be sure, not unheard-of.41 Indeed there were several 
proposals at the Council of Basel to conquer and divide the Papal States!42 But these 
plans fall more into the category of territorial greed and political ambition than of wistful 
dreams of an ecclesia primitiva. Such visions of clerics living within their means were 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 10

much more common in the early fourteenth century.43 Many Baseleans and Eugeneans 
had more mundane issues to debate, such as the papal annates and reservations of 
benefices. They were more concerned with fundamental questions of the relative power 
of pope and general council. Although conciliarists sometimes bandied around the idea of 
the primitive church, they were referring to communal sovereignty and rarely to usus 
pauper.44 Zarabella, Panormitanus, John of Sevogia, and Escobar promoted the pope as 
rector of the universitas, and not as a Francis-like ascetic. The prelates at Basel had little 
interest in such esoteric ideals; the stripping of Eugenius of his annates was more of a 
power-play than a demand that he live the apostolic life. Throughout the voluminous 
debates of the Council of Basel, German reforms, and papal responses, such idealistic 
fantasies in the tradition of the Spiritual Franciscans were less heard. Ockham or Wyclif 
would have felt out of place in these learned discussions. The Italian powers who 
distrusted the imperialistic schemes of Alfonso and Filippo Maria would prefer a balance 
of power to an expanded Milan or Naples. Certainly the borders of the Papal States were 
in flux, and indeed within the Papal States there were autonomous lords who lacked far-
reaching policies. Thus Valla’s portrayal of Eugenius as a tyrant45 who subverted Italy 
makes clever rhetoric but questionable validity as a realistic assessment of actual political 
arrangements. Antipapal readers of Valla’s Discourse would have found much to smirk 
about. Historians may have made too much of Valla’s criticism of Eugenius for 
oppressing Rome, Bologna, and other places in Italy. While Valla’s readers might 
sympathize with his attack on the Pope, they would likely not have approved of his ouster 
from his Patrimony. It was not a matter of legal rights, but of practical politics. If Alfonso 
and Filippo Maria could cut a cynical deal to grab the Papal States, then who was safe? 
For the Italian powers the Papal States were a useful buffer zone squeezed in by Milan, 
Venice, Florence, and the Regno. Certainly many signori grumbled about Eugenius’ 
interference in areas outside his sphere of influence, and his willingness to make foreign 
entanglements in his search for allies against Basel. It was always disconcerting, 
moreover, to see the Vicar of Christ acting like a secular prince. At any rate, Valla’s 
fulminations notwithstanding, it is doubtful that many in 1440 would have seen Eugenius 
as the sole or even the principal cause of the disruptions in Italy. Valla drastically 
oversimplifies the complexity that was Italia. Doubtless many saw Eugenius as the victim 
of aggression and not vice versa. 

 The humanist’s satire on papal possessions—that is, the Papal States—was good for a 
laugh, but of little concern to the Baseleans. While it is probable that Valla was familiar 
with Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis,46 he knew or should have known that the 
Paduan’s radical assault on papal dominium had little place in the boardrooms of policy-
makers in 1440. Our Renaissance humanist perhaps did not realize that the Defensor 
pacis was written at a time (early 1320s) when the Franciscan poverty controversy was at 
its height. Critics of Pope John XXII exploited the views of both the Fraticelli and the 



11  Renna 
 
 

 

Conventuals to undermine the Pope’s position on user pauper and the papal right to 
abrogate previous papal bulls. 

3) Popes have always used the Donation to prop up their temporal authority. They have 
always depended on the Donation to affirm their rights to the Papal States and temporal 
prerogatives, at least de iure, over all Christian princes. Clearly not true. Innocent IV, 
expanding upon Innocent III, was in fact the first pope to explicitly claim the fullness of 
power on the basis of the Donation. Most fourteenth-century pontiffs gave little attention 
to the Donation, although many papalist and imperialist writers debated its merits. Even 
Innocent IV refers to the Donation simply as a confirmation of the temporal authority the 
supreme priest already possesses from Peter and Christ. James of Viterbo, the most 
extreme of the papal hierocrats, insists that the papal plenitudo potestatis was already 
held by the successors of Peter.47 

4) The pontiffs have always compelled emperors to accept the validity of the Donation in 
exchange for crowning the Kings of the Romans as Emperors of the Romans.48 Popes 
demanded the Donation so they could subjugate Rome and Italy. With these claims 
allegedly made by previous popes, Valla seems to be only vaguely acquainted with the 
tradition of canonist-imperialist exchanges concerning the Donation since at least the 
twelfth century. Either he is deliberately distorting the literary heritage of the Donation 
disputes, or, more likely, he simply does not know much about the history of how the 
famous forgery was used by all sides. In fairness to Valla it must be acknowledged that 
there were of course no writings on just such a history. He probably relied on a few 
canonist and chronicle sources in Alfonso’s library and other collections. One suspects 
that Valla’s reading of Marsilius’ Defensor pacis convinced him that all prior popes had 
made the outlandish claims mocked by the Paduan. Valla doubtless realized that a 
polemical work is not “history” as such, but facts selected to argue a point. But he 
probably did not care how much of Marsilius’ treatise was historically accurate. He 
resorts to hyperbole because it allows him at a stroke to demolish virtually all papal 
pretensions to temporal ownership. As a result, his Discourse becomes an important 
document—as Valla sees it—since it refutes the Donation. The crowning of the German 
emperors becomes the defining constitutional act of the emperor’s authority. This puts 
the pope in the enviable position of bestowing authority upon the emperor. Valla seems 
only dimly aware that many imperialist writers for well over a century had maintained 
that the elected King of the Romans possessed full imperial power before the pope 
crowned him Emperor of the Romans.49 

5) The emperor cannot be a true emperor unless he rules from Rome. Valla’s portrayal of 
the City of Rome in the Discourse is uncharacteristically idealistic. He states repeatedly 
that the Roman emperor must rule from Rome.50 Thus, it is absurd to think that 
Constantine would have abandoned his capital to the pope, a transferal which would, in 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 12

effect, make the latter the emperor of the Western empire. If the Donation were in fact 
never made, as Valla insists, the pontiff has title neither to the Western imperium51 nor to 
the City of Rome. Rhetorically speaking, the Donation deprived the pope of the City, 
which passes to him only by virtue of the fictitious Donatio. And, of course, a good 
humanist like Valla would never miss an opportunity to exalt the glory days of the 
Eternal City. 

 
But what can these references to Rome mean in the context of the Italy of 1440? It is here in 

his allusions to the City of Rome that Valla’s own strongly-held views are most clearly revealed. 
It is here that his language becomes the most virulent. Valla, a native of Rome, is agitated at 
Rome’s recent misfortunes, which, he concludes, can be reduced to a single cause: Pope 
Eugenius IV’s attempts to rule it like a despot. The Romans were justified in opposing his return 
to the City. The citizens of Rome should choose the emperor, not the pope.52 The City should be 
a Republic, not the capital of the Papal States. In some sense the Republic should have a 
connection with the Holy Roman Empire, which continues to possess de iure authority in Italy.53 
But it is unlikely that Valla had any hope of an imperial army swooping down the Alps in pursuit 
of peace-breakers. Yet there is something of the romantic in Valla’s eulogy to the Republic and 
his implied appeal to the Emperor. Valla cannot let go of the “Roman” in the Holy Roman 
Empire. Certainly the current pope cannot make such a claim; not even the Romans want him in 
town! Surely he cannot fancy himself to be universal, being the fomenter of factions that he is. 
According to Valla’s straw man—the pope’s temporal authority rests entirely on the Donation of 
Constantine—papal claims to the fullness of power are founded on a fiction. Although Valla was 
hardly an optimist, he had a small hope that if he succeeds in exposing the Donation as a fake, 
there is, at least, a chance that the new emperor, working with the self-interests of the major 
Italian states, can restore some stability in Italy.  

Valla, then, utilizes his scholarly endeavor proving the Donation a forgery to advance certain 
themes: the centrality of the City of Rome in the Holy Roman Empire and indeed Christendom; 
the false claim of Pope Eugenius IV to be the universal caretaker of the Church Militant; the 
emperor does not derive his power from the pope (this is the theme emphasized by the early 
critics of Valla’s Discourse, and also by modern critics, who might sometimes be too little 
cognizant of the historical context of 1439–40); the pope misuses his temporal power by 
asserting it beyond the Papal States; if the Donation falls, so does the pope’s claim to universal 
temporal potestas; peace in Italy is the first priority in Europe today, a concern which many 
Baseleans and Eugeneans seem to have forgotten; the new Emperor in Germany has an 
obligation to look to the troubles in Italy. A historic opportunity is here! Who but Frederick III is 
better positioned to ensure the permanence of the Union of the two Churches? Who but 
Frederick is best suited to pacify the Bohemians, resolve the papal schism, and harmonize Basel 
and Eugenius? The fraudulent Donation is an obstacle to achieve these urgent goals. The world is 
out of whack today because a basic principle of Christian history has been forgotten: Christian 



13  Renna 
 
 

 

society has two universal heads, one spiritual (Vicar of Christ), one temporal (Western emperor). 
The excessive power of the former and the weakness of the latter must be rectified. 

Lorenzo Valla may have reflected: If the Donation can be shown to be counterfeit, there is a 
reasonable chance that the New Constantine of the North can bring unity of purpose and 
common cause to Christendom and above all to Italia. He will lead a dual crusade: against the 
infidel and for universal church reform. The pen, not the sword, will cure Italy. With this 
brilliant treatise, my fame as the foremost humanist will surpass that of Nicholas of Cusa or 
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini! Now that I have shown the falsity upon which the Holy Father bases 
his claim to Rome, the Papal States, and elsewhere, he has no moral or legal foundation to 
expand his “empire” of the Patrimony of St Peter and meddle in other princes’ affairs. I see that 
my enemies are trying to reduce my Refutation to a single dimension: the papacy’s rights in 
temporals. They are blind—or pretend to be, since their simplistic interpretation allows them to 
take the high moral ground by defending the Holy See—to my larger aim: persuade the new 
emperor-elect, Frederick, to become more involved in Italian affairs, while working to end the 
papal schism and constrain the enthusiasts at Basel. He must forthwith organize the great 
crusade and reform the church in the German empire. The Habsburg should pay less attention to 
the so-called reformers at Basel and pay more attention to us humanists, who are better trained 
to provide effective moral leadership in these dark days. We, the new elite, know the ancient 
wisdom best and how to make it relevant right now. The old elite, the “scholastics,” are stuck in 
outmoded methods and authorities. Prudence prohibits me from making Pope Eugenius the 
Antichrist, and my patron, Alfonso V, the savior of Italy. But any alert reader will catch my sub-
text: at this moment in history Europe needs a strong Emperor who will restrain the wicked and 
encourage the peacemakers.  

And to you, Frederick: Remember, you are more than a Habsburg. You are the heir to 
Constantine and Charlemagne! With the permission of my King I will gladly come to Vienna and 
offer my humble services as your advisor. Now that I have cleared away the main legal obstacle 
to universal concord and imperial might—the despicable Donation of Constantine, the last 
refuge of grasping popes—you, the New Caesar, are liberated to pursue your providential role in 
the land of the imperatores! 

Valla was not so naive as to think of Frederick III as a deus ex machina who would descend 
into the Po Valley in the tradition of Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VII, and Charles IV, and 
impose a new ordo. Our humanist’s more modest goal was to propose a sort of clearing-house 
for conflict resolution. The supporters of Eugenius and the major powers in Italy would come to 
realize the usefulness of an imperial umbrella which did not threaten the concerns of individual 
principalities. Anything was an improvement on the current free-for-all of competing interests. 
Valla warns the new King of the Romans not to become immersed in the issues of ecclesiastical 
reform in central Europe, and in the disputes among the Electors. He should seek a balance 
between the objectives of Council and Pope. Valla intended his Discourse to be put to immediate 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 14

use. This practical motive explains why the work contains asides to contemporary events, 
including recent or living persons. These mentions are, after all, extraneous to the thesis of the 
treatise. The only logical person who could stand apart from the political fires burning all over 
Europe and trim the temporal sails of popes and princes would be the Roman emperor, who is in 
some sense still the caput mundi. The expansionist and parochial Alfonso would not qualify for 
anything so grandiose. Valla’s Discourse is a skillful balance between a defense, if lukewarm, of 
his royal patron and a summons—almost a program or, better, “general guidelines”—for the 
untested Emperor-elect. 

Can we reconstruct Valla’s thought-process prior to writing his attack on the Donation? His 
thinking progressed through six stages: 

 
1) Sometime after 1433, Valla read a version of Nicholas of Cusa’s Catholic Concordance, 

or at least Book 3, chapters 1–4, which deals with the Donation and the respective powers 
of pope and emperor. Valla was jealous that he himself had not written a similar 
deconstruction, since it coincided with his own views of papal temporal power. But Valla 
believed that Nicholas put too much emphasis on the pope’s role in choosing and 
confirming an emperor, and not enough on the pope’s secular authority. Valla preferred, 
however, Cusa’s Gelasian separation of ultimate spiritual and temporal power for pope 
and emperor. And he was likewise drawn to the Basel-informed parallels between the 
internal structures of papal and imperial governmental authority. But Valla thought Cusa 
was not antipapal enough. 

2) Valla was disappointed by the apparent powerlessness of contemporary emperors. 
Following his coronation by the pope in Rome, Sigismund seemed unable to reconcile the 
Baseleans and the Eugeneans, or even his Electors at home. Where was Sigismund when 
the Turks were advancing into Hungary? Why cannot Sigismund bring the warring 
princes and cities in Italy to the peace table? Albert II seemed even more helpless. What 
would it take to entice Albert to assert his prerogatives more forcibly? (Perhaps Valla had 
a simplistic view of how much political leeway Sigismund and Albert actually had in 
responding to the papal schism, the independence of the Electors, the impudence of the 
Bohemians, and the turmoil in northern Italy.) 

3) Valla occasionally came across accounts of the debates between the Baseleans and the 
Eugeneans. Indeed, at Alfonso’s court at Gaeta, Valla may well have participated in these 
exchanges, which were the talk of Europe. Valla was attracted to ideas which propounded 
an effective universal authority. Ideas of monarchy were widely circulated, long before 
the works of Antonio Roselli.54 Perhaps Valla came across some of the earlier works of 
John Torquemada or Pierre de Versailles and was intrigued about the possibilities of how 
ideas of monarchy could be applied to the Empire. There is no reason to think Valla’s 
interest in monarchy was confined only to the immediately practical. 

4) Valla heard only bad news about his homeland, the City of Rome.55 The current pope, 



15  Renna 
 
 

 

who was expelled by the Romans, is surely the main obstacle to the restoration of the 
Republic in Rome. The humanist was not, to be sure, a latter-day Cola di Rienzo, with 
visions of the return of yesteryear. Valla would be satisfied with good government of the 
City, with the pontiff’s role reduced to a minimum. The dismissal of the Donation, with 
its claims of papal control of Rome, would be a useful first step in this direction. 

5) As Valla traveled with Alfonso during 1437–39, he would have seen the effects of the 
harmful alliances with and within the Papal States. The implications of Cusa’s disproving 
of the Donation were apparent: the pope’s hold on the Papal States contributed mightily 
to the woes of Italy. Voltaire would say that the destruction of the veracity of the Old 
Testament would undermine the New Testament. Valla became convinced that the 
liquidation of the Donation would remove or at least subvert the pope’s possession of the 
Papal States. 

6) The incredibly rapid pace of events and turns of Fortuna throughout 1439 made Valla 
wonder if the provocations of the wily Alfonso V were in the interests of the common 
good of Rome and the Peninsula. An effective weapon against the scheming Pope and the 
selfish factions in Italy would be a rebuttal of the Donation of Constantine cast in some 
persuasive rhetorical frame. The point of the exercise was, after all, to persuade and prod 
to action, not to engage in classroom dialectic. A lengthy tome with copious footnotes 
pointing to venerable authorities would not do. Much better would be a literary form 
nicely suited to the tastes of a humanist: a classically-inspired oration presented in the 
guise of a dramatic courtroom exchange, supercharged with sarcasm and invective. 
Voltaire once said that the most effective kind of polemic is one that makes the reader 
laugh at your opponent. Valla’s choice of literary vehicle could serve a dual purpose: (a) 
undercut the pope’s temporal authority (read: Eugenius IV), while (b) bolstering the 
universal auctoritas of the one, true lord of temporals, the Roman Emperor (Holy Roman 
Emperor, Frederick III, soon to be crowned). What is the basic cause of the runaway 
potestas of the supreme pontiff, and the lack of power of the Emperor? Clearly it was the 
Donation of Constantine. Did Valla really believe in such a reductionist view, almost 
comical in its simplicity? Did he exaggerate the importance of a relatively small arrow in 
the legal quiver of the popes? This is not the right question to ask. More to the point is a 
literary query: how to compose a refutation of the Donation around a commanding 
central theme? This theme must be negative, eye-catching, relevant, and point to a web of 
images which appear to be logical spinoffs from the core idea. If the Discourse seems at 
times simplistic, even naive, it is because the two sides of the treatise—the scholarly 
debunking of a forgery and a polemic intended for the here and now, with intimations for 
practical action—do not always mesh smoothly. It is too easy to overstate the role of 
Valla’s patron, Alfonso, while underestimating another intended audience: other 
humanists in Naples and elsewhere. And the Donation was in fact known at the time, if 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 16

relatively neglected.56 Valla got a response to his attack on the document, if not as much 
as he would have wanted. But after his passing, the Discourse attracted more notice, if 
not for all the reasons he sought. His detractors later in the century tended to single out 
his assault on the pope’s temporal claims to the neglect of his other strands, such as the 
proper role of the Emperor, as we have seen. The historical context of Valla’s Discourse 
was quickly forgotten as each generation utilized it to suit its own purposes—exactly 
what had happened to the Donation for the four centuries before Valla! Unfortunately, 
modern historians have too often fallen into the trap of reading the later critics as the 
voice of Valla’s contemporaries. Somehow the Holy Roman Emperor got lost in the 
thrust and parry of Valla’s Oration. 

 
Conclusion 
 
If Lorenzo Valla intended to become rich and famous with the circulation of his refutation of the 
Donation of Constantine, he would have been disappointed. Although renowned as a humanist, 
more fame was to come. The relative neglect of the treatise at the time may simply have been a 
lack of interest in the main topic (how pontiffs had originally obtained their temporal power), 
although snide remarks on Pope Eugenius would have been popular in some circles. Neither was 
the venerable issue of the Translation of Empire exactly a lively topic of the day. Perhaps Valla’s 
readers took his Discourse in the narrowest sense: a proof of the fraudulent nature of the 
Donation and little more. Certainly contemporaries were concerned about Eugenius’ 
determination not to loosen his hold on his possessions in Italy, but few questioned the right of a 
pope to his Patrimony. Valla would have been discouraged if his readers saw in his Discourse 
only a criticism of Eugenius in particular and of papal possessions in general. He had other 
designs, as has been argued in this study. 

Modern scholars, for their part, have not been content to restrict their investigations of the 
Discourse to the literal point-by-point refutation of the Donation. They have explored Valla’s use 
of classical citations, rhetoric, philology, classical Latin, and literary forms. They have examined 
his polemic against Eugenius IV and recent popes; his attack on papal (and also the clerical 
church at large) temporals in general (which Valla purportedly claims to be founded in the 
Donation); his defense of Alfonso V of Aragon; his support (at least indirectly) of the Council of 
Basel and Pope Felix V; his implied criticism of scholastic philosophers and theologians (and 
fellow humanists); his use of late Roman legal and historical sources; his knowledge of canon 
law collections; and his apparent adherence to a notion of a normative primitive church. But in 
this extensive range of research the place of the Frederick III and the contemporary Holy Roman 
Empire gets less attention. The current article suggests that Valla wrote the Discourse in part as a 
proposal (or recommendation) to the new Emperor-elect to be more aggressive in ending the 
papal schism, finding a compromise between the supporters of Eugenius IV and the Council of 
Basel, upholding the Union with Constantinople, mobilizing the West for a crusade against the 



17  Renna 
 
 

 

Ottomans, restoring the City of Rome as a Republic (albeit the Bishop of Rome may stay, if he 
behaves), and, above all, working to alleviate the out-of-control conflicts in Italy. Certainly Valla 
was neither reformer (the Baseleans were also a means to other ends) nor idealist (except perhaps 
in his vision of a Republican City). He intended the Discourse to be, among other things, a sort 
of open letter to the court at Vienna, where the imperial advisors might take note. He did not 
write the Discourse as a mirror of princes for Frederick III. The pope is not (in Valla’s belief or, 
one could argue, in reality) the reprobate he has depicted in the Declaration. Valla’s larger 
goal—and here he is in harmony with much of the political thought of the time—was to 
encourage pope and emperor to cooperate in pursuing common objectives. He cautions the 
Habsburg king not to become overly concerned with the high-sounding theories advanced by 
Baseleans and Eugeneans. The intensity of these debates during the 1430s—not just at Basel, but 
in virtually every curia and university in Europe!—must have been disconcerting; those who 
were getting weary of these discussions would have sympathized with Valla’s tendency to 
simplify and close the debates. While the Christian princes of Europe faced off with each other, 
the infidels marched, the heretics won converts, and clerical discipline languished. Hopes for a 
grand reconciliation between Council and Vatican were fading. Only the Emperor could provide 
the leadership Christendom required in this End of Days. Valla’s tearing down of the trouble-
making forgery is the way out. Now is the time to build and to plant.57  

In the larger scheme of things, Valla’s refutation should be evaluated as a product of the time. 
It was a response to the peculiar conditions in the West of 1431–40, an era of almost intolerable 
tension and loss of direction. Valla’s Discourse should be assessed not simply as a disclaimer of 
a forged document, or as an exercise of the crafts of the humanists, but as a legacy of the 
historical tendency to envision Italy as an integral part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Donation 
of Constantine was still an ingredient, although it had been diminished in papal-imperial 
controversies since the late fourteenth century. The period 1430–50 was unusually fruitful in the 
history of political theory. Ironically, when the first systematic rebuttal of the Donation arrived in 
1440, it came as both a denial of papal temporal power and as an affirmation of the potestas of 
the Holy Roman Emperor. In the absence of effective leadership from Basel or Rome, it was 
time to look to Vienna. Valla’s Oration on the Donation of Constantine was an encomium to the 
latter-day Roman Empire, currently under siege. 
 
 

Endnotes 
 

1. I will refer to Valla’s treatise as the Discourse, although it is referred to by various 
names: “Oration” (Valla’s own word), “treatise,” “Declamatio” (never used in Valla’s 
lifetime; first used by Ulrich von Hutten), “Refutation,” “opusculum.” 
 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 18

2. The bibliography is vast. Some standard surveys: Giovanni Maria Vian, La donazione di 
Costantino (Bologna: il Mulino, 2004; new ed. 2010); Gerhard Laehr, Die 
Konstantinische Schenkung in der abendländischen Literatur des ausgehenden 
Mittelalters in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 23 
(Rome: Loescher, 1931–32), 120–81; Gerhard Laehr, Die Konstantinische Schenkung in 
der abendländischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, 
Historische Studien 166 (Berlin: Matthiesen Verlag, 1926; Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1965); 
Mario Conetti, L’origine del potere legittimo: spunti polemici contro la donazione di 
Costantino da Graziano a Lorenzo Valla (Parma: Salvadé, 2004), chaps. 1–4, 5 (Council 
of Basel), 6 (Valla). 
 

3. A near-consensus points to the time of Pope Paul I (757–67), although several versions 
may have circulated. The inclusion of the forgery in the pseudo-Isidorian decretals 
assured its notoriety. A strong case for the 820s has been advanced by Johannes Fried, 
Donation of Constantine and Constitutum Constantini: The Misinterpretation of a 
Fiction and its Original Meaning (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007). While many 
reviewers remain unconvinced by the new dating, the debate continues. See Horst 
Fuhrmann, ed., Das Constitutum Constantini, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Fontes 
iuris 10 (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1968), Introduction; Fuhrmann, 
“Konstantinische Schenkung und abendländische Kaisertum. Ein Beitrag zur 
Überlieferungsgeschichte des Constitutum Constantini,” Deutsches Archive für 
Erforschung des Mittelalters 22 (1966), 63–178. 
 

4. See Domenico Maffei, La donazione di Costantino nei giuristi medievali (Milan: Giuffrè, 
1969), chap. 1. 
 

5. In general Wolfram Setz, in his masterful study and edition of Valla’s treatise, seems to 
assume that Valla’s contemporaries gave little importance to the Donation’s legal and 
historical significance. Setz does not believe Valla had much if any political motive in 
writing his Discourse. See Lorenzo Vallas Schrift gegen die Konstantinische Schenkung: 
De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione: Zur Interpretation und 
Wirkungsgeschichte (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1975), chaps. 1 and 3, especially 13–17, 
43–75. Laehr believes the Donation had little relevance at the time of Valla; Die 
Konstantinische Schenkung in der abendlänischen Literatur in Quellen und Forschungen 
aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 23 (Rome: Loescher, 1932), 120–81, here 
166. In the present article I use four editions: Wolfram Setz, ed., Lorenzo Valla, De falso 
credita et ementita Constantini donation; MGH: Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des 
Mittelalters 10 (Weimar: Böhlau, 1976); Christopher B. Coleman, ed. and trans., The 
Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine (New Haven: Yale University 



19  Renna 
 
 

 

Press, 1922; repr. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) [unfortunately this edition 
lacks paragraph numbers]; G. W. Bowersock, ed. and trans., Lorenzo Valla: On the 
Donation of Constantine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), facing Latin 
and English; “Contra Donationis, quae Constantini dicitur, Privilegium, ut falso creditum 
Declamatio,” Eugenio Garin, ed., Valla: Opera Omnia (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1962 
repr.), vol. 1, 761–95. 
 

6. According to Valla, the Donation is the “sole authority those people have” for their 
claims: G. W. Bowersock, trans., Lorenzo Valla: On the Donation of Constantine 
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 4 (§5); this edition is English only. 
The pope can depose the emperor on the basis of the Donation: 68 (§82). Popes use the 
Donation to extort the emperor to grant him lands in the West: 68 (§83). Popes rely on 
the Donation because they have no other legal authority: 69 (§84). The crimes of popes 
ruin Italy; their claims stem from this one source: 77 (§96). Throughout the Discourse 
Valla assumes that the popes rest their claims to Italy and the empire on the Donation. 
For convenience, I cite from this Bowersock translation. Does Valla know better, or does 
he exaggerate the importance of the Donation for the pontiffs in order to score rhetorical 
points? More on this later. 
 

7. Some studies: Carlo Ginzburg, Preface, in Jean-Baptiste Giard, trans., Lorenzo Valla: La 
Donation de Constantin (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993), x–xxi; Vanna Gazzola 
Stacchini, “Lorenzo Valla: la falsa donazione di Costantino,” NEMLA Italian Studies 17 
(1993), 17–26; Imre Boba, “La ‘Donatio Constantini’ e l’‘Oratio’ del Valla a 
confronto,”Angelicum 67 (1990), 215–39; Salvatore I. Camporeale, Lorenzo Valla: 
Umanesimo, riforma e controriforma: Studi e Testi (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2002), 
chap. 4, 465–604; and “Lorenzo Valla e il De falso credita donatione. Retorica, libertà ed 
ecclesiologia nell ‘400’,” Memorie domenicane n.s. 19 (1988), 191–293 [a summary of 
sorts in Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996), 9–26 in English]; Camporeale, Lorenzo 
Valla: Umanesimo e teologia (Florence: Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 
1972), 31–208; Franco Gaeta, Lorenzo Valla: Filologia e storia nell’umanesimo italiano 
(Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, 1955); Joseph A. Barber, “Lorenzo Valla e 
la critica attributiva: Analisi della ‘Declamatio’ umanistica contro la ‘Donazione di 
Costantino,’” Italienisch 16 (1986), 56–66; Olga Z. Pugliese, “The Power of the Text in 
Humanist Culture: Valla and the Donation of Constantine,” Scripta Mediterranea 12–13 
(1991), 157–68; Vincenzo De Caprio, “Retorica e ideologia nella Declamatio di Lorenzo 
Valla sulla Donazione di Costantino,” Paragone 29 (1978), 36–56. 
 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 20

8. Setz, Lorenzo Vallas Schrift gegen die Konstantinische Schenkung, 13; Bowersock, 
Donation of Constantine, vii. 
 

9. See in particular the valuable studies of Riccardo Fubini, such as “Contestazioni 
quattrocentesche della Donazione di Costantino: Niccolò Cusano, Lorenzo Valla,” in 
Giorgio Bonamente and Franca Fusco, ed., Costantino il Grande: dall’antichità all’ 
umanesimo, 2 vols. (Macerata: Università degli studi di Macerata, 1992), 1: 385–431; 
also in Medioevo e Rinascimento 5, n. s. 2 (1991), 19–61; “Humanism and Truth: Valla 
writes against the Donation of Constantine,” Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996), 
79–86. Fubini analyzes the Declaration in the context of the conflict between the Council 
of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV. 
 

10. Analyses of Valla and Alfonso V in Giovanni Antonazzi, Lorenzo Valla e la polemica 
sulla Donazione di Costantino (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 1985), 49–69, 107–8, 169; 
Mario Fois, Il pensiero cristiano di Lorenzo Valla nel quadro storico-culturale del suo 
ambiente (Rome: Libreria editrice dell’Università Gregoriana, 1969), chaps. 4 and 7 
(Declamatio in the context of Alfonso’s policies toward Basel and Eugenius); Conetti, 
L’origine del potere legittimo, 249–57; Setz, Lorenzo Vallas Schrift gegen die 
Konstantinische Schenkung, 59–80; Alan Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous: King of 
Aragon, Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 321–25. 
Valla, who seems to have been out of place at the Aragonese court, must have been 
embarrassed by Alfonso V’s abandonment of Felix V and subsequent reconciliation with 
Eugenius IV. As the King moved toward peace with Eugenius in 1442, his humanist 
decoration (Valla) at the curia must have become a liability. Valla, too, may have been 
disconcerted by Alfonso’s unwillingness to reach out to Frederick III. 
 

11. Sometimes the descriptions of Valla’s Discourse seem almost like panegyrics, with little 
heed to his exaggerations, overstatements, petty asides, sarcasms, ad hominem barbs, 
irrelevancies, superficial digressions, overblown rhetorical speeches, facile witticisms, 
meandering arguments, a priori judgments, anticlericism, and hostile tone. My sense is 
that it was left unrevised. An example of this idealization of Valla’s critique is Olga Z. 
Pugliese, trans., Introduction, Lorenzo Valla: The Profession of the Religious and 
Selections from the Falsely Believed and Forged Donation of Constantine, 3rd ed. 
(Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1998), 23–31. Online sources 
for Valla and the Discourse often idolize the author. See, e.g., “Lorenzo Valla, Discourse 
on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of Constantine.” 

 

12. Valla portrays Eugenius IV as the most despicable of popes, akin to Dante’s Boniface 
VIII. Eugenius is a tyrant who despoils cities of their liberty: Bowersock, Donation, 76 
(§94). Valla shows his hand—that is, reveals that another purpose is to go beyond the 



21  Renna 
 
 

 

academic exercise of exposing a fraud, and comment on his own time in 1440—by 
targeting the living pope, whose way of life is irrelevant to the subject of the refutation of 
a text. Valla sarcastically appeals to Eugenius to behave like his predecessor, Sylvester. 
(Ironically, some of the sources Valla cites in support of Sylvester’s sanctity are those he 
considers fakes.) By virtue of the Donation, Eugenius threatens kings and princes: 26 
(§33). From a rhetorical point of view, Valla’s selection of a single pope, and a living one 
at that, gives his attack on the Donation a center-point and an immediacy. But did Valla 
in 1440 really have such a negative attitude toward Eugenius? Was Valla still nursing this 
pope’s slight when he denied Valla’s request for a curial position in 1434–35? Certainly 
Valla had plenty of reasons to dislike Eugenius during 1435–40 (in particular his 
“oppression” of Rome), but I think the humanist deliberately overstates his diatribe 
against this Pope. Valla was a Baselean by default, not by firm conviction. See Setz, 
Lorenzo Vallas Schrift, 70–73; Antonazzi, Lorenzo Valla, 52–53. 
 

13. Bowersock, Donation, 68 (§83). It is possible that Valla was present at the coronation of 
Sigismund in Rome on 31 May 1433. Valla was then teaching at the University of Pavia 
(1431–33). It is, of course, ridiculous to assert—as does Valla—that Eugenius compelled 
Sigismund to come to Rome and confirm the Donation. See Roger Pearse, “The Donation 
of Constantine and the critique of Lorenzo Valla.” As Pearse puts it: “Valla’s text is not a 
modern scholarly study, but a declamation—a piece of rhetoric.” As Pearse notes, many 
of Valla’s criticisms are invalid or irrelevant. 
 

14. On Sylvester, see Donation, 15–26 (§§20–32), 60–62 (§§74–75), 77–79 (§96). On 
Constantine: 7–9 (§§10–12), 11–14 (§§15–18), 27–28 (§34), 65 (§79), 15–21 (§20–27). 
Valla stresses the lack of references to the Donation in the later Roman empire, including 
the fictitious Acts of Sylvester. Rhetorically, Valla’s quasi-dialogues between Constantine 
and Sylvester are the most effective part of his Discourse. A critic of Valla might object 
that this lengthy introduction, which focuses on the motives of the two protagonists, is 
only marginally related to the refutation itself, and “loads the dice” against Constantine 
and the pope (or rather, the popes after Sylvester). But that is another matter. Why did 
Valla not make Constantine a model for Alfonso V or Frederick III? One could interpret 
Valla’s qualified praise for imperial expansion under Constantine as a curtsey to Alfonso, 
who in 1440 had not as yet captured Naples and indeed was mostly on the defensive. 
Constantine’s “expansion” was for Valla an oblique message to Frederick to assert his 
imperial rights in his non-Habsburg territories and contribute to the stability of Italy, once 
the Basel-Eugenius conflict was resolved. 
 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 22

15. Valla seems to think that the counterfeit document was composed sometime between the 
Acts of Sylvester and the Carolingian kings. For sure, a pope is the culprit; Donation, 66 
(§81), etc. Valla has a vague notion of the history of the earliest Decretals of Gratian: 
Donation, 88 (§35). But he is unwilling to speculate on a Carolingian origin, even though 
he could have suspected this, given his chronicle sources. Like Dante, Valla confuses Leo 
III with Stephen: 66 (§82). Perhaps Valla’s hesitancy to assign a late eighth-century date 
is because (a) he did not want to imply that this pope was corrupt (Sylvester the 
Incorruptible in the Discourse acts as a foil to the bad popes, especially Eugenius), and 
(b) he did want to get the forgery mixed up with the transfer of empire: 66 (§82). Valla 
does not seem informed as to the nature of the papal-Byzantine-Frankish entanglements 
following the coronation of Pepin in 751. Of course, modern scholars have documents, 
including canonist, which were not available to Valla. See Fried, Donation of 
Constantine, chaps. 1–3; Maffei, Donazione, chap. 1; Laehr, Konstantinische, chap. 1; 
Vian, Donazione, chaps. 1 and 2. 
 

16. Valla’s letters: Ottavio Besomi and Mariangela Regoliosi, eds., Laurentii Valle Epistole 
(Padua: In aedibus Antenoreis, 1984); Eugenio Garin, ed., Valla Epistole: Opera Omnia 
(Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1962) vol. 2, chaps. 6 (353–454) and 7 (455–64). New English 
translation: Brendan Cook, trans., Lorenzo Valla: Correspondence (Cambridge, MA: 
Harvard University Press, 2013). Unfortunately, Valla seems to have made few copies of 
his letters (some 56 extant). His letters at Alfonso’s court reveal little of his political 
views. For his correspondence during 1435–47, see Besomi and Regoliosi, Epistole, 151–
314. For references to Alfonso V in Valla’s anecdotes on Bartolomeo Facio, see 
Mariangela Regoliosi, ed., Laurentii Valle Antidotum in Facium (Pavia: In aedibus 
Antenoreis, 1981), xiv–xxviii, xxxv–xxxviii, xlviii–l, 14–26, 54–57, 260–62, 310, 311, 
and 316–17. Valla’s account of Ferdinand of Antequera (composed 1445–46) discloses 
little of his broader notions of history, the Holy Roman Empire, or circumstances in Italy. 
The work is valuable for its narration of Alfonso in Aragon and pre-1435. See Jerry H. 
Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples (Princeton: Princeton University 
Press, 1987), 233–41. 
 

17. Frederick V, Duke of Austria since 1424, was elected King of the Romans on 2 February 
1440 to become Frederick IV of Germany. Pope Nicholas V crowned him as Frederick 
III, Emperor of the Romans, on 17 June 1442. Kept off balance by wars with the Swiss 
and the Hussites, as well as his own Electors and some Baseleans, he contracted an 
advantageous marriage with the Infanta Eleanor of Portugal. It is hard to know how much 
Valla knew of Frederick’s difficulties during 1438–42. I suspect he encouraged Alfonso 
V to think of Frederick as a potential ally in Italy. 
 



23  Renna 
 
 

 

18. See the excellent survey by Alan Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous: King of Aragon, 
Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), chap. 6 (1436–
1442). 
 

19. The best synthesis is Joachim W. Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, the Council of Basel and the 
Secular and Ecclesiastical Authorities in the Empire: The Conflict over Supreme 
Authority and Power in the Church (Leiden: Brill, 1978), Part 1, chaps. 4–6. 
 

20. Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, Part 6, 190–202. 
 

21. See Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
1959), chaps. 3–8. Extensive discussion of the theological debates. 
 

22. See Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, Part 5, chaps. 1–3; Part 7, chaps. 1–4. Alfonso V’s 
lukewarm support of Felix V was a way to pressure Filippo Maria to oppose Genoa and 
René of Anjou, and to move Eugenius to back his claims on Naples (in exchange for 
Alfonso’s recognition of Eugenius as true pope). Alfonso, moreover, would have liked 
Eugenius to recognize his son, Ferdinand, as heir to the throne of Naples. See Ryder, 
Alfonso, 238–42. 
 

23. See Brigitte Hailer, Kaiser Friedrich III. Im Urteil der Zeitgenossen (Vienna: Verlag des 
Wissenschaftlichen Antiquariats H. Geyer, 1965); Bernd Rill, Friedrich III: Habsburg 
europäischer Durchbruch (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1987); Brian A. Pavlac, “Frederick III,” 
in John M. Jeep, ed., Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia (New York: Taylor and 
Francis, 2001), 245–47; S. A. Garretson, “Frederick III,” in Jonathan W. Zophy, ed., The 
Holy Roman Empire: A Dictionary Handbook (Westport: Greenwood, 1980), 149–53; 
Paul J. Heinig, Kaiser Friedrich III. (1440–1493): Hof, Regierung and Politik (Cologne: 
Böhlau, 1997); Heinrich H. Koller, Kaiser Friedrich III (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche 
Buchgesellschaft, 2005); Wikipedia articles: “Frederick III” (English) is 6 pages, and 
“Friedrich III (HRR)” (German) is 28 pages with 8 pages of bibliography. 
 

24. See Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, Part 5, chaps. 1–3. 
 

25. See Ryder, Alfonso, 241–51. 
 

26. In addition to n. 10 above, see Jerry H. Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance 
Naples (n. 16 above), 108–22, 233–38, passim. Stimulating treatment of the interplay of 
humanist culture at court and of political thought and policy. As was his penchant, Valla 
got into many angry disputes with other scholars at the royal curia, e.g., with Bartolomeo 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 24

Facio (Bentley, 100–8). Alfonso may have had several quasi-official historiographers, 
one of whom was Valla, who wrote about the early career of his patron. 
 

27. Valla calls Vitelleschi a “depraved monster”: Donation, 70 (§86). No doubt this is a 
reference to his treatment of the Romans. See Ryder, Alfonso, 215–27. Vitelleschi, the 
commander of the papal forces, was notorious for the atrocities he committed after he 
entered Rome. After massacring the troops of the Prince of Taranto, Pope Eugenius 
rewarded him with a cardinal’s hat! When his co-captain refused to send aid, Vitelleschi, 
the Patriarch of Alexandria, jumped in a small boat and ignominiously sailed off to 
Venice. Surely these events contributed to Valla’s declining faith in “local” saviors to 
restore freedom and peace to Rome and Italy. What happened to the great Vitelleschi 
could happen to the King of Aragon. 
 

28. The only direct reference is to the “King of Naples and Sicily”: Donation, 26 (§33). The 
two acceptable reasons for making war could be an oblique reference to Alfonso: 71 
(§88). The coming of new nations to Rome could be a roundabout way of justifying the 
newcomer Alfonso: 72–73 (§89). Alfonso seems to restore the lands tyrannized by 
Eugenius: 78–79 (§96). The many references to the oppressive Pope could be interpreted 
as justifying the presence of the liberator Alfonso in Italy. See n. 10 above, particularly 
the analyses of Antonazzi and Fois. My problem with this Valla-wrote-for-Alfonso 
argument is that Valla passes up many opportunities for promoting his patron. The 
Wikipedia article on Valla (modified 9/10/2013) declares categorically that “Valla was 
motivated to reveal the Donation of Constantine as a fraud by his patron of the time, 
Alfonso of Aragon, who was involved in a territorial conflict with the Papal States, then 
under Eugene IV.” Indeed we are told that Alfonso asked Valla to write the Discourse! 
This Wiki article contains many nonsensical simplifications. 
 

29. See the studies of Boba, Gaita, Barber, De Caprio, and Camporeale in n. 7 above. 
 

30. Donation, 26 (§33). 
 

31. Ibid. 
 

32. Donation, 1–4 (§§1–4), 77–78 (§96). 
 

33. See especially Sylvester’s speech to Constantine: Donation, 15–21 (§§21–26). 
 

34. Maria C. Pastore Passaro argues that Valla introduced a sort of “playful theology” in his 
view of nature: “Lorenzo Valla’s Franciscan Vision,” Forum Italicum: A Journal of 
Italian Studies 46 (2012), 164–68. I suspect that at the time readers saw Valla’s De 



25  Renna 
 
 

 

voluptate (1433 and 1445) as blatantly Epicurean: Valla, On Pleasure, trans. A. Kent 
Hieatt and Marstella Lorch (New York: Abaris, 1977). 
 

35. Valla, The Profession of the Religious and Selections from The Falsely-Believed and 
Forged Donation of Constantine, trans. and intro. by Olga Z. Pugliese, 3rd ed. (Toronto: 
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1998), especially chaps. 4 and 10. Text: 
Mariarosa Cortesi, ed., Laurentii Valle De Professione Religiosorum (Pavia: In aedibus 
Antenoreis, 1986), 17–22, 50–55; Garin, ed., Opera Omnia 2, chap. 4. Valla’s praise of 
the “true” religious is hardly an endorsement of Franciscan poverty and ascetic life. He is 
more interested in deriding the Friar’s claim to the title of religious than in defending the 
way of poverty. See Fois, Il pensiero cristiano di Lorenzo Valla, chap. 6; Louis B. 
Pascoe, “Gerson and the Donation of Constantine: Growth and Development within the 
Church,” Viator 5 (1974), 469–85. 
 

36. Sylvester loudly proclaims that he could never be a temporal king or ruler of any kind: 
Donation, 15–21 (§§21–26). The pope claims to be an emperor: 68–69 (§84). Recent 
popes act as if they were emperors: 76–80 (§§94–97). 
 

37. Modern scholars seem not to have noticed the absurdity of Valla’s charge that all the 
wars and destruction in Italy are due solely to Eugenius IV. And indeed these wars of 
papal aggression can all be traced to the Donation: 76–80 (§§94–97). 
 

38. The pope is the Vicar of Christ, not the emperor: 80 (§97). 
 

39. Donation, 69 (§84). 
 

40. It is an indication of the longevity of the Donation of Constantine at the papal curia that a 
painting of the event was commissioned for the Vatican. Perhaps Leo X’s motive was to 
counter Luther or the incursions on the Papal States. The work was begun in 1520 but 
after Raphael’s death one his students (Penni or Romano) painted the face of the new 
pope, Clement VII (1523–34), following Adrian VI, on the head of Sylvester. The fresco 
is in the Stanze di Raffaello in the Apostolic Palace in the Hall of Constantine, and can be 
seen on the Vatican website. Such substitutions were not uncommon. In 1514 Raphael 
replaced the head of Julius II with that of Leo X (1513–21) for the image of Leo I at the 
meeting of the latter and Attila the Hun. 
 

41. See A. J. Black, Monarchy and Community: Political Ideas in the Later Conciliar 
Controversy 1430–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), chap. 3, and 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 26

Council and Commune: The Conciliar Movement and the Fifteenth-Century Heritage 
(London: Burns and Oates, 1979), chaps. 2–7; Stieber, Pope Eugenius IV, Part 1. 
 

42. In a backroom deal, Alfonso and Filippo Maria conspired to partition the Papal States 
between Aragon and Milan! Rome and all lands south of the Apennines were to go to 
Alfonso; the Visconti would occupy Rome, Bologna, and the Romagna. See Ryder, 
Alfonso the Magnanimous, 215. It was no secret that the Aragonese and Milanese 
delegations met frequently at the Council of Basel—adding to Eugenius’ distrust of the 
Council. While Pontedora’s entry into Rome in 1436 might have been welcomed by 
Valla, he surely realized that the proposed partition would lead to unending war over the 
boundaries of the Papal States. The proposal came to nothing when Vitelleschi made a 
pre-emptive foray into the Abruzzi and defeated the Aragonese forces. This and other 
aborted arrangements to divide the Papal States must have convinced Valla that 
Aragonese victories were mixed blessings for Italy and Rome. Only an outsider with a 
fresh perspective like the Emperor Frederick III had any hope of restoring glory or, at 
least, a semblance of order to Italy. 
 

43. The poverty controversy evolved from the mendicant disputes in the universities to the 
“poor use” of the 1280s to the Council of Vienne to the intense exchanges in 1323–28. 
The bibliography is immense. A good introduction is Malcolm D. Lambert, Franciscan 
Poverty: The Doctrine of Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan 
Order, 1210–1323, rev. ed. (St. Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute, 1998), chaps. 6–10. 
The general council was never an issue—until Marsilius. 
 

44. See A. J. Black, Monarchy and Community, chap. 1; Black, Council and Commune, 
chaps. 2–7. 
 

45. Valla often calls Eugenius a tyrant, e. g., Donation, 73 (§89). Recent popes are tyrants, 
such as Boniface IX and Innocent VII: 75 (§94). 
 

46. See Antonazzi, Lorenzo Valla, 39–40, 77–78, 107–8; Setz, Lorenzo Vallas Schrift, 64, 
182 [n. 5 above]; Robert Black, “The Donation of Constantine: A New Source for the 
Concept of the Renaissance?” in Alison Brown, ed., Language and Images of 
Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 51–85, here 71; Paul E. 
Sigmund, “The Influence of Marsilius on Fifteenth-Century Conciliarism,” Political 
Studies 23 (1962), 392–402. 
 

47. See R. W. Dyson, ed. and trans., James of Viterbo: De regimine Christiano (Leiden-
Boston: Brill, 2009), Part 2, chaps. 8 and 10. 
 



27  Renna 
 
 

 

48. Donation, 68 (§83). This theme continues throughout §§84–97. 
 

49. A prominent and influential exponent of this view was Lupold von Bebenburg. See 
Jürgen Miethke, ed., Alexander Sauter, trans., Lupold von Bebenburg: De iuribus regno 
et imperii/Über die Rechte von Kaiser und Reich (Munich: Beck, 2005), chaps. 2, 3, 9, 
18, and 19. It is possible that Valla had a vague idea of the King of the Romans having 
imperial power from his acquaintance with Nicholas of Cusa’s Catholic Concordance, 
Part 3. 
 

50. Donation, 5 (§6), 15 (§21), 67 (§82), 68 (§83), 73 (§89). 
 

51. Valla seems to be aware of the multiple meanings of imperium during the Late Republic 
and Early Empire. See John Richardson, The Language of Empire: Rome and the Idea of 
Empire from the Third Century BC to the Second Century AD (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2008), chaps. 3 and 4. I prefer to translate Valla’s imperium as “empire” 
as does Coleman: Treatise of Lorenzo Valla On the Donation of Constantine, 107. 
Bowersock renders imperator as “Commander,” which is technically accurate in this 
context, but may obscure Valla’s intent: On the Donation of Constantine, 43 (§50); 87 
(§50) in Bowersock’s Latin/English edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
2007). 
 

52. Donation, 11 (§16), 68–69 (§§83–84). 
 

53. In Cusa’s Catholic Concordance, which Valla read, the Empire has a close connection 
with the church in Italy. See Paul E. Sigmund, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political 
Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), chap. 8. Although Valla got 
into trouble for criticizing Bartolus of Sassoferrato, he would have concurred with the 
great jurist’s adherence to the de iure rights of the emperor in Italy. See also Joseph 
Canning, The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 1987), 64–68. 
 

54. See works cited in n. 41 above. For John Torquemada and the Donation see Thomas M. 
Izbicki, Protector of the Faith: Cardinal Johannes de Turrecremata and the Defense of 
the Institutional Church (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1981), 113 
and 117. 
 

55. See n. 50 above. 
 

56. See R. Black, “The Donation of Constantine,” 70–85 (n. 46 above); Antonazzi, Lorenzo 
Valla e la polemica sulla donazione di Costantino, 121–310 (n. 10 above); Fois, Il 



 
 

 

Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 28

pensiero cristiano di Lorenzo Valla, 324–45 (n. 10 above); Vian, Donazione di 
Costantino, chaps. 4 and 5 (n. 2 above). 
 

57. Jeremiah 1: 10, one of Pope Innocent III’s favorite biblical passages. 


