But the suspicions of historians are naturally awakened when they learn that both copies of this priceless document have disappeared: that the only description of its terms is this passage of the _Liber Pontificalis_, which was presumably written in the Papal chancellery: and that the art of forging documents was extensively cultivated in the eighth century. The famous "Donation of Constantine," a document which makes the first Christian Emperor, when he leaves Rome, entrust the whole Western Empire to Pope Silvester, is a flagrant forgery of the time; indeed, most historians now conclude that it was fabricated at Rome during the Pontificate of Hadrian. Certainly the Pope seems to refer to it when, in 777, he writes to Charlemagne: "Just as in the time of the Blessed Silvester, Bishop of Rome, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church was elevated and exalted by the most pious Emperor Constantine the Great, of holy memory, and _he deigned to bestow on it power in these western regions_."[120] The equally mendacious _Acta S. Silvestri_ was certainly known to Hadrian, and we do not trace it earlier; and it is probable enough that one or both of these documents were shown to Charlemagne. Some historians believe that the "Fantuzzian Fragment" (a similarly false account of the Donation of Pippin) belongs to the same inventive period, and this is not unlikely. It cannot be questioned that Charlemagne renewed and enlarged his father's donation, since Hadrian's letters to him repeatedly affirm this. Immediately after his return to France, Hadrian reminds him that he has confirmed Pippin's gift of the exarchate,[121] and, a little later, he recalls that, when he was in Rome, he granted the duchy of Spoleto to the Blessed Peter.[122] Spoleto did not, in point of fact, pass under Papal rule, but we must conclude from the Pope's words that Charlemagne in some way approved the action of Hadrian in annexing the duchy, and in this sense enlarged the donation made by his father. Beyond this single instance of Spoleto, however, the letters of Hadrian do not confirm the writer of his life in the _Liber Pontificalis_ in his description of the extent of Charlemagne's gift,[123] and their silence supports the critical view. While he complains of outrages in Istria and Venetia, while he occupies himself in a long series of letters with the affairs of Beneventum, he makes no claim that these provinces were given to him by Charlemagne. The whole story of the Papacy during the life of Charlemagne is inconsistent with any but the more modest estimate of the donation: that it was a vague sanction of the Spoletan proceeding, in addition to confirming the Donation of Pippin.