THE TREATISE OF LORENZO VALLA ON THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE [Illustration: _The First Page of Valla’s Treatise, Codex Vaticanus Latinus 5314._] THE TREATISE OF LORENZO VALLA ON THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE TEXT AND TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH [Illustration] CHRISTOPHER B. COLEMAN, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN ALLEGHENY COLLEGE [Illustration] NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS M.D.CCCC.XXII COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS INTRODUCTORY The 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,[1] and a brief statement will suffice here.