The treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of ConstantineValla, Lorenzo
History
The treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine
Valla, Lorenzo
Church and state -- Holy Roman Empire; Constitutum Constantini; Popes -- Temporal power -- Early works to 1800
O you scoundrel! Were there in Rome churches, that is, temples, dedicated
to Peter and Paul? Who had constructed them? Who would have dared to
build them, when, as history tells us, the Christians had never had
anything but secret and secluded meeting-places? And if there had been
any temples at Rome dedicated to these apostles, they would not have
called for such great lights as these to be set up in them; they were
little chapels, not sanctuaries; little shrines, not temples; oratories
in private houses, not public places of worship. So there was no need to
care for the temple lights, before the temples themselves were provided.
And what is this that you say? You make Constantine call Peter and Paul
blessed, but Sylvester, still living, “most blessed”; and call his own
mandate, pagan as he had been but a little while before, “sacred”! Is so
much to be donated “for the providing of the lights” that the whole world
would be impoverished? And what are these “landed estates,” particularly
“landed estates of possessions”? The phrase “possessions of landed
estates” is good usage; “landed estates of possessions” is not. You give
landed estates, and you do not explain which landed estates. You have
enriched “with different objects,” and you do not show when nor with
what objects. You want the corners of the earth to be administered by
Sylvester, and you do not explain how they are to be administered. You
say these were granted earlier? Then why do you say that you have now
begun to honor the Roman church, and to grant it a “privilege”? Do you
make the grant now; do you enrich it now? Then why do you say “we have
granted” and “we have enriched”? What are you talking about; what is in
your mind, you beast? (I am speaking to the man who made up the story,
not to that most excellent ruler, Constantine.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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