Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo (or Laurentius) Valla (Italian pronunciation: [loˈrɛnt͡so ˈvalːa]; c.1407 – 1 August 1457) was an Italian humanist, rhetorician, educator and Catholic priest. He is best known for his textual analysis that proved that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery.

Valla was born in Rome. His family was from Piacenza; his father, Luciave della Valla, was a lawyer who worked at the papal court.

In 1431, he entered the priesthood, and after trying in vain to secure a position as apostolic secretary, he went to Piacenza, whence he proceeded to Pavia, where he obtained a professorship of eloquence. His tenure at Pavia was made unpleasant by his attack on the Latin style of the great jurist Bartolus de Saxoferrato. Valla wandered from one university to another, accepting short engagements and lecturing in many cities.

By this time Valla had won a high reputation for two works: his dialogue De Voluptate, and his treatise De Elegantiis Latinae Linguae. In De Voluptate (On Pleasure), he contrasted the principles of the Stoics with the tenets of Epicurus, openly proclaiming his sympathy with those who claimed the right of free indulgence for man's natural appetites. It was a remarkable utterance. Here for the first time in the Renaissance the ideas of Epicurus found deliberate and positive expression in a work of scholarly and philosophical value.

De Elegantiis was no less original, although in a different sphere of thought. This work subjected the forms of Latin grammar and the rules of Latin style and rhetoric to a critical examination, and placed the practice of composition upon a foundation of analysis and inductive reasoning. It was a basis for the movement of the Humanists to reform Latin prose style to a more classical and Ciceronian direction on a scientific basis. Valla's work was controversial when it appeared, but its arguments carried the day. As a result, humanistic Latin sought to purge itself of post-Classical words and features, and became stylistically very different from the Christian Latin of the European Middle Ages. This was thought to be a major improvement in style and elegance in Latin usage.

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