Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humanism and Truth: Valla Writes against the Donation of ConstantineRiccardo FubiniTranslated by Anastasia Ananson and William ConnellThere has existed for a long time now in studies of Renaissance humanism (and not only as these have developed in a single country or disciplinary area) a tendency to consider from a prevalently formalist point of view what was instead an innovative and complex cultural experience. A particularly privileged position has been reserved for the ars rhetorica, which, considered in its “purely formal instrumentality,” has been treated as though immune from ideological contamination. 1 The fear of becoming entangled in matters of ideological interpretation may, in turn, give rise to new and more seriously flawed readings. Although this is a matter which I shall not now emphasize, it should be clear that when the interpretation of a text is limited to its “purely formal instrumentality,” the vacuum that results can be filled more easily with matter that is new and different. Ideology chased from the doorstep may yet sneak in through the window, sometimes completely stripped of its real historical context. However, what is more important to note here as a premise to my discussion is that, along with the formalism already referred to, one finds in recent studies a tendency to diminish or minimize the significance of writings that were celebrated by the historical traditions of the last century and felt to belong to a shared cultural, religious, or political legacy.Among such writings the De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione of Lorenzo Valla has certainly played an important part, beginning at least with the clamor that was raised on its behalf by Ulrich von Hutten and Martin Luther. Yet it is quite typical that the work’s most recent [End Page 79] editor, who has dedicated much careful research to Valla’s treatise and its reception, should have attempted to disconnect the meaning of Valla’s treatise in its own time from the influence it would later have, concluding that “the influence [of Valla’s work] manifested itself in accents quite different from those that have resulted from [current] interpretation.” 2 In the view of this scholar, at the time of the composition of Valla’s work, Constantine’s alleged “donation” was no longer a matter of contemporary relevance; rather, it furnished the theme for a brilliant exercise in legal rhetoric. He writes: “By then the Donation of Constantine was no longer an urgent theme for political theory. (Die Konstantinische Schenkung war damals kein beherrschendes Thema der politischen Theorie mehr.)” 3My discussion takes its cue from this point. Without dwelling at length on the various contributions of other scholars, I shall begin first by trying, on the basis of documentary evidence, to restore Valla’s treatise to life, to the climate of its day, in order then to gather and present its meaning along interpretative lines I have already laid out elsewhere. 4According to that usually trustworthy Florentine chronicler, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, at the end of 1443 made a diplomatic avance toward Florence. Principal among the issues dividing the two powers had been the protection afforded by the regime of Cosimo de’ Medici to Francesco Sforza, then holed up in his fiefdoms in the March of Ancona. The Duke now proposed that they should unite in common defense against the Pope, insofar as the latter was sovereign lord of the March. Beyond these particular circumstances, the accord was supposed to find its warrant in the partners’ shared interest in affirming the superiority of civil over ecclesiastical jurisdiction. So the Duke, according to Cavalcanti, advanced his proposal with words that allow us to suspect an early but not surprising echo of Valla’s treatise (first circulated in that very year): “It so happens that even if Constantine consigned to Sylvester so many and such rich gifts—which is doubtful, because such a privilege can nowhere be found—he could only have granted them for his [Sylvester’s] lifetime, [because] the Empire takes precedence over any lordship.” No differently from Valla, Duke Filippo Maria thought the sovereign impersonality of the [End Page 80] law was the prerogative only of the Empire (and...