The treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine

by Lorenzo Valla

[9] The subject of cc. xi and xii is; Imperatores debent Pontificibus subesse, non preesse. [Ed.]

[10] De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione is the title Valla gave his work; cf. letter to Guarini from Naples in November, 1443; Epistolae principum (Venice, 1574), p. 356; also Barozzi e Sabbadini, Studii sul Panormita e sul Valla (Florence, 1891), p. 93. In L. Valla Opera (Basle, 1543), p. 762, the title runs, Contra Donationis, quae Constantini dicitur, privilegia, ut falso creditum declamatio.

No title appears with the text of Codex Vaticanus Lat. 5314. The title in Ulrich von Hutten’s edition inserts patricii Romani after Vallensis. The treatise is also frequently entitled libellus or oratio instead of declamatio.

[11] principum; Cod. Vat. Urb. 337 (containing a few fragments of this treatise). Hutten.

[12] execratione; Cod. Vat. Lat. 5314, so throughout.

[13] Cod. Vat. Urb. 337. relinquit; Cod. Vat. Lat. 5314. reliquerit; Hutten.

[14] sacerdotem; Cod. Vat. Urb. 337, Hutten.

[15] caeteri; Cod. Vat. Lat. 5314 (hereafter referred to as MS.), so throughout.

[16] obverberari (instead of os verberari); Hutten.

[17] quippiam; Hutten.