Lorenzo Valla 1407 – 1457
Lorenzo Valla was an Italian Renaissance humanist, philologist, and rhetorician, one of the founders of modern textual criticism. His Discourse on the Forgery of the Donation of Constantine demonstrated by linguistic and historical analysis that the document on which the papacy had based much of its temporal claims was a medieval forgery. His Annotations on the New Testament applied similar critical scrutiny to the Vulgate and directly shaped Erasmus, while his treatise On the Pleasure defended an Epicurean ethics of refined enjoyment. He spent his last years as a papal secretary.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Italian
- Era
- Medieval
- Movements
- Renaissance
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Lorenzo Valla:
“Eloquence is the queen of the world, and philosophy without eloquence is sterile.”
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Attributed to Lorenzo Valla:
“He who falsifies a text falsifies thought itself.”
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Attributed to Lorenzo Valla:
“A few words said with care are worth more than many spoken without thought.”
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Attributed to Lorenzo Valla:
“Pleasure rightly understood is not opposed to virtue but its ally.”
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Attributed to Lorenzo Valla:
“True religion is for the heart, not the schools.”