§ 65. GREEK TEACHERS AND ITALIAN HUMANISTS. 595
astute letter calling upon the Genevans to abandon the Reformation, to which Calvin replied, ^
Not without purpose have the two names, Laurentius Valla, 1406-1457, and Pico della Mirandola, 1463-1494, been reserved for the last. These men are to be regarded as having, among the Humanists of the 15th century, the most points of contact with our modern thought, — the one the representative of critical scholarship, the other of broad human sympathies coupled with a warm piety.
LaurentiusJValla^the only Humanist of distinction born in Rome, taught at Pavia, was secretary to the king of Naples, and at last served at the court of Nicolas V.^ He held several benefices and was buried in the Lateran, but was a sceptic and^ an indirect advocate of Epicurean morality. He combined classical with theological erudition and attained an influence almost equal to that enjoyed by Erasmus several generations later. He was a born critic, and is one of the earliest pioneers of the right of private judgment. He broke loose from the bondage of scholastic tradition and an infallible Church authority, so that in this respect Bellarmin called him a forerunner of Luther. Luther, with an imperfect knowledge of Valla's works, esteemed him highly, declaring that in many centuries neither Italy nor the universal Church could produce another like him.^ He narrowly escaped the Inquisisition. He denied to the monks the monopoly of being " the religious," and attacked their threefold vow. In his Annotations to the New Testamerit, published by Erasmus, 1505, lie ventured to correct Jerome's Vulgate. He doubted the genu-
1 Sadoleti opp., Moguntise, 1607 ; Verona, 1737, 4 vols. In his Concilium de emendanda Ecdesia, lo38, Sadoleto admitted many abuses and proposed a reformation of tlie Cliurch, which he vainly hoped from the pope.
2 Valla's Works, Basel, 1540, J. Vahlen ; L. Valla, Vienna, 1864, 2d ed., 1870 ; Voigt, I. 464 sqq. See Benrath in Herzog, XX. 422 sqq.
^ Cut nee Italia nee universa ecdesia multis seculis similem habuit non modo in onini disciplinarum genere sed ex constantia et zelofide Christianorum nonficto. See his Bespons. ad Lovan. et Colon theol. of March, 1520, Weimar ed., VI. 183. In this reply to the Louvain and Cologne theologians who had condemned his writings, Luther also speaks oi the injustice of condemning Pico della Mirandola and Reuchlin.
696 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
ineness of the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite and rejected as a forgery Christ's letter to King Abgarus which Eusebius had accepted as genuine. When he attacked the Apostolic origin of the Apostles' Creed and, about 1440, Exposed the Donation of Constantine as a fiction, he was calling in question the firm belief of centuries. In pronouncing the latter " contradictor}^ impossible, shipid, barbarous and ridiculous," ^ he was wrenching a weapon, long used, out of the hand of the hierarchy. His attack was based on the ground of authentic history, inherent improbability and the mediaival character of the language. Not satisfied with refuting its genuineness. Valla made it an occasion of an assault upon the whole temporal power of the papacy. He thus struck at the very bulwarks of the mediaeval theocracy. In boldness and_yiolence Valla equalled the anti-papal writings of Luther. He went, indeed, not so far as to deny the spiritual power and divine institution of the papacy, but he charged the bishop of Rome with having turned Peter into Judas and having accepted the devil's offer of the kingdoms of this world. He made him responsible for the political divisions and miseries of Italy, for rebellions and civil wars, herein anticipating Machiavelli. He maintained that the princes had a right to deprive the pope of his temporal possessions, which he had long before forfeited by their abuse. The purity of Valla's motives are exposed to suspicion. At the time he wrote the tract he was in the service of Alfonso, who was engaged in a controversy with Eugenius IV.
Unfortunately, Valla's etliical principles and conduct were no recommendation to his theology. His controversy with Poggio abounds in scandalous personalities. In the course of it, Valla was charged with seduction and pederasty. ^ His
^ De. falso credita et emcntita Constantini donatione. A well-written MS. copy in the Vatican is dated 1451. The tract is printed in Valla's Opera, 761-795, and in Brown's Fasciculus rerum, Rome, 1690, pp. 132-157, French text, by A. Bonneau, Paris, 1879. Luther received a copy through a friend, Feb., 1520, and was strengthened by it in his opposition to popery, which he attacked unmercifully in the summer of that year in Ids Address to the German Xohility, and his liahyl. Cnptii'ity of the Chnreh.
2 The first issues were Invectivce in Vallam and Antidoti in Poggium. The