Christianity, Latinity, and Culture: Two Studies on Lorenzo Valla

352 Pages·2013·1.822 MB·English

by  Salvatore I. Camporeale

Christianity, Latinity, and Culture
Studies in the History of
Christian Traditions
General Editor
Robert J. Bast
Knoxville, Tennessee
In cooperation with
Paul C.H. Lim, Nashville, Tennessee
Eric Saak, Liverpool
Christine Shepardson, Knoxville, Tennessee
Brian Tierney, Ithaca, New York
Arjo Vanderjagt, Groningen
John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Indiana
Founding Editor
Heiko A. Oberman†
VOLUME 172
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/shct
Christianity, Latinity,
and Culture
Two Studies on Lorenzo Valla
By
Salvatore I. Camporeale, O.P.
Translated by
Patrick Baker
Edited by
Patrick Baker
Christopher S. Celenza
With Lorenzo Valla’s Encomium of Saint Thomas Aquinas
Edited and translated by
Patrick Baker
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2014
Cover illustration: Detail of Filippino Lippi (ca. 1457-1504), Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas over
the Heretics, fresco, 1489-1492 (Cappella Carafa, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome), depicting the
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in front of the Lateran (courtesy of Scala Archives).
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
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ISSN 1573-5664
ISBN 978-90-04-26196-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-26197-6 (e-book)
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The editors dedicate this posthumous volume to the memory of
Salvatore I. Camporeale
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ...................................................................................................xi
Note on the Translation .......................................................................................xiii
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................xv
Introduction: Salvatore Camporeale and Lorenzo Valla .................................1
 Christopher S. Celenza
Lorenzo Valla and the De falso credita donatione: Rhetoric,
 Freedom, and Ecclesiology in the Fifteenth Century...............................17
 Salvatore I. Camporeale
1  Introduction to a Reinterpretation of the De falso
credita donatione ..........................................................................................19
2 Causa veritatis: From the Exordium to the Peroration .......................28
3 The Antinomy of imperium and evangelium ........................................37
4  Section I of the Oration and Parallel Passages in
Valla’s Works ..................................................................................................54
5 The Body of the Oration: From Section III to Section VI ...................57
6  Section IV: From the Constitutum Constantini to the
Legenda Silvestri ...........................................................................................73
6.1 The Constitutum ..................................................................................76
6.2 The Legenda Silvestri ..........................................................................84
7  Section V: From the Pactum Hludovicianum to the
respublica romana; Valla’s Anti-Caesarism in Opposition
to Augustine .................................................................................................101
7.1  The Hludovicianum and the “Transfer of the Empire”
(translatio imperii) ............................................................................102
7.2  From imperium to respublica: The “Second Part” of
Section V ..............................................................................................109
7.3  From Valla to Augustine: The Critique of the
City of God ...........................................................................................112
8  Epilogue: Valla’s Defense of the Oration in his Letters to
Cardinals Trevisan and Landriani ..........................................................134
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viii contents
Lorenzo Valla between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance:
 The Encomium of St. Thomas – 1457 ............................................................145
 Salvatore I. Camporeale
1 At the Origins of Neo-Thomism in the Fifteenth Century ..............145
1.1  The Literary Encomium and the Iconographic
“Triumph” of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican
Tradition.............................................................................................145
1.2  The History of Thomism and the Centrality of the
Summa Theologiae in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries ............................................................................................149
1.3  Valla’s Encomium: Its Place in History and Cultural
Significance .......................................................................................154
1.4  The Cappellone degli Spagnoli in Florence (Second Half
of the Fourteenth Century) and the Cappella Carafa in
Rome (End of the Fifteenth Century) ........................................156
2 Encomium of St. Thomas ...........................................................................164
2.1 Exordium and Divine Invocation ................................................165
2.2  The narratio and the Liturgical Celebration of the
Saint .....................................................................................................166
2.3 P robatio and refutatio, the Central Section of the
Encomium ..........................................................................................170
2.4 Knowledge, the Second Thematic Unit .....................................173
2.5  Valla’s Critique of Scholasticism and the Controversy
between Thomism and Anti-Thomism in the
Fifteenth Century.............................................................................175
2.6  The Stylistic Qualities of Thomas’s Writings
and the Canons of Latin Rhetoric ...............................................178
2.7  The Critique of Scholastic Speculation and the
Humanist Refounding of Theological Study ............................182
2.8  Philosophy as an “Impediment” to Authentic Christian
Thought and the Distinction/Opposition between
Patristic Theology and Scholasticism .........................................184
2.9  The Reduction of Philosophy to Rhetoric and
Valla’s Quintilianism .......................................................................186
2.10  The Linguistic-Semantic Critique of Scholasticism and
the Interrelation between Greek and Latin ..............................192
2.11  Peroration and Closing of the Encomium ..................................196
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contents ix
3 The Aporias of Scholasticism ..................................................................203
3.1 Philosophy/Theology ......................................................................203
3.2 Dialectic/Rhetoric ............................................................................234
4  Rhetoric as a Mode of Theologizing: The Humanist Solution
to the Problem ............................................................................................254
4.1  The proemium to Book IV of the Elegantiae ..............................255
4.2  The Letter to Eustochium and Jerome’s Dream .........................257
4.3  The Mechanical Arts, the Liberal Arts, and the
Christian Religion .............................................................................263
4.4  The Opposition between Philosophical Theology and
Rhetorical Theology, and the Critical Reduction of the
Vulgate to the Greek Truth (veritas graeca)...............................276
4.5  The Preface to Thucydides’ History, Nicholas V’s
Literary Project, and the Question of “Translation” ................281
4.6  The Arts and Sciences as a Middle Ground (medietas)..........287
4.7  Erasmus’s Humanism from the Antibarbari to the
Life of Jerome ......................................................................................291
Lorenzo Valla, Encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas .........................................297
 Patrick Baker (ed. and tr.)
Bibliography ...........................................................................................................317
Index .........................................................................................................................331
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