VALLA, LORENZO or LAURENTIUS (c. Italian humanist, was born at Rome about 1406, his father, Luca delle Vallea, being an advocate. He was educated at Rome, be came a priest in 1431, and wandered from one university to an other lecturing. About 1435 he became private secretary to Alphonso V. of Aragon, who ever afterwards protected him, and later helped him to open a school at Naples. Valla by now had achieved a great reputation by the De V oluptate and the De Elegantiis Linguae Latinae. The first is a remarkable dialogue presenting in turn the Stoic, Epicurean and Christian ethical sys tems. Christianity is allowed to prevail, but Epicurus is very favourably treated. The De Elegantiis is a scientific analysis of the rules of Latin grammar and style. In 1439 appeared his famous exposure of the Donation of Constantine (q.v.), followed by other attacks on spurious documents. He was compelled to appear before an inquisitory tribunal composed of his enemies, and he escaped only by the special intervention of Alphonso. He was not, however, silenced ; he ridiculed the Latin of the Vulgate and accused St. Augustine of heresy. In 1444 he visited Rome, but in this city also his enemies were numerous and powerful, and he saved his life only by flying in disguise to Barcelona, whence he returned to Naples. After the death of Eugenius IV. in 1447 he went again to Rome, where he was welcomed by the new pope, Nicholas V., who made him an apostolic secretary, and this entrance of Valla into the Roman Curia has been justly called "the triumph of humanism over orthodoxy and tradition."
Valla also enjoyed the favour of Pope Calixtus III. His most famous dispute was with Poggio (q.v.). He died in Rome on Aug. 1, Over Valla's private life, the most obscene language was em ployed. He appears as a vain, jealous and quarrelsome man, but an elegant humanist, an acute critic and a venomous writer, who had committed himself to a violent polemic against the temporal power of Rome. In him posterity honours the man who initiated a bold criticism, which he applied to language, to historical docu ments and to ethical opinions. Luther had a high opinion of him, and Cardinal Bellarmine calls him praecursor Lutheri, while Sir Richard Jebb says that his De Elegantiis "marked the highest level that had yet been reached in the critical study of Latin." Collected, but not quite complete, editions of Valla's works were published at Basle in 154o and at Venice in 1592 seq., and De Elegantiis was reprinted nearly 6o times between 1471 and 1536. For detailed accounts of Valla's life and work see G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (188o-81) ; J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy (1897-99) ; G. Mancini, Vita di Lorenzo Valla (Florence, 1891) ; M. von Wolff, Lorenzo Valla (Leipzig, 1893) ; J. Burckhardt, Kultur der Renaissance (186o) ; J. Vahlen, Laurentius Valla (1870) ; L. Pastor, Geschichte der Pdpste, Band ii. Eng. trans. by F. I. Antrobus (1892) ; the article in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklo pddie, Band xx. (Leipzig, 1908) ; and J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. ii. (1908), pp. 66-7o.