Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) was an Italian humanist, rhetoric, reformer, teacher and specialist in ancient philology. He advocated humanist ideas for reforming language and education. Extensive knowledge in the field of Latin and Greek linguistics allowed him to conduct a thorough analysis of some documents of the church and to contribute to the destruction of the myths and errors surrounding them. Valla demonstrated that the “Constantine Gift”, often cited in support of the interim papacy, was in fact a fake.
Confrontation
Considering that Aristotle perverted logic and impeded the normal development and practical application of philosophy, Valla often called the scholastics following Aristotle’s teachings to debate and debate. His main goal was to create new directions of philosophical thought, and not to establish his own school or system. His treatise On Pleasure (1431) contained epicurean and Christian hedonistic ideas that the desire for happiness is a motivating factor in human behavior. Valla also upheld the belief that free will can be combined with the fate predicted by God, but he emphasized that this concept is beyond the limits of human intellect and therefore is a matter of faith, not scientific knowledge. Many ideas of the philosopher were subsequently borrowed and developed by other thinkers of the Reformation.
Open criticism led to the appearance of many enemies; several times the philosopher Lorenzo Valla was in mortal danger. His teachings in Latin gradually attracted attention and won him a position in the Vatican - this event was called the "triumph of humanism over orthodoxy and traditions."
Life and art
Lorenzo was born around 1407 in Rome, Italy. His father, Luca della Valla, was a lawyer from Piacenza. Lorenzo studied in Rome, studying the Latin language under the guidance of an outstanding teacher - Professor Leonardo Bruni (Aretino). He also attended classes at the University of Padova. In 1428, the future philosopher tried to get a job as a papal diplomat, but his candidacy was rejected due to his young age. In 1429, he was offered to teach rhetoric in Padua, and he agreed. In 1431 the treatise "On Pleasures" was released. A little later, a work was published, thanks to which Lorenzo Valla's work, “On the True and False Good, ” is still being studied at universities. In 1433 he was forced to abandon his professorship: Valla published an open letter in which he openly blasphemed lawyer Bartolo and mocked the scholastic system of jurisprudence.
Difficult times
Valla went to Milan, then to Genoa; tried to get a job in Rome again, and finally went to Naples, where he found a good vacant seat in the court of Alfonso V, who patronized the outstanding masters of the pen and known for his love of excesses. Alfonso appointed him as his personal secretary and defended Lorenzo from the attacks of his many enemies. For example, in 1444, Valla turned out to be a defendant before the Inquisition court, as he publicly expressed the opinion that the text of the “Apostolic Creed” was not written sequentially by each of the twelve apostles. Ultimately, Alfonso managed to end the lawsuit and rescue his secretary from captivity.
In 1439, a conflict broke out between Alfonso and the papacy - the problem was the territorial affiliation of Naples. Lorenzo Valla wrote an essay, arguing that the papal reign supporting the "Constantine Gift" was in fact a fake text. In his essay, Valla urged the Romans to revolt, and their leaders to attack the pope in order to deprive him of power, since it was the almighty papacy, in his opinion, that was the source of all the evils that Italy suffered at that time. The essay published in 1440 was so convincing that the whole public soon recognized the fake origin of Konstantinova Dara.
The birth of historical criticism
In Naples, Valla, whose life and work was still closely connected with philological research, aroused the anger of believers by doubting the authenticity of many other religious texts of unknown origin, and also called into question the need for a monastic way of life. In 1444, he barely escaped the Inquisition Tribunal, but the danger did not silence the philosopher. He continued to make fun of the “vulgar” (spoken) Latin language and accused St. Augustine of heresy. Soon he published the work "On the beauties of the Latin language." This text was the first real scientific work fully focused on Latin linguistics, and was published with the support of a former teacher Lorenzo. Most literary figures considered the work a provocation and showered the philologist with insults. Valla formalized his witty responses to the wildest remarks in a new literary work, however, numerous invectives led to a deterioration in his reputation in Rome.
A new beginning
After the death of Pope Eugene IV in February 1447, Lorenzo again went to the capital, where he was warmly welcomed by Pope Nicholas V, who accepted the humanist as an apostolic secretary and ordered him to translate into Latin the works of various Greek authors, including Herodotus and Thucydides. The adoption of Walla in Rome by contemporaries called "the triumph of humanism over orthodoxy and tradition."
Ideas and writings
Lorenzo Valla, whose biography is more like an adventure novel, went down in history not only as a scientist and philologist, but as an initiator of the development of such a literary method as criticism. He combined the features of a delicate humanist, an astute critic and a poisonous writer. Valla’s works are focused primarily on the creation of innovative ideas and hitherto unknown currents of philosophical thought - he did not support any specific philosophical systems. He applied extensive knowledge of Latin and Greek linguistics to carefully study the texts of the New Testament and other religious documents that were widely used by the church to support its doctrines. Thus, Valla introduced into the humanist movement a radically new dimension - the scientific. Many of his ideas were adopted by the philosophers of the Reformation period, in particular Martin Luther King highly appreciated the philological achievements of Walla.
Work
The most famous work of the humanist, without a doubt, remains the scientific study "On the Beauties of the Latin Language", which has survived almost sixty reprints between 1471 and 1536. The treatise On Pleasures, published in 1431, is an eloquent study of the Stoic, Epicurean and hedonistic ethics. The Reasoning on the Forgery of the Konstantinov Gift (1440) formed the basis of the general belief in the forgery of a famous religious text. Most of the philologist's works were published in the form of collected works in 1592 in Venice.
Ethics
The treatise "On Free Will" is written in three books in the form of a polylogue between Leonardo Bruni (Arentino), Antonio Beccadelli and Niccolo Niccoli on the topic of the greatest good. Arentino argues that first of all it is necessary to live in harmony with nature. Beccadelli supports epicureanism, arguing that restraint is contrary to nature and that the desire for pleasure should be restrained only when it impedes the realization of even greater pleasure. Niccoli confronts both speakers, proclaiming the ideals of Christian hedonism, according to which the greatest blessing is eternal happiness, which exists only in dynamics (in other words, the path to happiness is happiness). Niccoli is called the winner of the dispute, but Beccadelli gives very eloquent arguments in favor of his point of view - and therefore it is not clear which of the debaters supports Lorenzo Valla himself. This treatise contains aggressive criticism of scholasticism and monastic asceticism, and therefore aroused at the time an extremely hostile attitude towards the author.
