The First Page of Valla’s Treatise, Codex Vaticanus Latinus 5314. THE TREATISE OF LORENZO VALLA ON THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE TEXT AND TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH CHRISTOPHER B. COLEMAN, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN ALLEGHENY COLLEGE NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS M.D.CCCC.XXII COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Donation of Constantine—the most famous forgery in European history; papal authority—since the triumph of Christianity the

Constantinus imperator coronam, et omnem regiam dignitatem in urbe Romana, et in Italia, et in partibus occidentalibus Apostolico concessit. Nam in gestis B. Silvestri (que B. Papa Gelasius in concilio LXX. episcoporum a catholicis legi commemorat, et pro antiquo usu multas hoc imitari dicit ecclesias) ita legitur:]...

Constantinus imperator quarta die sui baptismi privilegium Romanae ecclesiae Pontifici contulit, ut in toto orbe Romano sacerdotes ita hunc caput habeant, sicut iudices regem. [See English page] In eo privilegio ita inter cetera legitur: “Utile iudicavimus una cum omnibus satrapis nostris, et universo senatu optimatibusque meis, etiam et cuncto populo Romanae gloriae imperio subiacenti, ut sicut B. Petrus in terris vicarius Filii Dei esse videtur constitutus, ita et Pontifices, qui ipsius princi

Plures a me libri compluresque emissi sunt in omni fere doctrinarum genere. In quibus quod a nonnullis magnisque et longo iam aevo probatis auctoribus dissentio cum sint, qui indigne ferant meque ut temerarium sacrilegumque criminentur, quid tandem nunc facturi quidam putandi sunt? Quantopere in me debacchaturi, et si facultas detur, quam avide me ad supplicium festinanterque rapturi, qui non tantum adversus mortuos scribo, sed adversus etiam vivos; nec in unum alterumve, sed in plurimos; nec co

The Emperor Constantine yielded his crown, and all his royal prerogatives in the city of Rome, and in Italy, and in western parts to the Apostolic [See]. For in the Acts of the Blessed Sylvester (which the Blessed Pope Gelasius in the Council of the Seventy Bishops recounts as read by the catholic, and in accordance with ancient usage many churches he says follow this example) occurs the following:]...

The Emperor Constantine the fourth day after his baptism conferred this privilege on the Pontiff of the Roman church, that in the whole Roman world priests should regard him as [See Latin page] their head, as judges do the king. In this privilege among other things is this: “We—together with all our satraps, and the whole senate and my nobles, and also all the people subject to the government of glorious Rome—considered it advisable, that as the Blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted vic