liosus, qui vereretur ne homines opinarentur eum non gestare coronam ex auro purissimo cum gemmis pretiosis, nisi indicasset? Accipe causam cur sic loquatur; "pro honore beati Petri.” Quasi Christus non sit summus angularis lapis, in quo templum ecclesiae constructum est, sed Petrus; quod iterum postea facit. Quem si tantopere venerari volebat, cur non templum episcopale illi potius quam Ioanni Baptistae Romae dicavit?

Quid? Illa loquendi barbaries nonne testatur non saeculo Constantini, sed posteriori, cantilenam hanc esse confictam ? "Decernimus quod . . . uti debeant, uti debeant,” pro eo quod est decernimus2 ut utantur: sic nunc barbari homines vulgo loquuntur et scribunt, "Iussi quod deberes venire," pro eo quod est, "Iussi ut venires": et "decrevimus" et "concessimus," quasi non tunc fiant illa, sed alio quodam tempore facta sint.

"Ipse vero beatus papa super coronam clericatus, quam gerit ad gloriam beatissimi Petri, ipsa ex auro non est passus uti

corona."

O tuam singularem stultitiam, Constantine! Modo dicebas coronam super caput papae ad honorem facere beati Petri; nunc ais non facere, quia Silvester illam recusat; et cum factum recusantis probes, tamen iubes eum aurea uti corona; et quod hic non debere se agere existimat, id tu ipsius successores dicis agere debere. Transeo quod rasuram coronam vocas, et papam pontificem Romanum, qui nondum peculiariter sic appellari erat coeptus.

"Phrygium vero candidissimo nitore splendidum, resurrectionem

1 Decrevimus hoc ut . . . uti debeant, is the correct quotation from the Constitutum Constantini. Decrevimus quod uti debeant; Hutten.

2 decrevimus; MS., Hutten.

people would think that he did not wear a crown "of purest gold and precious gems," unless he said so?

Find the reason why he speaks thus: "for the honor of the blessed Peter." As though, not Christ, but Peter, were the chief corner-stone on which the temple of the church is built; an inference he later repeats! But if he wanted to honor him so much, why did he not dedicate the episcopal temple at Rome to him, rather than to John the Baptist?

What? Does not that barbarous way of talking show that the rigmarole was composed, not in the age of Constantine, but later; “decernimus quod uti debeant”1 for the correct form "decernimus ut utantur"? Boors commonly speak and write that way now; "Iussi quod deberes venire" for "Iussi ut venires." And "we decreed," and "we granted," as though it were not being done now, but had been done some other time!

"But he himself, the blessed Pope, did not allow that crown of gold to be used over the clerical crown which he wears to the glory of the most blessed Peter."

Alas for your singular stupidity, Constantine! Just now you were saying that you put the crown on the Pope's head for the honor of the blessed Peter; now you say that you do not do it, because Sylvester refuses it. And while you approve his refusal, you nevertheless order him to use the gold crown; and what he thinks he ought not to do, that you say his own successors ought to do!2 I pass over the fact that you call the tonsure a crown, and the Roman pontiff "Pope," although that word had not yet begun to be applied to him as a distinctive title.

"But we placed upon his most holy head, with our own hands,

1 Valla does not, here, quote his own text of the Donation correctly.

2 This singular confusion about the crown in the Donation is explained by Brunner, Festgabe für Rudolf von Gneist, pp. 25 et seq., as giving the Pope the possession, but not the use, of the imperial crown, thus paving the way for his prerogative of conferring the crown upon Louis the Pious in 816. Scheffer-Boichorst takes the whole episode as an attempt of the forger to glorify Sylvester by having the emperor honor him with the imperial crown, and having the Pope display the clerical humility (and pride) of rejecting it.

Dominicam designans, eius sacratissimo vertici manibus nostris imposuimus, et tenentes frenum equi pro reverentia beati Petri dextratoris officium illi exhibuimus, statuentes eodem phrygio omnes eius successores singulariter uti in processionibus ad imperii nostri imitationem."

2

Nonne videtur hic auctor fabulae non per imprudentiam, sed consulto et dedita opera praevaricari et undique ansas ad se reprehendendum praebere? In eodem1 loco ait, phrygio et Dominicam resurrectionem repraesentari, et imperii Caesarei esse imitationem; quae duo inter se maxime discrepant. Deum testor, non invenio quibus verbis, qua verborum atrocitate, confodiam hunc perditissimum nebulonem. Ita omnia verba plena insaniae evomit. Constantinum non tantum officio similem Moysi, qui summum sacerdotem iussu Dei ornavit, sed secreta mysteria3 facit exponentem, quod difficillimum est iis qui diu in sacris litteris sunt versati. Cur non fecisti etiam Constantinum pontificem maximum, ut multi Imperatores fuerunt, ut commodius ipsius ornamenta in alterum summum pontificem transferrentur? Sed nescisti historias. Ago itaque Deo etiam hoc nomine gratias, quod3 istam nefandissimam mentem non nisi in stultissimum hominem cadere permisit: quod etiam posteriora declarant. Namque Aaron sedenti in equo MoysenR inducit dextratoris exhibuisse officium, et hoc non per medium Israel, sed per Chananeos atque Aegyptios, id est per infidelem civitatem, ubi non tam imperium erat orbis terrarum quam daemonum, et daemones colentium populorum.

"Unde ut pontificalis apex non vilescat, sed ut magis quam imperii terreni dignitas, gloria et potentia decoretur, ecce tam palatium nostrum, quamque Romanam urbem et omnes Italiae sive occidentalium regionum provincias, loca, civitates beatissimo pontifici et universali papae Silvestro tradimus atque relin

8

6 Moysem; MS.

7 Omit ut; Hutten, Zeumer's text of the Constitutum Constantini. 8 provintias; MS.

a glittering tiara of the most dazzling white, representing the Lord's resurrection. And holding the bridle of his horse, out of reverence for the blessed Peter, we performed for him the duty of squire; decreeing that all his successors, and they alone, use this same tiara in processions in imitation of our power."

Does not this fable-fabricator seem to blunder, not through imprudence, but deliberately and of set purpose, and so as to offer handles for catching him? In the same passage he says both that the Lord's resurrection is represented by the tiara, and that it is an imitation of Caesar's power; two things which differ most widely from each other. God is my witness, I find no words, no words merciless enough with which to stab this most abandoned scoundrel; so full of insanity are all the words he vomits forth. He makes Constantine not only similar in office to Moses, who at the command of God honored the chief priest, but also an expounder of secret mysteries, a most difficult thing even for those long versed in the sacred books. Why did you not make Constantine supreme pontiff while you were about it, as many emperors have been, that he might more conveniently transfer his attire to the other high priest? But you did not know history. And I give thanks to God on this very score, that he did not permit this utterly vicious scheme to be suggested save to an exceedingly stupid man. Subsequent considerations also show this. For he suggests the fact that Moses performed for Aaron, seated on a horse, the duty of squire [dextratoris], and that in the midst not of Israel, but of the Canaanites and the Egyptians, that is, of an heathen state, where there was not so much a secular government as one of demons and demon-worshipping peoples.

"Wherefore, in order that the supreme pontificate may not deteriorate, but may rather be adorned with glory and power even more than is the dignity of an earthly rule; behold, we give over and relinquish to the most blessed pontiff and universal Pope, Sylvester, as well our palace as also the city of Rome and all the provinces, places and cities of Italy or1 of the western

1 Valla's text of the Donation here has "sive" for "seu," cf. supra, p. 91, note 1.

quimus, et ab eo et a successoribus eius per pragmaticum constitutum decrevimus disponendas atque iuri sanctae Romanae ecclesiae permanendas."

3

De hoc in oratione Romanorum atque Silvestri multa disseruimus. Huius loci est ut dicamus neminem fuisse facturum ut nationes uno cunctas verbo donationis involveret, et qui minutissima quaeque superius est exsecutus, lorum, calceos,1 linteamina equorum,2 non referret nominatim provincias, quarum singulae non* singulos reges nunc aut principes regibus pares habent. Sed ignoravit videlicet hic falsator quae provinciae sub Constantino erant, quae non erant. Nam certe cunctae sub eo non erant.5 Alexandro exstincto videmus singulas regiones in ducum partitione numeratas; a Xenophonte terras principesque nominatos, qui vel ultro vel armis sub imperio Cyri fuerunt; ab Homero Graecorum barbarorumque regum nomen, genus, patriam, mores, vires, pulchritudinem, numerum navium et prope numerum militum, catalogo comprehensum, cuius exemplum cum multi Graeci, tum vero nostri Latini, Ennius, Virgilius, Lucanus, Statius, aliique nonnulli imitati sunt; a Iosue et Moyse in divisione terrae promissionis viculos quoque universos fuisse descriptos; et tu gravaris etiam provincias recensere? Occidentales tantum provincias nominas. Qui sunt fines occidentis; ubi incipiunt, ubi desinunt? Num ita certi constitutique sunt termini occidentis et orientis, meridieique et septentrionis, ut sunt Asiae, Africae, Europae? Necessaria verba subtrahis, ingeris supervacua. Dicis, "provincias, loca, civi

8

6