Intellectual Discourse· 2026Q2
The Philosophical Background of the Criticisms of the Renaissance Humanist Lorenzo Valla: On Church Authority and the Latin Language
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- Q2SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Lorenzo Valla transformed philology into a critical method to challenge Church authority and scholasticism, advocating for rhetoric and historical inquiry over Aristotelian logic.
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Key points
- Lorenzo Valla's critiques of Church authority and scholasticism share a common humanist foundation.
- He championed rhetoric, historical inquiry, and textual analysis over Aristotelian logic and scholastic abstraction.
- Valla's philological work, including his analysis of the Donation of Constantine, served to question inherited claims of Church authority.
- His emphasis on classical Latin standards in 'Elegantiae linguae Latinae' highlighted the connection between language and thought.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
This study examines the philosophical foundations of Lorenzo Valla’s critiques of ecclesiastical authority and Latin learning. While previous studies have often treated his philology, theology, and criticism of scholasticism separately, this article analyses their shared humanist basis. Valla challenged certain forms of scholastic abstraction and Aristotelian logic, favouring rhetoric, historical inquiry, and close textual analysis. In the Elegantiae linguae Latinae, he sought to restore Latin according to classical standards and emphasised the relationship between language and thought. His analysis of the Donation of Constantine showed how philology could question inherited claims of Church authority. Rather than directly anticipating the Reformation, some of his criticisms later resonated with Reformation debates. The study argues that Valla transformed philology into a broader critical method for reassessing linguistic, theological, and institutional traditions.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Intellectual Discourse, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: History
HistoryArts and Humanities