Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/582

 566 INTELLECT AND FAITH. stimulate the burning of miserable witches, but not to condemn the errors of the philosophers who adorned their courts. If Rome was to remain the mistress of the world under the New Learning, she could not afford to be relentless in repressing the aspirations and speculations of scholars and philosophers.* The battle had been fought and lost over Lorenzo Valla. It is true that his de- structive criticism of the Donation of Constantine was written at Naples about l-±40, when Alfonso I. was in conflict with Eugenius IV. Yet, as he not only swept away the foundations of the tem- poral power, but argued that the papacy should be deprived of it, the impunity which he enjoyed is a remarkable proof of the free- dom of speech permitted at the period. His troubles arose from a different cause, and even these he would probably have escaped but for the quarrelsome humor of the man, and his unsparing ridi- cule of the horrible jargon of the schools and even of the earlier Humanists. He made enemies enough to conspire for his ruin at the court of Naples, where Alfonso had studied Latin under his teaching, and he soon gave occasion for their attack. Becoming involved in a contest with an ignorant priest who asserted that the Symbol was the production of the Apostles, the discussion spread to the authenticity of the communications between Christ and King Abgar of Edessa. Valla posted a list of the proposi- tions assailed, and hired a hall in which to defend them against all comers, when his enemies procured from the king a prohibition of disputation. Valla then posted on the hall-door a triumphant distich : " Rex pads miserans sternendas Marte phalanges, Victoris cupidum continuit gladium." Then the Inquisition interposed, but Alfonso exercised the royal Neapolitan prerogative of putting a stop to the prosecution, Valla the Church in the fifteenth century, see Creighton's History of the Popes, II. 333 sqq. It was one of the complaints of Savonarola that learning and culture had supplanted religion in the minds of those to whom the destinies of Christianity were confided until they had become infidels — " Vattene a Roma e per tutto il Cristianesimo ; nelle case de' gran prelati e de' gran maestri non s 1 attende se non a poesie e ad arte oratoria. . . . Essi lianno introdotto fra noi le feste del diavolo ; essi non credono a Dio, e si fanno befFe dei misteri della nostra religione " (Vil- lari, Storia di Savonarola, Ed. 1887, 1. 197, 199).
 * For a luminous presentation of the influence of Humanism on the policy of