Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/297

 or THE EOMAN EMPIRE 275 puted the truth and validity of the donation of Constantine.''! In the revival of letters and liberty this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot.'^ His contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his sacrilegious bold- ness ; yet such is the silent and irresistible progress of reason that before the end of the next age the fable was rejected by the contempt of historians "'^ and poets,"* and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman church."^ The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the credulity of the vul- gar ; "^' but a false and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign ; and, by the same fortune which has attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the founda- tions have been undermined. While the popes established in Italy their freedom and Restoration '^ ^ "^ of images in -101 r, , X 1- ■ 1. c ^ the East by '1 See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105), which arose from a private the empress lawsuit, in the Chronicon P'arfense [by Gregorius Catinensis] (Script. Rerum i^°|-(, *-^- Italicarum, torn. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c. ), a copious e.xtract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey. They were formerly accessible to curious foreigners (Le Blanc and Mabillon), and would have enriched the first volume of the Historia Monastica Italia of Quirini. But they are now imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. torn. ii. pars ii. p. 269) by the timid policy of the court of Rome ; and the future cardinal yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition (Quirini, Comment, pars ii. p. 123-136). [The Registrum of Farfa is being published (not yet complete) by J. Georgi and U. Balzani. The Orth. defens. imperialis de investitura (a.d. iiii. ) is ed. by Heinemann in M.G. H., Libelli de lite, ii- 535 -f'/'/- (1893)-] '- 1 have read in the collection of Schardius (de Potestate Imperial! Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated discourse, which was composed by the author A.D. 1440, six years after the flight of pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party pam- phlet ; Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the Romans, and would even approve the use of a dagger against their sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of the clergy ; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran (Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla ; Vossius, de Historicis Latinis, p. 580). "^-^ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the last edition, correctly published from the author's Ms. and printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo, 1775 (Istoria d' Italia, torn. i. p. 385-395). ■* The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among the things that were lost upon earth (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv. 80). Di vari P.ori ad un gran monte passa, Ch'ebbe gia buono odore, or puzza forte Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of Leo X. s See Baronius, a.d. 324, No. 117-123, a.d. 1191, No. 51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he considers, strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks. ■^8 Baronius n'en dit gueres contre ; encore en a-t"il trop dit, et Ton vouloit sans moi (Cardinal du Perron), qui I'empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J'en devisai un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose " che volete? i Canonici la tengono," il le disoit en riant (Perroniana, p. 77).