Italian humanist and philosopher Lorenzo Valla: biography, creativity

Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) was an Italian humanist, rhetorician, reformer, teacher and an expert in ancient philology. He advocated the humanistic ideas of reforming the language and education. Extensive knowledge in the field of Latin and Greek linguistics allowed him to conduct a thorough analysis of certain documents of the church and contribute to the destruction of myths and errors surrounding them. Valla demonstrated that the "Constantine's gift", often quoted in support of the temporary papacy, was in fact a forgery.

Confrontation

Considering that Aristotle distorted the logic and prevented the normal development and practical application of philosophy, Valla often summoned the scholastics following Aristotle's teachings to debate and debate. His main goal was the creation of new directions of philosophical thought, and not the establishment of his own school or system. His treatise "On Pleasure" (1431) included Epicurean and Christian hedonistic ideas that the desire for happiness is a motivating factor of human behavior. Valla also defended the belief that free will can be combined with the destiny predicted by God, but stressed: this concept is beyond the limits of human intelligence and therefore is a matter of faith, and not of scientific knowledge. Many ideas of the philosopher were subsequently borrowed and developed by other thinkers of the Reformation.

Open criticism has led to the appearance of many enemies; Several times the philosopher Lorenzo Valla was in mortal danger. His teachings in Latin gradually attracted attention and won him a position in the Vatican - this event was nicknamed "the triumph of humanism over orthodoxy and traditions."

Life and art

Lorenzo was born around 1407 in Rome, Italy. His father, Luca della Valla, was a lawyer from Piacenza. Lorenzo studied in Rome, studying Latin under the guidance of an outstanding teacher - Professor Leonardo Bruni (Aretino). He also attended classes at the University of Padua. In 1428, the future philosopher tried to get a job as a papal diplomat, but his candidacy was rejected because of his young age. In 1429 he was offered to teach rhetoric in Padua, and he agreed. In 1431, the treatise On Pleasure was published. A little later, the work was printed, thanks to which the works of Lorenzo Valla are studied in universities, "On the true and false good". In 1433 he was forced to abandon the professorial degree: Valla published an open letter in which he openly defied lawyer Bartolo and mocked the scholastic system of jurisprudence.

Uneasy times

Valla left for Milan, then for Genoa; Tried to get a job in Rome again and finally went to Naples, where he found a good vacant seat at the court of Alfonso V, who patronized the outstanding masters of the pen and was known for his love of excess. Alfonso appointed him his personal secretary and defended Lorenzo from the attacks of his numerous enemies. For example, in 1444 Valla was the defendant before the Inquisition court, since he publicly expressed the view that the text of the "Apostolic Creed" was not written consistently by each of the twelve apostles. In the end, Alfonso managed to stop the litigation and get his secretary out of captivity.

In 1439, a conflict broke out between Alfonso and the papacy - the problem was the territorial belonging of Naples. Lorenzo Valla wrote an essay, arguing that the papal government supporting the "Constantine's Gift" was in fact a false text. In his work, Valla called on the Romans to revolt, and their leaders - to attack the pope in order to deprive that authority, since it was the all-powerful papacy, in his opinion, which was the source of all evils which Italy was suffering at that time. The essay published in 1440 was so convincing that the entire public soon recognized the false origin of the "Constantine's Gift."

The birth of historical criticism

In Naples, Valla, whose life and work was still closely associated with philological research, aroused the anger of believers by doubting the authenticity of many other religious texts of unknown origin, and also called into question the need for a monastic lifestyle. In 1444, he narrowly escaped the Inquisition Tribunal, but the danger did not silence the philosopher. He continued to ridicule the "vulgar" (conversational) Latin language and accused St. Augustine of heresy. Soon he published a work "On the beauties of the Latin language." This text was the first true scientific work, fully focused on Latin linguistics, and came out with the support of the former teacher Lorenzo. Most literary figures considered the work a provocation and showered the philologist with insults. Valla designed his witty answers to the wildest remarks in the new literary work, but numerous invectives led to a deterioration of his reputation in Rome.

A new beginning

After the death of Pope Eugene IV in February 1447, Lorenzo again went to the capital, where he was greeted by Pope Nicholas V, who accepted a humanist to work as an apostolic secretary and ordered him to translate into Latin the works of various Greek authors, including Herodotus and Thucydides. Acceptance of Valla in Rome contemporaries called "the triumph of humanism over orthodoxy and tradition."

Ideas and compositions

Lorenzo Valla, whose biography is more like an adventure novel, went down in history not so much as a scientist and philologist, but as an initiator of the development of such a literary method as criticism. He combined the features of a delicate humanist, a perceptive critic and a poisonous writer. Valla's writings are focused primarily on the creation of innovative ideas and previously unknown trends of philosophical thought - he did not support any specific philosophical systems. He used extensive knowledge in the field of Latin and Greek linguistics to carefully study the texts of the New Testament and other religious documents widely used by the church to support their doctrines. Thus, Valla introduced a radically new dimension into the humanistic movement - the scientific one. Many of his ideas were adopted by the philosophers of the Reformation period, in particular Martin Luther King highly valued Valla's philological achievements.

Works

The most famous work of the humanist, no doubt, remains the scientific study "On the beauties of the Latin language," which stood nearly sixty reprints between 1471 and 1536. The Treatise on Pleasures, published in 1431, is an eloquent study of Stoic, Epicurean and hedonistic ethics. "The reasoning about the spurious Konstantinov gift" (1440) formed the basis of the general belief in the falsity of the famous religious text. Most of the works of the philologist were published in the form of collected works in 1592 in Venice.

Ethics

The treatise On Free Will is written in three books in the form of a polylogue between Leonardo Bruni (Arentino), Antonio Beccadelli and Niccolo Niccoli on the theme of the greatest good. Arentino argues that in the first place it is necessary to live in harmony with nature. Beccadelli supports Epicureanism, arguing that restraint is contrary to nature and that the desire for pleasure should be restrained only when it prevents the realization of even greater pleasure. Nikcoli confronts both speakers, proclaiming the ideals of Christian hedonism, according to which the greatest good is eternal happiness, which exists only in dynamics (in other words, the path to happiness is happiness). Nikcoli is called the winner in the dispute, but Beccadelli gives very eloquent arguments in favor of his point of view - and therefore it is not clear which of the disputants is supported by Lorenzo Valla himself. This treatise contains an aggressive criticism of scholasticism and monastic asceticism and therefore caused in its time an extremely hostile attitude toward the author.

Latin stylistics

Toward the end of the fourteenth century, humanists began to study classical ancient texts, trying to revive the spirit of Greco-Roman times. Lorenzo Valla, whose humanism was reflected in his critical works, invested a lot of energy in the unprecedented work "On the beauties of the Latin language", where he analyzed the forms of Latin grammar along with stylistic rules and laws of rhetoric. In this work, Valla contrasted the elegant syllable of Roman writers (such as Cicero and Quintilian) with the awkwardness of medieval and ecclesiastical Latin.

Most of Valla's contemporaries, famous literary figures, took this work as personal criticism, although the philologist never mentioned specific names in his books. Because of this, Lorenzo Valla made a lot of enemies, but the essay "On the beauties ..." initiated a whole movement to improve the style of the Latin language. Undoubtedly, his work is invaluable; In the distant fifteenth century, they were much ahead of time and formed the basis for the development of radically new philosophical currents and literary methods.