The Philosophical Background of the Criticisms of the Renaissance Humanist Lorenzo Valla: On Church Authority and the Latin Language

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.