Christianity, Latinity, and Culture -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Note on the Translation -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Salvatore Camporeale and Lorenzo Valla -- Lorenzo Valla and the De falso credita donatione: Rhetoric, Freedom, and Ecclesiology in the Fifteenth Century -- 1. Introduction to a Reinterpretation of the De falso credita donatione -- 2. Causa veritatis: From the Exordium to the Peroration -- 3. The Antinomy of imperium and evangelium -- 4. Section I of the Oration and Parallel Passages in Valla's Works -- 5. The Body of the Oration: From Section III to Section VI -- 6. Section IV: From the Constitutum Constantini to the Legenda Silvestri -- 6.1 The Constitutum -- 6.2 The Legenda Silvestri -- 7. Section V: From the Pactum Hludovicianum to the respublica romana -- Valla's Anti-Caesarism in Opposition to Augustine -- 7.1 The Hludovicianum and the "Transfer of the Empire"(translatio imperii) -- 7.2 From imperium to respublica: The "Second Part" of Section V -- 7.3 From Valla to Augustine: The Critique of theCity of God -- 8. Epilogue: Valla's Defense of the Oration in his Letters to Cardinals Trevisan and Landriani -- Lorenzo Valla between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Encomium of St. Thomas - 1457 -- 1. At the Origins of Neo-Thomism in the Fifteenth Century -- 1.1 The Literary Encomium and the Iconographic "Triumph" of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican Tradition -- 1.2 The History of Thomism and the Centrality of the Summa Theologiae in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries -- 1.3 Valla's Encomium: Its Place in History and Cultural Significance -- 1.4 The Cappellone degli Spagnoli in Florence (Second Half of the Fourteenth Century) and the Cappella Carafa in Rome (End of the Fifteenth Century) -- 2. Encomium of St. Thomas -- 2.1 Exordium and Divine Invocation.

2.2 The narratio and the Liturgical Celebration of the Saint -- 2.3 Probatio and refutatio, the Central Section of the Encomium -- 2.4 Knowledge, the Second Thematic Unit -- 2.5 Valla's Critique of Scholasticism and the Controversy between Thomism and Anti-Thomism in the Fifteenth Century -- 2.6 The Stylistic Qualities of Thomas's Writings and the Canons of Latin Rhetoric -- 2.7 The Critique of Scholastic Speculation and the Humanist Refounding of Theological Study -- 2.8 Philosophy as an "Impediment" to Authentic Christian Thought and the Distinction/Opposition between Patristic Theology and Scholasticism -- 2.9 The Reduction of Philosophy to Rhetoric and Valla's Quintilianism -- 2.10 The Linguistic-Semantic Critique of Scholasticism and the Interrelation between Greek and Latin -- 2.11 Peroration and Closing of the Encomium -- 3. The Aporias of Scholasticism -- 3.1 Philosophy/Theology -- 3.2 Dialectic/Rhetoric -- 4. Rhetoric as a Mode of Theologizing: The Humanist Solution to the Problem -- 4.1 The proemium to Book IV of the Elegantiae -- 4.2 The Letter to Eustochium and Jerome's Dream -- 4.3 The Mechanical Arts, the Liberal Arts, and the Christian Religion -- 4.4 The Opposition between Philosophical Theology and Rhetorical Theology, and the Critical Reduction of the Vulgate to the Greek Truth (veritas graeca) -- 4.5 The Preface to Thucydides' History, Nicholas V's Literary Project, and the Question of "Translation" -- 4.6 The Arts and Sciences as a Middle Ground (medietas) -- 4.7 Erasmus's Humanism from the Antibarbari to the Life of Jerome -- Lorenzo Valla Encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas -- Bibliography -- Index.