Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Donation of Constantine


Donation of Constantine  
 
1-The Donation of Constantine  is a forged Roman imperial decree by which the emperor Constantine I supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope.
2-During the Middle Ages, the document was often cited in support of the Roman Church's claims to spiritual and earthly authority. 
3-Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla is credited with first exposing the forgery with solid philological arguments, although doubts on the document's authenticity had already been cast by this time.

4-Scholars have since dated the forgery between the eighth and ninth centuries.

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