Cover not available
Article published In:
Latin Grammars in Transition, 1200 - 1600
Edited by Anneli Luhtala and Mark E. Amsler
[Historiographia Linguistica 44:2/3] 2017
► pp. 391–411
Articles / Aufätze

Radical reform, inevitable debts

Lorenzo Valla, Alexander de Villa-Dei, and recent grammarians

| Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies

In a letter to his friend Joan Serra, Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) shows his contempt for medieval grammars, describing Alexander de Villa-Dei, Evrard de Béthune, Giovanni Balbi, and others as faex hominum. Many traces of Valla’s polemics against medieval authors are woven into his linguistic works, in primis in his Elegantie lingue latine.

The Elegantie represent a monumental attempt to restore Latin to its original splendour after the so-called barbarities of the Middle Ages. Starting from its structure, this work adopts a completely different form compared with the systematic grammatical syntheses of the previous period. It functions as a series of thematic chapters united in the goal of denouncing earlier grammatical, lexical, syntactic, and interpretive usage and decisions. The chapters are built entirely on an expertly assembled collection of quotations. For Valla, only through consulting the best authors can a scholar reach the latine loqui. In practical terms, however, is Valla truly able to reach this goal and break from the medieval tradition?

Beginning with this question, this paper focuses on Valla’s linguistic works, showing both their innovative and traditional facets. The most significant changes Valla proposes in his linguistic analysis – often presented by the author as a strong attack on medieval grammarians – are illustrated. Also, the paper clarifies the humanist’s inevitable debt to the tradition he scorns, particularly evident when considering his use of grammatical terminology.

Article outline
  • 1.Lorenzo Valla and the grammatical tradition
    • 1.1The Latin Grammarians in the Elegantie
    • 1.2The recentes grammarians
  • 2.Valla’s innovations
    • 2.1The method
    • 2.2The structure
  • 3.The other side of the coin: debts to the medieval tradition
    • 3.1The grammatical terminology
    • 3.2Medieval and humanist Latin within the Elegantie
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00009.mar
References

A.Primary literature

Doctrinale
=See Villa-Dei 1893.Google Scholar
Nonius (Nonius Marcellus)
1903 De compendiosa doctrina libros XX. Ed. by Wallace A. Lindsay. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.Google Scholar
Valla
, Ars=See Valla 1990.Google Scholar
Valla, Laurentius
1962 “Elegantiae”. Opera omnia, vol. I1. Ed. by Eugenio Garin. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo.Google Scholar
1970 Collatio Novi Testamenti. Ed. by Alessandro Perosa. Florence: Sansoni.Google Scholar
1981 Antidotum in Facium. Ed. by Mariangela Regoliosi. Padua: Antenore.Google Scholar
1984 Epistole. Ed. by Ottavio Besomi, Mariangela Regoliosi. Padua: Antenore.Google Scholar
1990 L’arte della grammatica. Ed. by Paola Casciano. Rome-Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla-Mondadori.Google Scholar
1999 De linguae latinae elegantia. Ed. by Santiago López Moreda. Caceres: Universidad de Extremadura.Google Scholar
2007 Raudensiane note. Ed. by Gian Matteo Corrias. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
2009 Emendationes quorundam locorum ex Alexandro ad Alfonsum primum Aragonum regem. Ed. by Clementina Marsico. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
Valla, Lorenzo
2013 Correspondence. Ed. by Brendan Cook. Cambridge, Mass.; London: The I Tatti Renaissance Library-Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Villa-Dei, Alexander
1893 Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Ed. by Dietrich Reichling. Berlin: Hofman & Company.Google Scholar

B.Secondary literature

Amsler, Mark
1993 “History of Linguistics, ‘Standard Latin’, and Pedagogy”. Historiographia Linguistica 201.49–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Black, Robert
2001 Humanism and Education in Medieval and Reinassance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Camporeale, Salvatore I.
1972 Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e teologia. Florence: Istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento.Google Scholar
Cerruti, Maria Grazia
1992 “Gravis”. Studi Noniani 141.7–49.Google Scholar
De Nonno, Mario
1990 “Le citazioni dei grammatici”. Lo spazio letterario di Roma antica, vol. III1: La ricezione del testo. Ed. by Guglielmo Cavallo et al., 597–646. Rome: Salerno.Google Scholar
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources
2013 Ed. by R. K. Ashdowne et al.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gavinelli, Simona
1988 “Le Elegantie di Lorenzo Valla: fonti grammaticali e stratificazione compositiva”. Italia medioevale e umanistica 311.205–247.Google Scholar
Harto Trujillo, María Luisa
2009 “Las fuentas gramaticales de las Elegantie ”. Lorenzo Valla. La riforma della lingua e della logica. Atti del convegno del Comitato Nazionale VI centenario della nascita di Lorenzo Valla, Prato, 4–7 giugno 2008. Ed. by M. Regoliosi, 31–49. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
Law, Vivienne
1987 “Late Latin Grammar in the Early Middle Ages: A Typological History”. The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period. Ed. by Daniel J. Taylor, 191–206. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 The History of Linguistics in Europe. From Plato to 1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lo Monaco, Francesco
2009 “ Vulgus imperitum grammatice professorum. Lorenzo Valla, le Elegantie e i grammatici recentes ”. Lorenzo Valla. La riforma della lingua e della logica. Atti del convegno del Comitato Nazionale VI centenario della nascita di Lorenzo Valla, Prato, 4–7 giugno 2008. Ed. by Mariangela Regoliosi, 51–66. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
Marsh, David
1979 “Grammar, method and polemic in Lorenzo Valla’s ‘Elegantiae’”. Rinascimento 191.91–116.Google Scholar
Marsico, Clementina
2009 “Sulle Emendationes del Valla al Doctrinale: indagine linguistica e proposte metodologiche”. Lorenzo Valla. La riforma della lingua e della logica. Atti del convegno del Comitato Nazionale VI centenario della nascita di Lorenzo Valla, Prato, 4–7 giugno 2008. Ed. by Mariangela Regoliosi, 323–346. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
2013 Per l’edizione delle Elegantie. Studio sul V libro. Florence: Firenze University Press.Google Scholar
2014 “Tra autobiografia e letteratura. Il proemio al V libro delle Elegantie lingue latine ”. Nel cantiere degli umanisti. Per Mariangela Regoliosi, vol. II1. Ed. by Lucia Bertolini, Donatella Coppini, & Clementina Marsico, 875–895. Florence, Polistampa.Google Scholar
2018. “‘Talking about everything is a nearly infinite task’. Encyclopaedism and Specialisation in Lorenzo Valla’s Elegantie lingue latine ”. Renaissance Encyclopaedism: Studies in Curiosity and Ambition Ed. by Scott W. Blanchard, Andrea Severi 59 106 Toronto University of Toronto Press
Percival, Keith W.
1986 “Renaissance linguistics: the old and the new”. Studies in the History of Western Linguistics in Honour of R. H. Robins. Ed. by Theodora Bynon and Frank R. Palmer, 56–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ramminger, Johann
Neulateinische Wortliste. Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700. Online resource: [URL].
Regoliosi, Mariangela
2000 “Le Elegantie del Valla come ‘grammatica’ antinormativa”. Studi di grammatica italiana 191.315–336.Google Scholar
2007 “ Nihil crescit sola imitatione. Il rapporto di Lorenzo Valla con la tradizione”. Munus quaesitum meritis. Homenaje a Carmen Codoñer. Ed. by Gregorio Hinojo Andrés & José Carlos Fernández Corte, 765–773. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.Google Scholar
2008 “Per l’edizione delle Elegantie: proposte metodologiche”. Pubblicare il Valla. Ed. by Mariangela Regoliosi, 297–304. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
2010 “Cupidus docendi iuniores. Il programma culturale di Lorenzo Valla ”. Gli Antichi e i Moderni. Studi in onore di Roberto Cardini, vol. III1. Ed. by Lucia Bertolini & Donatella Coppini, 1129–1167. Florence: Polistampa.Google Scholar
Rizzo, Silvia
1997 “Il Valla e il progetto di un nuovo Doctrinale ”. Filologia umanistica. Per Gianvito Resta, vol. III1. Ed. by Vincenzo Fera, Giacomo Ferraù, 1583–1612. Padua: Antenore.Google Scholar
2002 Ricerche sul latino umanistico. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.Google Scholar
Tavoni, Mirko
1986 “Lorenzo Valla e il volgare”. Lorenzo Valla e l’Umanesimo italiano. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Umanistici (Parma, 18–19 ottobre 1984). Ed. by Ottavio Besomi & Mariangela Regoliosi, 199–216. Padua: Antenore.Google Scholar
1990 “La linguistica rinascimentale”. Storia della linguistica, vol. II1. Ed. by Giulio C. Lepschy, 169–312. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Tesoro della lingua Italiana delle Origini
Online resource: [URL]