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Whilst laughing at Luther's controversy as a petty monkish quarrel, he himself dealt a heavy blow to the traditional pretensions of the Papacy by the republication of a work by the famous Italian Humanist Laurentius Valla, long since dead, on the pretended donation of Constantine, in which the writer exposed the forgery of the edict purporting to grant the possession of Rome, Italy, and indeed the entire Western world to the Roman see.
In the prologue to Dialogus de Morte, Opera, tom. i. p. 673, he gives a full account of this transaction. Of the boy himself he writes: "hospes ostendit mihi filium nomine Guglielmum, ætatis annorum duodecim, probum, scitulum, et parentibus obsequentem. Avus paternus nomine Gregorius adhuc vivebat, et erat Ligur: pater Laurentius, familia nobili Cataneorum." Opera, tom. i. p. 119.
In the revival of letters and liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot.
Laurentius wrote a piece on this subject, which is mentioned by Grotius in a letter to his brother , "Laurentius, says he, objects to me that what I have formerly written contradicts my later works: however, if they be examined by the true rules of criticism, no such contradiction will be found.
He then begins to try the deciphering, taking one letter at a time. "There's a large H at one part, the next is A or O and then U or N, and next to it there's R or D; its either London or perhaps its one of those we came across the other day, Laurentius something."
It was a sketch of a dramatical, metaphysical, entertainment, of which half a dozen proposed titles had been scratched out, and there was finally left 'Tarquin the Optimist, or the Temple of Destiny. It was from an old story begun by Laurentius Valla, and continued by Leibnitz; she read, "Act I. Scene 1. Sextus Tarquin goes to consult the Oracle, who foretells the crime he is to commit.
Hearing it, Basil threw up an arm, his eyes flashing. 'The Patricius! he exclaimed fervently. 'There is the man who might have saved us! 'By the holy Laurentius! murmured Maximus, looking sadly at his nephew, 'I have all but come to think as you do.
Just outside the city gate stands a Greek cross on a small fluted column, which marks the site of the once magnificent Basilica of St. Laurentius, which was demolished in the sixteenth century, its stone built into a new church in town, and its rich marbles carried to all-absorbing Rome. It was the last relic of the old port of Caesarea, famous since the time of Augustus.
'This, he said reverently, 'contains dust of iron from the bars on which the blessed Laurentius suffered martyrdom. 'Swear also, demanded Aurelia, 'by the Holy Pancratius. In the name of both saints Leander took his oath of secrecy. Petronilla was of course aware that the deacon had been admitted to audience by her niece.
Augustine, with their four contemporaries, St. Paulinus, St. Laurentius, and St. On the north are figures of St. Edmund, St. Osbald, and the Venerable Bede; while opposite are St. Wilfred, St. Cuthbert, and St. Benedict. On the west are St. John the Baptist and St. Augustine, and below these, figures of women pouring water from pitchers, symbolical of the river Jordan.
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