Augustini Steuchi Eugubini bibliothecarii contra Laurentium Vallam, De falsa Donatione Constantini. Libro duo. Eiusdem De restituenda navigatione Tiberis [Bound with

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4to. pp. [16], 234, [2]; pp. 19, [1]. Signatures: a-b 4 a-z 4 A-E 4 F 6 ; a⁴ b⁶. Contemporary limp vellum. Printer's device on title page, initial. Early inscription on both titles, ‘Loci S. Crucis montis novi’, i.e. Heiligenkreutz Abbey in Neuberg, Austria. The main work is the quasi-official refutation by the Counter-Reformation polemicist and prefect of the Vatican Library Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) of Lorenzo Valla’s De falso credita et ementita Constantini donation. Valla’s celebrated work is a rebuttal of the Donation of Constantine, a forged imperial decree in which Constantine the Great granted authority over the Western Roman Empire to the Pope (see Bib# 3494433/Fr# 131 in this collection). It is the first edition, translated into English in the same year. Contra Vallam was almost instantly translated into English during the inaugural year of the staunchly Protestant reign of Edward VI and had a surprising influence on the great English metaphysical poet, preacher, and one-time Catholic John Donne, who repeatedly cited and echoed the work. See R. Delph, “Valla Grammaticus, Agostino Steuco, and the Donation of Constantine,” in Journal of the History of Ideas, 57 (1996), 1, pp. 55-77; H. Adlington, “More Books from the Library of John Donne,” in The Book Collector, 60 (Spring 2012), 1, pp. 55–64; E. Havens, “Babelic Confusion. Literary Forgery and the Bibliotheca Fictiva,” in W. Stephens & E. Havens (eds.), Literary forgery in early modern Europe, 1450-1800, Baltimore, 2018 , pp. 44-45, 68-69 n. 16; W. Stephens, “Exposing the Archforger: Annius of Viterbo’s First Master Critic,” in id. , p. 178, 188 n. 29-30. The other work urges Pope Paul III to widen and deepen the course of the Tiber, and to refurbish the old Roman aqueduct known as the ‘aqua virgo’. See also H. M. Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge Libraries. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1967, S 1839. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.