Humanist Textual Criticism and Lorenzo Valla’s Annotationes

The Annotationes Novi Testamenti, written by the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (1407–57), is a philological commentary on the Latin translation of the New Testament. It represents a new way of studying the text of the Bible, rooted in Renaissance Humanism. It is innovative in its use of Greek sources, its focus on correct Latin, and its approach to the authority of Scripture and its translations. This chapter will explore how Valla’s work can be seen as a milestone in the history of the Reformation and the history of biblical criticism as a scholarly discipline, particularly because of its influence on Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536). At the same time, exploring the context in which Valla worked allows us to qualify the subversive nature of his scholarship, since it demonstrates that his approach to the Bible was shared by other scholars and supported at the highest level of the church.