Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Valla, Giorgio

Born: 1447, Piacenza

Died: 23 January 1500, Venice

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy

  • 145 Accesses

Abstract

Giorgio Valla was a fifteenth-century humanist who studied and worked in Pavia, Genova, and Venice. He established a remarkable collection of manuscripts that fuelled his study and translation projects. Although he also provided commentaries on Cicero and Juvenal, Valla focused on Greek scientific texts, which he translated into Latin. From around 1470 until his death, Valla was also occupied with writing an encyclopedia in which he collected all his knowledge based on mainly Greek authors. The encyclopedia’s lack of structure and the philological errors have provoked harsh criticism from the Renaissance until modern times, but it was nevertheless read by the greatest early modern scientists during their formation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

Primary Literature

    Independent works and commentaries

    • Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1485. De fato. Topica. Timaeus. With commentary by Giorgio Valla. Venice: Antonius de Strata.

      Google Scholar 

    • Juvenal. 1486. Satirae. With commentary by Giorgio Valla. Venice: Antonius de Strata.

      Google Scholar 

    • Valla, Giorgio. 1493. De orthographia. Venice: Philippus Pincius.

      Google Scholar 

    • Valla, Giorgio. 1501. De expetendis, et fugiendis rebus opus. Venice: Aldo Manuzio.

      Google Scholar 

    • Valla, Giorgio. 2017. “De Expedita Ratione Argumentandi.” Edited by Massimo Tamborini. Rivista Di Storia Della Filosofia 72 (1): 85–166.

      Google Scholar 

    Translations

    • Alexandrus of Afrodisia. 1994. Appendice: la versione latina di Giorgio Valla. In Trattato sulla febbre, ed. Piero Tassinari, 91–116. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.

      Google Scholar 

    • Aristotle, et al. 1488. In hoc volumine continentur Alexandrini Aphrodisei problemata per Georgium Vallam in latinum conversa. Et Aristotelis problemata Theodoro interprete. Et Plutarchi problemata. Venice: per Antonium de Strata Cremonensem.

      Google Scholar 

    • Aristotle. 1496. Hoc in uolumine continentur infrascripta opera Aristotelis videlicet: in principio […] Liber magnorum moralium Georgio Valla placentino interpraete. Impraessum est praesens opus. Venice: per Gregorium de Gregoriis expensis Benedicti Fontanae.

      Google Scholar 

    • Cleonides, et al. 1497. Hoc in volumine haec opera continentur. Cleonidae harmonicum introductorium interprete Georgio Valla Placentino. Vitruvii Pollionis de Architectura libri decimi. Venice: Simone Bevilacqua.

      Google Scholar 

    • Galen. 1481. Ad medicinam introductorium a Giorgio Valla e Graeco in Latinum conversum. Milan.

      Google Scholar 

    • Nicephorus, et al. 1498. Georgio Valla Placentino interprete. Collectio. Nicephori Logica. Vallae De expedita ratione argumentandi. Euclidis Quartus decimus Elementorum…. Venice: Simone Bevilacqua.

      Google Scholar 

    Secondary Literature

    • Anderson, William S. 1965. Valla, Juvenal, and Probus. Traditio 21: 383–424.

      Google Scholar 

    • Bellé, Riccardo, Ken’Ichi Takahashi, Roberta Tucci, Antonio Rollo, and Adolfo Tura. 2014. Archimede e le sue fortune: Atti del Convegno di Siracusa-Messina, 24-26 Giugno 2008. In In Archimede e le sue Fortune: Atti del Convegno di Siracusa-Messina, 24–26 Giugno 2008, ed. Vincenzo Fera, Daniela Gionta, and Antonio Rollo. Messina: Centro internazionale di studi umanistici.

      Google Scholar 

    • Cataldi Palau, Annaclara. 1994. Su alcuni umanisti possessori di manoscritti greci: I. Alcuni manoscritti a giorgio valla. II. Un nuovo manoscritto appartenuto a marco musuro. Studi Umanistici Piceni 14: 141–151.

      Google Scholar 

    • Fubini, Riccardo. 1983. Umanesimo ed enciclopedismo. A proposito di contributi recenti su Giorgio Valla. Il pensiero politico 16 (2): 251–269.

      Google Scholar 

    • Gabotto, Ferdinando. 1891. Giorgio Valla e il suo processo in Venezia nel 1496. Nuovo Archivio Veneto 1 (1): 201–220.

      Google Scholar 

    • Gardenal, Gianna, Vittore Branca, and Cesare Vasoli. 1981. Giorgio Valla tra scienza e sapienza : Studi. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki.

      Google Scholar 

    • Giovio, Paolo. 2006. In Elogi degli uomini illustri, ed. Franco Minonzio and Andrea Guasparri. Torino: G. Einaudi.

      Google Scholar 

    • Goddu, André. 2010. Plutarch, Pseudo-Plutarch (Aëtius) and Giorgio Valla. In Copernicus and the Aristotelian Tradition : Education, reading, and philosophy, 229–236. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

      Chapter  Google Scholar 

    • Heiberg, Johan Ludvig. 1896. Beiträge zur Geschichte Georg Valla’s und seiner Bibliothek. Beihefte zum Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 16. Leipzig: O. Harrossowitz.

      Google Scholar 

    • King, Margaret L. 1986. Venetian humanism in the age of patrician dominance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

      Book  Google Scholar 

    • Mauro, Letterio. 1995. Filosofia e musica all’Università di Padova e dintorni nel secolo XV. Filosofia e Musica 3: 189–226.

      Google Scholar 

    • Ménage, Gilles and Bernard de la Monnoye. 1715. Menagiana, ou, Les bons mots et remarques critiques, historiques, morales & d’érudition de Monsieur Menage recueillies par ses amis. Paris: Florentin Delaulne.

      Google Scholar 

    • Pagani, Fabio. 2008. Il Platone di Petrarca tra Giorgio Valla e Giano Lascaris : spigolature sul ‘Parisinus graecus’ 1807. Quaderni Petrarcheschi 17–18: 1027–1052.

      Google Scholar 

    • Palisca, Claude V. 1985. The earliest musical humanists: Giorgio Valla. In Humanism in Italian renaissance musical thought, 67–87. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.

      Google Scholar 

    • Raschieri, Amedeo A. 2012. Giorgio Valla, Editor and Translator of Ancient Scientific Texts. In Greek science in the long run: Essays on the Greek Scientific Tradition (4th c. BCE–17th c. CE), ed. Paula Olmos, 127–150. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

      Google Scholar 

    • Rose, Paul Lawrence. 1973. Humanist culture and renaissance mathematics : The Italian libraries of the Quattrocento. Studies in the Renaissance 20: 46–105.

      Article  Google Scholar 

    • Rose, Paul Lawrence. 1975. The Italian renaissance of mathematics studies on humanists and mathematicians, from Petrarch to Galileo. Genève: Droz.

      Google Scholar 

    • Rose, Paul Lawrence. 1976. Bartolomeo Zamberti’s Funeral Oration for the Humanist Encyclopaedist Giorgio Valla. In Cultural aspects of the Italian renaissance : Essays in honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. Cecil H. Clough, 299–310. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

      Google Scholar 

    • Rosen, Edward, and Erna Hilfstein. 1995. Nicholas Copernicus and Giorgio Valla. In Copernicus and His Successors, 139–148. London: Hambledon Press.

      Google Scholar 

    • Ruffo, Patricia Landucci. 1977. Le fonti dei libri dell’astronomia nell’ enciclopedia di Giorgio Valla. In Il Rinascimento nelle corti padane : Società e Cultura, 363–378. Bari: De Donato.

      Google Scholar 

    • Scarpati, Claudio. 2000. Per la biblioteca di Leonardo: Libro di Giorgio Valla. Aevum 74 (3): 669–673.

      Google Scholar 

    • Tessier, Andrea. 2003. Un corso veneziano su Sofocle di Giorgio Valla (con un piccolo addendum euripideo). Italia medioevale e umanistica XLIV: 189–198. https://doi.org/10.1400/10972.

      Article  Google Scholar 

    • Tigerstedt, Eugene Napoleon. 1968. Observations on the reception of the Aristotelian ‘Poetics’ in the Latin West. Studies in the Renaissance 15: 7–24.

      Article  Google Scholar 

    • Tucci, Roberta. 2008. Giorgio Valla e i libri matematici del ‘De Expetendis et Fugiendis Rebus’ : Contenuto, Fonti, Fortuna. Pisa: Università degli studi di Pisa.

      Google Scholar 

    • Vasoli, Cesare. 1960. Ricerche sulle ‘dialettiche’ Quattrocentesche : (Giovanni Argiropulo e Giorgio Valla). Rivista critica di storia della filosofia 15: 265–287.

      Google Scholar 

    • Vasoli, Cesare. 1982. Note su Giorgio Valla e il suo ‘sistema’ delle ‘arti del discorso. Interpres. Rivista di studi quattrocenteschi 4: 247–261.

      Google Scholar 

    Download references

    Author information

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, Austria

      Simon Smets

    Authors
    1. Simon Smets
      View author publications

      You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

    Corresponding author

    Correspondence to Simon Smets .

    Editor information

    Editors and Affiliations

    1. Dept. of Philosophy a. Cultural Heritage, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia Dept. of Philosophy a. Cultural Heritage, Venezia, Italy

      Marco Sgarbi

    Section Editor information

    1. Department of Philosophy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy

      Luca Bianchi Ph.D

    Rights and permissions

    Reprints and permissions

    Copyright information

    © 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

    About this entry

    Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

    Cite this entry

    Smets, S. (2019). Valla, Giorgio. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_762-1

    Download citation

    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_762-1

    • Received:

    • Accepted:

    • Published:

    • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

    • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4

    • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02848-4

    • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

    Publish with us

    Policies and ethics

    Search

    Navigation