atre
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote
Che da te prese il primo ricco patre!"

The genuineness of the _Constitutum_ was first critically assailed by
Laurentius Valla in 1440, whose _De falso credita et ementita
Constantini donatione declamatio_ opened a controversy that lasted
until, at the close of the 18th century, the defence was silenced. In
modern times the controversy as to the genuineness of the document has
been succeeded by a debate scarcely less lively as to its date, its
authorship and place of origin. The efforts of Roman Catholic scholars
have been directed (since Baronius ascribed the forgery to the Greeks)
to proving that the fraud was not committed at Rome. Thus Cardinal
Hergenrother holds that it was written by a Frank in the 9th century, in
order to prove that the Greeks had been rightfully expelled from Italy
and that Charlemagne was legitimate emperor. This view, with variations,
was maintained by the writer of an article in the _Civilta cattolica_ in
1864 (_Serie_ v. vol. x. pp. 303, &c.) and supported by Grauert, who
maintains that the document was concocted at the abbey of St Denis,
after 840. The evidence now available, however, confirms those who
ascribe an earlier date to the forgery and place it at Rome. The view
held by Gibbon and Dollinger among others,[3] that the _Constitutum_ is
referred to in the letter of Pope Adrian I. to Charlemagne (778), is
now indeed largely rejected; there is nothing in the letter to make such
an assumption safe, and the same must be said of Friedrich's attempt to
find such reference in the letter addressed in 785 by the same pope to
Constantine VI., emperor of the East, and his mother Irene. Still less
safe is it to ascribe the authorship of the forgery to any particular
pope on the ground of its style; for papal letters were drawn up in the
papal chancery and the style employed there was apt to persist through
several pontificates. Friedrich's theory that the _Constitutum_ is a
composite document, part written in the 7th century, part added by Paul
I. when a deacon under Stephen II., though supported by a wealth of
learning, has been torn to tatters by more than one critic (G. Kruger,
L. Loening).

On one point, however, a fair amount of agreement seems now to have been
reached, a result due to the labour in collating documents of
Scheffer-Boichorst, namely, that the style of the _Constitutum_ is
generally that of the papal chancery in the latter h