Dante, Constantine the Christian, and the illegitimate Donation of Constantine

One of the legacies of Constantine that emerged during the European Middle Ages was the so-called Donation of Constantine. Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), in his Commedia (probably written between 1307 and 1320) called the Constitutum Constantini, “Quella dote,” that is, “ the dowry” which supposedly gave temporal power and possessions in the western Empire to the pope (Pope Sylvester, 314–335), who had purportedly cured Constantine of leprosy, an event that Dante also recalls in Inferno: “Ma come Costantin chiese Silvestro/ … a guerir de la lebbre” (As Constantine once summoned Pope Sylvester to cure his leprosy). ¹ This chapter will examine Dante’s political and ecclesiastical objections to the “purported” Constantinian Donation in his political treatise, the Monarchia, written in prose and contrast them to his polemic against it in his major poetic achievement, the Commedia. Dante attributes the contemporary corruption of the Church to the Donation of Constantine.