Editing Constantine the Great (section)

=== Donation of Constantine ===
{{Main|Donation of Constantine}}
[[Latin Church|Latin Christians]] considered it inappropriate that Constantine was baptised only on his death bed by an unorthodox bishop, and a [[Acts of Sylvester|legend emerged]] by the early 4th century that [[Pope Sylvester I]] had cured the pagan emperor from leprosy. According to this legend, Constantine was baptised and began the construction of a church in the [[Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran|Lateran Basilica]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Canella |first1=Tessa |title=Gli Actus Silvestri fra Oriente e Occidente: Storia e diffusione di una leggenda Costantiniana |location=Academia |pages=243–244 |url=https://www.academia.edu/31467158 |access-date=10 May 2021}}</ref><ref>Lieu, "Constantine in Legendary Literature" (CC), 298–301.</ref> The ''Donation of Constantine'' appeared in the 8th century, most likely during the pontificate of [[Pope Stephen II]], in which the freshly converted Constantine gives "the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts, and cities of Italy and the Western regions" to Sylvester and his successors.<ref>''Constitutum Constantini'' 17, qtd. in Lieu, "Constantine in Legendary Literature" (CC), 301–303.</ref> In the [[High Middle Ages]],<ref>Gregory, ''A History of Byzantium'', 49.</ref><ref>Van Dam, ''Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge'', 30.</ref> this document was used and accepted as the basis for the pope's [[Temporal power of the Holy See|temporal power]], though it was denounced as a forgery by Emperor [[Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor|Otto III]]<ref>Henry Charles Lea, "The 'Donation of Constantine'". ''The English Historical Review'' 10: 37 (1895), 86–87.</ref> and lamented as the root of papal worldliness by [[Dante Alighieri]].<ref>''Inferno'' 19.115; ''Paradisio'' 20.55; cf. ''De Monarchia'' 3.10.</ref> Philologist and Catholic priest [[Lorenzo Valla]] proved in 1440 that the document was indeed a forgery.<ref>Fubini, 79–86; Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 6.</ref>