The Catholic Church is among the oldest, most secretive, institutions in the world, but in the sixteenth century a friar, Onofrio Panvinio, undertook ground-breaking investigations into the Church's history from Christ to the Renaissance. This study shows how his writings impacted on church and society, but also how he changed historical writing.

Valla (1407-1457) was the most important theorist of the humanist movement. His most famous work is the present volume, an oration in which Valla uses new philological methods to attack the authenticity of the most important document justifying the papacy's claims to temporal rule.

Where is the Catholic church going in 2007 and beyond? With the ascendancy of a new pope and talk of a papal visit to the U.S. in 2007, the future of the Catholic church is again on the minds of many. In this influential bestseller, John R. Quinn, who served as Archbishop of San Francisco, makes a clear and bold case for reform within the Catholic Church, particularly of the policies and procedures of the Roman Curia.

This fascinating collection of sources, translated for the first time in English and assembled in one accessible volume, show the startling impact of papal reform in the eleventh century and its consequences. An essential collection for students of medieval history.

This five-volume work by Mandell Creighton (1843-1901) was first published between 1882 and 1894. Volume 2 (1882) focuses on the Council of Basle (1431-49) and its struggle with Eugenius IV over the crucial issue of papal authority as against both conciliar rule and the secular powers of Europe.