Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, who knew no such terminology but in their simple language “directed themselves solely toward imitating the apostle Paul, by far the first of all theologians and the master of doing theology” (Encomium, in Opera 2:393–94/349–50). Valla remained true to himself! Lorenzo Valla died, apparently suddenly and unexpectedly, on 1 August 1457. We do not know the precise details of his death or its cause. The epitaph to him his mother placed in the church San Giovanni im Laterano