Appendix Iv

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

I. WORKS OF VICO

Vico's earliest extant work is the poem entitled Feelings of one in despair, composed certainly before the author's twenty-fifth year at Vatolla in the Cilento, where he lived for nine years as a tutor at the Casa Rocca, printed by Gonzatti at Venice and dated 1693. This was followed by verses and speeches of a merely rhetorical character.

The philosophical characteristics are accentuated in the six speeches read by Vico at Naples University, 1699-1707, not printed by him, and rediscovered and published by Galasso (Naples, Morano, 1869). In these speeches, though some tendencies of his thought show themselves, his philosophy is still the traditional system, not without some traces of Cartesianism. Vico's opposition to Cartesianism and formal adoption of his own views are announced for the first time in the inaugural lecture for the year 1708, entitled De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, published next year by the author himself (Naples, Mosca, 1709). A long digression (§§ 12-15) contains a sketch of the history of Roman jurisprudence, his first essay in the historical studies which led later on to the Diritto universale and the two Scienze Nuove.

The following year appeared Vico's first constructively philosophical and historical work: the De antiquissima Italorum sapientia ex linguae Latinae originibus eruenda, or rather the first book of that work (Naples, Mosca, 1710): the other two were never written, but we can form an idea of their intended contents from what is said in the Autobiography. Beside Vico's theory of knowledge in its first form and the metaphysic which he always maintained in its entirety, the De antiquissima contained an attempt to reconstitute for the first time primitive wisdom, or rather one particular instance of primitive wisdom, that of Italy; but as we have already said in the text of our exposition the attempt was founded on the idea that this wisdom was philosophical, and conducted according to the criterion of the transmission of culture which Vico subsequently rejected, as he rejected the traditional opinion, accepted in this work, of the Athenian origin of the laws of the Twelve Tables. We must accordingly refuse to accept Cantoni's verdict (G. B. Vico, p. 38) that the De antiquissima forms "a strange anomaly in the history of Vico's thought, being contrary to his whole scientific life, his tendencies, his principles, and the method which later he almost universally applies in his historical researches." The reverse is in fact the case: namely that this work is the starting-point of his future developments and that without it we cannot understand his later thought.

The criticisms directed by the Giornale dei letterati d' Italia (1711, vols. v. and viii.) against the historical and some of the philosophical positions of the De antiquissima evoked Vico's two important Replies (Naples, Mosca, 1711 and 1712) in which he defends and elucidates his views on the theory of knowledge and metaphysics. The part of the De antiquissima that never went to the press included his meditations on the philosophy of medicine, from which he extracted an essay De aequilibrio corporis animantis: this he thought of publishing many years later, but it is now lost. Of these studies, therefore, as of his speculations upon physics intended to constitute a Liber physicus, we know only what he tells us in his autobiography.

Setting aside his rhetorical and occasional compositions, the largest of which is the De rebus gestis Antonii Caraphaei (Naples, Mosca, 1716), the continuation of his thought, now concentrating upon moral and historical problems, is sketched in a lecture of 1719 (of which an abstract is included in the autobiography) and developed first in 1720 in a printed prospectus of four double-columned pages known as the Sinopsi del diritto universale, and secondly in the vast treatise, De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno liber unus (Naples, Mosca, 1720) completed next year with the Liber alter qui est de constantia iurisprudentis, and supplemented in 1722 by the Notae in duos libros, etc. (same publisher); a work which is usually referred to briefly following the author's example as the Diritto universale.

This book, according to Cantoni (op. cit. p. 243) represents the culminating point of Vico's scientific activity. The verdict is no more acceptable than that quoted above. The author (Opp. v. 10-11) rejected the Diritto universale because he seemed to find persisting there the prejudice and the pretence of "descending" from the thought of Plato and other philosophers to that of primitive man, a tendency which led him astray "in certain matters"; but he also calls it, and rightly, a "sketch for the Scienza Nuova," which it really is. The ideas about poetry are here still confused, Homer is not yet a myth, the mythological canons have less unity than they acquired later, the theory of reflux is only faintly adumbrated, and in a word both the ideal eternal history and the theory of knowledge upon which it is founded are as yet immature. The book is all contained, under a new form, in his later work, except the general ethical and juridical philosophy, which is not highly original, and some historical developments which are merely alluded to in the later writings.

The MS. of an Italian work in two books, in which Vico expounded his doctrines "by a negative method," has been lost. But he expounds them positively and at less length in the Principi di una Scienza Nuova intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, per la quale si ritrovano i principi di altro sistema del diritto naturale delle genti (Naples, Mosca, 1725) which is known by the title (again authorised by himself) of First Scienza Nuova.

In 1725, the year of the publication of the first Scienza Nuova, Vico related the history of his studies: Vita di G. B. Vico scritta da se medesimo, which was inserted in Calogerà's Raccolta di opuscoli scientifici e filologici (Venice, Zani, 1728, vol. i. pp. 145-256). Among the minor writings of this period may be noted the two speeches on the death of the Countess of Althann (1724) and the Marchesana della Petrella Angiola Cimini (1727); the little volume Vici vindiciae (Naples, Mosca, 1729) containing a personal defence (together with an important theoretical digression on "laughter") against a malevolent notice inserted in the Acta Lipsiensia of 1727, about the Scienza Nuova; and some fine letters to Giacchi, Degli Angioli, Esperti, De Vitry and Solla on the contrast between his works and the state of learning at this time.

To the first Scienza Nuova Vico thought of adding a long series of Annotations in a reprint of it which he was preparing at Venice between 1728 and 1730. But since this scheme was not carried out, and on the other hand he was dissatisfied with the book not so much on account of the matter, he says, as on account of the arrangement (Opp. vi. 11), he resolved to publish an entirely new exposition of his doctrines in the Cinque libri de' principi di una Scienza Nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, in questa seconda impressione con più propia maniera condotti e di molto accresciuti (Naples, Mosca, 1730), which form the second Scienza Nuova. While Cantoni (op. cit. pp. 238-9) considers this work the dotage of Vico's thought, it is really the necessary result and perfect form in which his previous attempts issued; it is the book which with the De antiquissima and the autobiography supplies all the necessary material for a knowledge of his thought. In the Diritto universale and the first Scienza Nuova we can find a few details omitted in the later work; but those treatises display the same doctrines as the second Scienza Nuova in a manner much less profound and solid, and certainly less characteristic of the author. The detailed comparison of these three works has been made with great care in the short summaries added by Ferrari to his editions of the first and second Scienza Nuova.

Even the 1730 edition was increased by the author from 1731 to about 1740 by many variations and additions, though without changing the arrangement or the substance of the work. These additions were taken for the most part incorporated in a final MS. on which was based the edition of the Principi di una Scienza Nuova intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, published the very year of Vico's death (Naples, Stamperia Muziana, 1744). In the National Library at Naples are preserved the autographs both of this MS. and of two earlier MSS. of additions and corrections, unpublished fragments of which have been published by Giordano (Naples, 1818) and Del Giudice (Naples, 1862). All the unpublished fragments and variants have been now collected by Nicolini in the edition hereafter mentioned (p. 307).

After the second Scienza Nuova Vico wrote hardly anything. We may note among these few productions the speech De mente heroica (Naples, 1732), the addition to the autobiography (1731), and a few sonnets in which, composed though they were, like almost all his verses, by request and as occasional pieces, a personal note may at times be felt.

II. REPRINTS, COLLECTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS

Two collections of Vico's minor works have been made, one of the Latinae orationes alone by F. Daniele (Naples, 1766), and the other, rich in unpublished matter, of the Italian and Latin Opuscoli, in four volumes, by C. A. de Rosa, Marchese di Villarosa (Naples, 1818-23). Vico's son Gennaro furnished Villarosa with all his father's extant papers; and these priceless autographs are still preserved at Naples in the house of my intimate friends the engineers Tommaso and Vincenzo de Rosa di Villarosa.

The first and only edition as it may be called, since all others are merely reproductions of it, of Vico's complete works is that of Giuseppe Ferrari, in six volumes (Milan, Classici italiani, 1835-37) reprinted with improvements in 1852-54. The Opere edited by N. M. Corcia (Naples, Tipografia della Sibilla, 1834, 2 vols.) are only a selection; and the Opere edited by F. Predari (Milan, Bravetta, 1835) never went beyond one ill-arranged volume. The edition which followed that of Ferrari (Naples, Iovane, 1840-41) is also incomplete and ill-arranged, but contains some small unpublished works. The Neapolitan edition of the Opere in eight volumes (i.-ii. 1858, iii. 1861, iv. 1859, v.-vi. 1860, vii. 1865, viii. 1869, the earlier volumes at the Tipografia dei Classici Italiani, the others by the publisher Morano) is based mainly upon Ferrari, but somewhat incorrect; it is however the most complete of all, as containing the Sinopsi, the Istituzioni oratorie, and the Orazioni latine published by Galasso subsequently to Ferrari's edition, as well as the Italian translations by the advocate F. S. Pomodoro of the De ratione, De antiquissima, and Diritto universale.

Unpublished or scattered works of Vico not appearing in any of these editions have been collected by Croce, Bibliografia vichiana and Primo and Secondo supplemento: see below.

A critical edition of the second Scienza Nuova is now being printed in the Collezione dei classici della filosofia modernadiretta da B. Croce e G. Gentile (Bari, Laterza): the first volume is to be published at the same time as the present monograph. It is being edited by Dr. Fausto Nicolini, who by using the autograph MSS. has enriched Ferrari's edition, which contained the fragments suppressed in the 1730 issue, by all the fragments of the intermediate redactions down to the 1744 text; Vico's quotations have been checked and references given in notes to the passages of classical and modern authors to which he refers; and, finally, in deference to a wish often expressed by men of letters as authoritative as Tommaseo, the orthography and punctuation have been corrected. Ferrari's valuable summaries are reproduced, with a few emendations, in Nicolini's edition.

Nicolini is also at work on a new edition of the complete works, to form part of Laterza's collection of Scrittori d' Italia, the scheme and detailed index of which may be seen in Croce, Secondo supplemento alla Bibliografia vichiana (pp. 102-13). The fifth volume of this collection, edited by Croce, is also to appear with the present monograph.

Vico's Latin works have frequently been translated into Italian: the De antiquissima anonymously, perhaps by Vincenzo Monti (1816), and later by Sarchi (1870): the first book of the Diritto naturale by Corcia (1839), Amante (1841), Giani (1855), and Sarchi (1866), and both books, with the De ratione and De antiquissima, as we have said, by Pomodoro.

The second Scienza Nuova was translated into French, much abbreviated, by Jules Michelet, under the title of Principes de la philosophie de l'histoire (Paris, Renouard, 1827) and frequently reprinted; and again, in full, by an anonymous translator described as "l'Auteur de l'Essai sur la formation du dogme catholique," in reality Cristina Trivulzi, Princess of Belgioioso (Paris, Renouard, 1844). Michelet also translated some of Vico's minor works, published with the Scienza Nuova in the edition of the Oeuvres choisies de Vico (Paris, Hachette, 1835) and frequently reprinted.

In German there is a translation in full with good notes by W. E. Weber (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844). There is also a summary of the first book of the Diritto universale by K. H. Müller, forming the first volume of a series of Vico's Kleine Schriften which was not continued (Neubrandenburg, Brunslow, 1854).

The only English translation is a version of the book on Homer based on Michelet's French translation and inserted in H. Nelson Coleridge's Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets (3rd ed., London, Murray, 1846).

III. BIOGRAPHY OF VICO

By way of supplement to the autobiography, Villarosa collected information on Vico's last years and published it as a continuation of that work in his edition of the Opuscoli, vol. i. (1818).

This supplement, together with everything else that has been published in the way of documents or contemporary records of Vico, may be found collected in the fifth volume of the new edition of his works above mentioned (p. 307) and entitled: L'Autobiografia, il carteggio e le poesie varie, ed. B. Croce (Bari, Laterza, 1911).

IV. LITERATURE ON VICO

There are only three monographs on Vico which may still be read with profit (that of Ferrari, La Mente del Vico, admirable editor though he was, may best be consigned to merciful oblivion); they are as follows:--

1. Carlo Cantoni, G.B.V., studi critici e comparativi (Turin, Civelli, 1867). Cf. for certain reservations A. Faggi, in Rivista filosofica italiana, vol. ix., 1906, pp. 593-606, and G. Gentile, in Critica, vol. v., 1907, pp. 197-201.

2. Karl Werner, G.B.V. als Philosoph und gelehrter Forscher, (Wien, Braumüller, 1881). Cf. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philos. Kritik, vol. lxxii., 1883, pp. 139-52.

3. Robert Flint, Vico (Edinburgh and London, 1884). (Italian translation by F. Finocchietti, Florence, 1888).

See what has been said of these above, p. 277. Of short and general studies the following are the best:--

1. B. Spaventa, G.B.V., in Prolusione è introduzione alle lezioni di filosofia (Naples, Vitale, 1862), pp. 83-102, reprinted under the title La Filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia europea, ed. G. Gentile (Bari, Laterza, 1908); see pp. 111-35 of this reprint.

2. F. de Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (Naples, Morano, 1870; new ed. Croce, Bari, Laterza, 1912), vol. ii. pp. 342-62.

3. F. Fiorentino, Lettere sopra la "Scienza Nuova" (Florence, 1865), reprinted in Scritti vari (Naples, Morano, 1871), pp. 161-211.

4. E. Cauer, G.B.V. und seine Stellung zur modernen Wissenschaft (in Deutsches Museum, edited by R. Prutz and W. Woelfsohn, Leipzig, Hinrichs, year I, 1851, vol. i. pp. 249-65).

For special points the following may be consulted:--

1. F. A. Wolf, G.B.V. über den Homer (in Museum der Alterthumswissenschaft, Berlin, 1807, vol. ii. pp. 555-70).

2. J. K. von Orelli, Vico und Niebuhr (in Schweizerisches Museum, Aarau, vol. i. p. 184 sqq.).

3. C. Iannelli, Sulla natura e necessità della scienza delle cose e delle storie umane (Naples, Porcelli, 1818, and Milan, Fontana, 1832).

4. Emerico Amari, Critica di una scienza della legislazione comparata (Genoa, Istituto dei Sordomuti, 1857). Cf. on this book K. Werner, E.A. in seinem Verhältnis zu G.B.V. (Wien, 1880; from the Sitzungsberichte der phil.-histor. Klasse of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, vol. xcvi.).

5. F. Acri, Teoria del V. intorno alle idee O paradimmi (in Abbozzo di una teoria delle idee, Palermo, Lao, 1870; and with modifications in the volume Videbimus in aenigmate, Bologna, Mareggiane 1907, pp. 287-313).

6. E. Cenni, an exposition of Vico's metaphysic in the volume entitled Considerazioni sull' Italia ad occasione del traforo del Gottardo (Florence, Cellini, 1884), pp. 109-82.

7. E. Bouvy, De V. Cartesii adversario (Paris, Hachette, 1889).

8. E. Bouvy, La Critique dantesque au dix-huitième siècle: Dante et V. (Paris, Leroux, 1892).

9. G. Sorel, Étude sur V. (in Devenir social, Paris, vol. ii., 1896) and see esp. the same author's Le Système historique de Renan (Paris, Jacques, 1905), passim.

10. B. Labanca, G.B.V. e i suoi critici cattolici (Naples, Pierro, 1898).

11. G. Rossi, V. nei tempi di V. (in Rivista filosofica italiana, vol. ii., 1899, pp. 294-319, and part 2, ibid. vol. x., 1907, pp. 602-34).

12. A. Olivieri, Gli studi omerici di G.B.V. (in Atti della r. Accad. di archeologia, lettere e belle arti, Naples, vol. xxiv., 1905).

13. C. Trabalza, Storia della grammatica italiana (Milan, Hoepli, 1908), ch. xii. pp. 364-76.

14. P. Garofalo, Acrisia vichiana nella "Scienza Nuova," critical annotations (Naples, Detken, 1909): cf. F. Nicolini, in Critica, vol. viii., 1910, pp. 374-8.

15. G. Maugain, Étude sur l'évolution intellectuelle de l'Italie de 1657 à 1750 environ (Paris, Hachette, 1909).

16. On my own previous work upon Vico, it should be observed that the materials of the chapter on Vico's aesthetic doctrine in Croce, Estetica (4th ed., Bari, Laterza, 1912, ch. v. pp. 255-71), have been worked up in a more mature form into ch. iv. of the present monograph: the essay on Vico's Ethics (in Critica, vi., 1908, pp. 71-7) has been absorbed into chaps, vi.-viii.; and similarly that on the Lineamenti di storia letteraria in G.B.V. (ibid. pp. 460-80) into chaps, xvi. and xviii.; my other scattered writings have in general been only of technical, philological, or polemical interest. In the miscellaneous Studi in onore di F. Torraca (Naples, Perrella, 1912) is a short essay by me upon La Dottrina del riso e dell' ironia in G.B.V.

The whole of the literature on Vico, together with extracts from rare books, minor works, and articles, and with unpublished documents together with fully detailed notes on the editions of Vico's writings, is collected in the three works to which I have frequently referred, namely: B. Croce, Bibliografia vichiana contenente nella parte I il catalogo delle edizioni, traduzioni e manoscritti delle opere di G.B.V.; nella parte II, quello dei giudizi e lavori storico-critici intorno al V. sino al-l' anno corrente; nella parte III lettere inedite del V. e al V., documenti e altri scritti inediti o rari, e varie appendici illustrative (Naples, 1904: reprinted from Atti dell' Accademia pontaniana, Naples, vol. xxxiv.; pp. xii. 127, 4to);--Supplemento alla Bibliografia vichiana (Naples, 1907; reprinted from Atti, vol. xxxvii. pp. 34, 4to)--and Secondo Supplemento (Naples, 1911, reprinted from Atti, vol. xl. pp. 116, 4to); the whole collected in one volume under the title: Bibliografia vichiana; raccolta di tre memorie presentate all' Accademia pontaniana di Napoli nel 1903, 1907 e 1910, with an appendix by F. Nicolini (Bari, Laterza, 1911).

G. Gentile, La Prima Fase della filosofia di G.B.V., Naples, 1912 (in the Studi in onore di F. Torraca), quoted supra, p. 287 n.

F. Pessico, Ripensando la Scienza Nuova (in Rassegna nazionale, November 1, 1912).

G. Folchieri, Il Carattere dell' opera di G.B.V. (Perugia, Bartelli, 1913). F. Nicolini, Spigolature vichiane; sul testo delle Vindiciae (in Scritti vari in onore di R. Renier, Turin, 1912).

B. Croce, Il V. e la critica omerica (in the volume Saggio sullo Hegel e altri scritti di storia della filosofia, Bari, Laterza, 1913, pp. 269-282).

Cf. also W. Windelband, Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, 5th ed. Leipzig, 1911, vol. i. pp. 597-8.]

NOTE

PASSAGES OF VICO'S WORKS TO WHICH ESPECIAL REFERENCE IS MADE IN THE COURSE OF THE EXPOSITION