A Prophet of Divine Wisdom?—Giambattista Vico and the Construction of the Pythagorean Myth
In: Philological EncountersAbstract
In the nineteenth century, the reception of Giambattista Vico’s writings came along with nationalist interpretations of his Scienza Nuova as an ‘Italian Science’. This tendency was based upon an increased examination of the role that the philosopher Pythagoras and his Italian school of Croton played in Vico’s hierarchical conception of the ancient Greek and Italian civilizations. Writers, archaeologists and historians used the New Science as a metonymic reference work for their own nationalist concepts by updating the Pythagorean myth in accordance with relevant narratives of exclusive genealogies concerning an ancient Italian wisdom. These narratives follow tendencies in Vico’s own writings that were quoted strategically and mixed with further interpretations of the Scienza Nuova as reliable testimonial for a glorious Italian history. A theological poet characterized by deeper insight into the secrets of nature and some parts of the divine providence, Pythagoras gains his special position in Vico’s general conception of knowledge.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Auroux, Sylvain. L’hégémonie du comparatisme. Histoire des idées linguistiques. Vol. 3, 3 vols. Edited by Sylvain Auroux. Sprimont: Mardaga, 2000.
-
Barczewski, Stephanie. Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
-
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies [1957]: The Complete Edition. In a New Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012.
-
Bedani, Gino. Vico Revisited: Orthodoxy, Naturalism and Science in the Scienza Nuova. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1989.
-
Berlin, Isaiah. Three Critics of Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder. Edited by Henry Hardy. New York: Random House, 2012.
-
Bianchi Giovini, Aurelio. Sulle origini italiche di Angelo Mazzoldi. Osservazioni di A. Bianchi Giovini. Milan: Pirotta, 1841.
-
Bianchi Giovini, Aurelio. Ultime osservazioni di A. Bianchi Giovini sopra le opinioni del Signor Angelo Mazzoldi intorno alle Origini Italiche. Milan: Pirotta, 1842.
-
Bonafede, Giulio. “Presenza di Vico in Gioberti.” Nuovi quaderni del meridione VI (1968): 206–237.
-
Brancato, Francesco. Vico nel Risorgimento. Palermo: Flaccovio, 1969.
-
Carrannante, Antonio. “Angelo Mazzoldi.” In Dizionario degli Italiani. Vol. 72. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2008. Accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/angelo-mazzoldi_(Dizionario_Biografico)/.
-
Casini, Paolo. L’antica sapienza italica. Cronistoria di un mito. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998.
-
Cassirer, Ernst. The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms [1923–1929]. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Vol. 4, 4 vols. Edited by John Michael Krois and Donald Phillip Verene. Translated by John Michael Krois. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
-
Ceserani, Giovanna. Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Grecia and the Making of Modern Archeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
-
Croce, Benedetto. The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico. Translated by R. G. Collingwood. London: Howard Latimer, 1913.
-
Cuoco, Vincenzo. Platone in Italia. Traduzione dal Greco. 3 vols. Milan: Agnello Nobile, 1804–1806.
-
De Donno, Fabrizio. “Routes to Modernity: Orientalism and Mediterraneanism in Italian Culture, 1810–1910.” California Italian Studies 1/1 (2010): 1–23. Accessed September 19, 2015, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/920809th.
-
Feyerabend, Paul. Problems of Empiricism: Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2, 2 vols. Cambridge [UK]: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
-
Figueira, Dorothy M. Aryans, Jews and Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.
-
Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge [1969]. Translated by Alan M. Sheridan Smith. Oxford [UK]: Routledge Classics, 2002.
-
Gambarota, Paola. Irresistible Signs: The Genius of Language and Italian National Identity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.
-
Gibson, Sophie. “The Influence of Aristotle in Aristoxenus’ Harmonic Science.” In Aristoxenus of Tarantum and The Birth of Musicology, 23–38. New York: Routledge, 2005.
-
Gioberti, Vincenzo. Del primato civile e morale degli Italiani per Vincenzo Gioberti. Prima edizione di Losanna fatta sulla seconda Belgia. Lausanne: Bonamici, 1845–1846.
-
Guarnacci, Mario. Origini Italiche, O Siano Memorie Istorio-Etrusche Sopra L’Antichissimo Regno D’Italia E Sopra I di Lei Primi Abitatori. 3 vols. Lucca: Venturini, 1767.
-
Hahn, Hans. Empiricism, Logic, and Mathematics: Philosophical Papers. Edited by Brian McGuiness. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980.
-
Horkheimer, Max, Adorno, Theodor W. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments [1944]. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
-
Lanzi, Luigi. Saggio di lingua etrusca e di altre antiche d’Italia per servire alla storia de’ popoli, delle lingue, e delle belle arti, tomo I, contiene i preliminari, e il trattato degli alfabeti e lingue degl’Itali antichi. Rome: Pagliarini, 1789.
-
Lenz, Markus Alexander. Genie und Blut: Rassedenken in der italienischen Philologie des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Paderborn: Fink, 2014.
-
Lilla, Mark. G. B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern. Cambridge [MASS]: Harvard University Press, 1993.
-
Marazzini, Claudio. Storia e coscienza della lingua in Italia dall’umanesimo al romanticismo. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1989.
-
Mazzoldi, Angelo. Delle origini italiche e della diffusione dell’incivilimento italiano all’Egitto, alla Fenicia, alla Grecia e a tutte le nazioni asiatiche poste sul Mediterraneo di Angelo Mazzoldi. Milan: Guglielmini e Redaelli, 1840.
-
Naddeo, Barbara Ann. Vico and Naples: The Urban Origins of Modern Social Theory. Ithaca and London [NY]: Cornell University Press, 2011.
-
Olender, Maurice. The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion and Philology in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge [MASS]: Harvard University Press, 2002.
-
Piovani, Pietro. “Vico without Hegel.” In Giambattista Vico: An international Symposium. Edited by Giorgio Tagliacozzo and Hayden V. White, 103–123. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969.
-
Pons, Alain. “‘Histoire idéale éternelle’ et ‘histoire universelle’ chez Vico.” Noesis 8 (2015). Accessed September 24, 2015, http://noesis.revues.org/123.
-
Riedweg, Christoph. Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence. Translated by Steven Rendall. Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 2005.
-
Romagnosi, Gian Domenico. “Esposizione istorico-critica del Kantismo.” In Collezione degli scritti sulla dottrina della Ragione del professore G. D. Romagnosi. Parte seconda, 177–217. Prato: Guasti, 1835.
-
Romagnosi, Gian. “Suprema Economia dell’Umano Sapere Romagnosi.” In Collezione degli scritti sulla dottrina della Ragione del professore G. D. Romagnosi. Parte seconda, 103–176. Prato: Guasti, 1835.
-
Romagnosi, Gian. Opere del professore G. D. Romagnosi. Tomo tredicesimo. Florence: Piatti, 1835.
-
Santamaria, Domanico. Bernardino Biondelli e la linguistica preascoliana. Rome: Cadmo, 1981.
-
Stanley, Thomas. Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources. Preface by Manly P. Hall. Introduction by Henry L. Drake. Edited by James Wassermann and J. Daniel Gunther. Lake Worth [FL]: Ibis Press, 2010.
-
Stark, Werner. “Giambattisto Vico’s Sociology of Knowledge.” In Giambattista Vico: An international Symposium. Edited by Giorgio Tagliacozzo and Hayden V. White, 297–307. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969.
-
Tessitore, Fulvio. Lo storicismo di Vincenzo Cuoco. Naples: Morano, 1965.
-
Trabant, Jürgen. Mithridates im Paradies: Kleine Geschichte des Sprachdenkens. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2003.
-
Trabant, Jürgen. Neue Wissenschaft von alten Zeichen: Vicos Sematologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994.
-
Trabant, Jürgen. Vico’s New Science of Ancient Signs: A study of sematology. Translated by Sean Ward. New York: Routledge History of Linguistics, 2004.
-
Trautmann, Thomas L. Aryans and British India. New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2004.
-
Verri, Antonio. Cicli storici e rivoluzioni: Da Vico a Rousseau. Galatina: Congedo, 1990.
-
Vico, Giambattista. Il Diritto universale. Parte seconda ‘De constantia iurisprudentis’. Giambattista Vico: Opere. Vol. 2. Edited by Fausto Nicolini. Bari: Laterza, 1936.
-
Vico, Giambattista. La Scienza Nuova prima, con la polemica contro gli “Atti degli eruditi” di Lipsia. Edited by Fausto Nicolini. Bari: Laterza, 1931.
-
Vico, Giambattista. La Scienza Nuova seconda, giusta l’edizione del 1744 con le varianti dell’edizione del 1730 e di due redazioni intermedie inedite. Vol. 1, 2 vols. Edited by Fausto Niccolini. Bari: Laterza, 1928.
-
Vico, Giambattista. Le orazioni inaugurali. Il de italorum sapientia e le polemiche. Edited by Giovanni Gentile and Fausto Nicolini. Bari: Laterza, 1914.
-
Vico, Giambattista. On the most ancient wisdom of the Italians: unearthed from the origins of the Latin language: including the disputation with the Giornale de’ letterati d’Italia [1710 and 1711–1712]. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by L. M. Palmer. Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 1988.
-
Vico, Giambattista. The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the addition of “Practic of New Science”. Translated by Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 1984.
-
Zhmud, Leonid. Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans. Translated by Kevin Windle and Rosh Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 487 | 86 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 42 | 13 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 49 | 11 | 3 |
A Prophet of Divine Wisdom?—Giambattista Vico and the Construction of the Pythagorean Myth
In: Philological EncountersAbstract
In the nineteenth century, the reception of Giambattista Vico’s writings came along with nationalist interpretations of his Scienza Nuova as an ‘Italian Science’. This tendency was based upon an increased examination of the role that the philosopher Pythagoras and his Italian school of Croton played in Vico’s hierarchical conception of the ancient Greek and Italian civilizations. Writers, archaeologists and historians used the New Science as a metonymic reference work for their own nationalist concepts by updating the Pythagorean myth in accordance with relevant narratives of exclusive genealogies concerning an ancient Italian wisdom. These narratives follow tendencies in Vico’s own writings that were quoted strategically and mixed with further interpretations of the Scienza Nuova as reliable testimonial for a glorious Italian history. A theological poet characterized by deeper insight into the secrets of nature and some parts of the divine providence, Pythagoras gains his special position in Vico’s general conception of knowledge.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 487 | 86 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 42 | 13 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 49 | 11 | 3 |