132 / 298
Horst Steinke
132
Notes to Chapter 6
252
G. Mazzotta,
Universal History,
cit., p. 316.
253
B. A. Haddock,
Heroes and the Law: Vico on the Foundation of Political Or-
der
,
cit., pp. 29-41, p. 41.
254
The type of juxtaposition chosen here, of course, does not preclude
other ways of bringing Spinoza and Vico into contact.
255
As outlined above, segment
C
comprises all of Book II (§§ 361-779),
while segment
C’
consists of Book IV, §§ 915-979. The remaining part of
Book IV, §§ 980-1045, has been argued as constituting segment
B’
.
256
Found on pp. 907-1134 of G. Vico,
La Scienza nuova. Le tre edizioni
, cit.
257
The Bergin-Fisch translation duplicates the numeration of “sections”
introduced by F. Nicolini, as well as the numeration as “chapters”, of any sub-
sections. Vico’s original text, of course, does not have any numeration, but
both “sections” and “chapters” are easily distinguishable in the original even if
they are not labelled as such.
258
Preceded always by the term «poetic», they are named (I)
metaphysics
, (II)
logic
, (III)
morals
, (IV)
economy
, (V)
politics
, (VI)
history
,
(VII)
physics
, (VIII)
cosmog-
raphy
, (IX)
astronomy
, (X)
chronology
, (XI)
geography.
G. Mazzotta went a step fur-
ther and termed the entire
Scienza nuova
“encyclopedic” in this broadest sense:
«This same insight [of the discontinuity between poetic and critical
knowledge] shapes the imaginative structure and the style of the
New Science,
which is an encyclopedic totality of disjointed parts – not as a rational scien-
tific method […], but as a critical and poetic rethinking of history’s memories
and shadows. More precisely, the
New Science
is written in the mixed mode of
brief essays, maxims, fables, and sentences» (Id.,
Vico’s Encyclopedia
, in «The
Yale Journal of Criticism», 1, 1988, pp. 65-79, p. 76).
259
Ruggiero quotes the following historical assessment by A. Battistini:
«L’enciclopedia barocca non si limita quindi a conservare il sapere, ma lo or-
ganizza per renderlo più funzionale, con l’intenzione de trasmetterlo, giovan-
dosi dell’intervento dell’
ars memoriae
(The baroque encyclopedia does not limit
itself therefore to preserving knowledge, but it organizes it in order to render
it more useful, for the purpose of passing it on with the support of the
ars me-
moriae
)» (Id.,
Nova Scientia Tentatur
, cit., p. 144, footnote 8). C. Vasoli took a
similar view: «Si tratta di concezioni che il Vico ha in comune con tutta la
tradizione “enciclopedica” seicentesca, sempre così preoccupata di dedurre il
sistema dell’universo e la totalità delle scienze dal concetto primo ed essen-
ziale dell’“ordine”» (It has to do with concepts that Vico shares with the entire
17
th
century “encyclopedic” tradition, always in this way preoccupied with de-
ducing the system of the universe and the totality of the sciences from the