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8.
BOOK III AS THE CENTER OF
SCIENZA NUOVA
’S CONCENTRIC STRUCTURE
Readers of
Scienza nuova
392
at times refer to Book III (“Dis-
covery of the True Homer”) as its center even without consider-
ation or thought of its overall structure of the particular kind that
is here hypothesized. The impression of centrality is based on in-
ternal evidence which we also take as its most valid and crucial
justification. In fact, by virtue of its contents, the centrality of
Book III would even remain the case if it had been placed
somewhere else in the work. For example, by way of a “thought
experiment”, one could envision it even as an appendix to the
work, and it would not take anything away from, or change the
thrust of, the rest of the work. Considering the contents of
Books I, II, IV, and V, and certain interconnections that we at-
tempted to elucidate in our (selective) commentary, the distinc-
tive, stand-alone nature of the material in Book III arguably
might have been well suited for the appendix genre
393
. We con-
sider it therefore significant that Vico chose to place this material
in the literal or physical middle of the work, where it, in effect,
interrupts the “natural” arc from Book II to Book IV; this move
thus can be seen as accomplishing a twofold objective, that of
finalizing the ring structure, and, at the same time, making use of
the structural properties themselves to imbue this material with
an aura of special importance, all the more effective because it is
done indirectly
394
.
The idiosyncratic nature of Book III comes to the fore also
when it is compared with related material in
Scienza nuova
(1725).
Throughout this so-called
First New Science
, there are not only
numerous mentions of Homer, but, in fact, reflections and ar-