191 / 298
Vico’s Ring
191
Notes to Chapter 8
392
As stated before, we are always referring to the 1744 edition, and will
specifically identify the 1725 and 1730 editions as such.
393
As a matter of fact, B. A. Haddock felt this way: «the “discovery of the
true Homer” […] is best regarded as an appendix to the theses advanced in
[Book II]» (Id.,
Vico’s “Discovery of the True Homer”: A Case-Study in Historical
Reconstruction
, in «Journal of the History of Ideas», 40, 1979, 4, pp. 583-602, p.
588).
394
Papini, while not advocating the same kind of ring structure presented
here, places Book III at the center of a diagram of the work’s five “books”,
explaining: «[…] cioè il
Libro terzo
rappresenta non un’appendice del
Libro se-
condo
dedicato all’età degli eroi, ma il punto centrale o asse portante di tutto il
sistema speculativo vichiano ([…] namely,
Book III
constitutes, not an appen-
dix to
Book II
devoted to the age of the heroes, but the central point or the
underpinning of Vico’s entire speculative system)» (Id.,
Il geroglifico della storia
,
cit., p. 312).
395
The following are a few of the more significant references, based on
The First New Science,
ed. and trans. by L. Pompa, Cambridge-New York,
Cambridge University Press, 2000, including paragraph numbering (which fol-
lows F. Nicolini’s system of numbered paragraphs, see
ibid.
, p. XLVI), namely:
Book I, Chapter X, § 34; Book II, Chapter LII [LIII], § 203; Chapter LV
[LVII], § 207; Chapter LX [LXI], § 221; Chapter LXIII [LXIV], §§ 236, 240;
Book III, Chapter XIII, § 275; Chapter XIV, § 277; Chapter XV, §§ 282, 284;
Chapter XVII [XVIII], § 288; Chapter XVIII [XIX], § 293; Chapter XX
[XXI], §§ 295-297; Chapter XXV [XXVI], §§ 311, 312; Chapter XXVI
[XXVII], §§ 313-315.
396
P
. Cristofolini summed up the contrast between the two editions:
«Nella
Scienza nuova prima
,
come i lettori di Vico sanno, la
Discoverta del vero
Omero
non c’è. Quello che nelle due successive versioni sarà il terzo libro, bre-
ve, centrale, quasi nel posto del cuore, qui non si trova nemmeno in forma di
capitoletto o paragrafo, l’espressione stessa,
discoverta
ecc.
, che Vico ripeterà con
tanta fierezza nel corso degli anni più tardi, non si è ancora affacciata. […] Ma
questi elementi non fanno corpo unitario né confluiscono nel riconoscimento
del carattere universale dell’autore dell’
Iliade
e dell’
Odissea
; questo accadrà solo
a partire dal 1730 (In the
First New Science
, as readers of Vico know, there is no
Discovery of the True Homer.
The material that will in the two subsequent ver-
sions become the third, short, central book, in effect placed at the heart of it,
cannot be found here even in the form of a short chapter or paragraph; the
expression
Discovery etc.
itself that Vico will repeat with such pride during later
years, is not yet introduced. […] But these elements do not make up a unified