273 / 298
Vico’s Ring
273
lità […] l’unico criterio di giudizio […]. […] secondo le parole di Spinoza, tut-
to accade secondo necessità, senza che si possano rintracciare atti eroici o
epoche di barbarie. La “nuova scienza”, al contrario, rivendica il valore della
memoria, della fantasia e dell’ingegno […]. (Reason can thus be the ultimate
outcome of the historical journey of humans, but this does not mean it is the
locus of all the richness produced by history […]. […] Vico refutes precisely
the pretension of designating reason […] as the sole criterium of judgment
[…]. […] according to what Spinoza says, everything happens by necessity,
without the possibility of being able to explain heroic deeds or eras of barba-
rism. The “new science”, on the contrary, vindicates the value of memory,
imagination, and ingenuity […])» (
ibid.
, p. 115).
544
Similarly §§ 820, 840, 841, 842, 845, 848.
545
V. Vitiello,
Prefazione. Scrivere la storia
, in F. Valagussa,
Vico. Gesto e poesia
,
cit., pp. V-XI, p. VII.
546
In the Corollary and Note (Scholium) to this Proposition, Spinoza
makes it clear that «ideas» and «things» belong strictly to his metaphysical sys-
tem, not mundane historical processes: «Substance thinking and substance
extended are one and the same substance, comprehended now through one
attribute, now through the other. […] God’s intellect and the things under-
stood by God are identical. […] as long as we consider things as modes of
thinking, we must explain the order of the whole of nature […] through the
attribute of thought alone».
547
§ 781: «Diomed can wound Venus and Mars with the help of Minerva,
who, in the contest of the gods, despoils Venus and strikes Mars with a rock».
548
Let us not overlook the note of none too subtle sarcasm that Vico
could not resist appending (in both the 1730 and 1744 editions): «What are we
then to say of his [Homer’s] representing his heroes as delighting so much in
wine, and, whenever they are troubled in spirit, finding all their comfort (c
on-
suolo
, 1730;
conforto
, 1744), yes, and above all others the wise Ulysses, in getting
drunk? Fine precepts for consolation, most worthy of a philosopher!» (§ 784).
549
See G. Mazzotta,
The New Map of the World
, cit., p. 146: «Castelvetro,
much like other Renaissance theorists […], never understood the true origin
of poetry».
550
Referred to by Mali as «the mythical foundations of reality» (Id.,
The
Rehabilitation of Myth
, cit., p. 86), and a view in which Vico likely was influ-
enced by Italian humanism, as proposed by E. Garin,
Science and the Civil Life in
the Italian Renaissance
, trans. by P. Munz, Cambridge-New York, Doubleday,
1978.
551
Vico studies are replete with expositions and elucidations of Vico’s
“myth-ology”, as a starting point of which (in English) the following are help-