The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico 9781501703010

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Cl AM BA lTISTA VICO (Sec Note 2 t 2)

The Autobiography of GIAMBATTISTA VICO Translated from the Italian by i\i1AX HAROLD FISCH and THOMAS GODDARD BERGIN

Cornell l'aperbacks CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyrighc © 1944 by Cornell Universicy All righrs reserved. Excepr for brief quocacions in a review, chis book, or pans chereof, muse nor be reproduced in any form wichouc permission in wricing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell Universicy Press, Sage House, 512 Ease Scace Screec, lchaca, New York 14850.

First published I 944 by Cornell University Press First printing for Great Seal Books I 963 First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, I 975 ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-9088-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN- I 0: 0-8014-9088-x (pbk. : alk. paper) Cornell U niversicy Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of ics books. Such macerials include vegecable-based, low-VOC inks and acid­ free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Printed in the United States of America 9

Paperback printing

I0

PREFACE V1co has long been regarded as the greatest of Italian philos­ ophers. Two centuries have passed since his death and the definitive edition of his major work, the Scienza nuova. Only small parts of that work, and a few passages quoted from his other writings, have so far appeared in English translation. The first complete English version of any of his writings is that here offered of his autobiography, with which students of his thought have generally found it advisable to begin. Aside from the light it sheds on his other works, and the interest it has in common with every other intellectual auto­

biography, Vico's has the unique interest of being the first application of the genetic method by an original thinker to his own writings. Vico's Italian bristles with difficulties even for Italians, and it is not likely that we have resolved them all. To preserve something of the flavor of the original, we have translated literally wherever a literal rendering seemed readily intelligible; but we have broken up most of his longer periods, and have resorted to paraphrase and brack­ eted insertions wherever we saw no other way to achieve clarity. The text we have followed is that of the Laterza edition of Vico's works, Volume V, Bari, 1929, edited by Croce and Nicolini; and many of the notes to our translation have been adapted from those in that edition, to which the reader is referred for further details.

Preface

VI

The translation is a work of collaboration. For the intro­ duction, notes and chronological table I alone am responsi­ ble. In Major Bergin's absence overseas, the book has gone to press without the benefit of his proofreading. G. H. Sabine made helpful comments on an early draft of the introduction. James Hutton shed light on some difficult passages in the translation. Giuseppe Cherubini listened to a reading of the translation with the original in hand and im­ proved the rendering at several points. If the introduction seems disproportionately long, that is because it is intended to serve also for the translation of the

Scienza nuova which

we hope shortly to publish.

M. H.F.

April z944

For the second printing a few slight changes have been made in the introduction, and the translation has been ex­ tensively revised, with the help of Elio Gianturco and other friendly critics. To section IV E of the introduction there should now be added a reference to the penetrating, though admittedly one-sided, interpretation of Vico in Laurence Stapleton's

Justice and World Society.

September 1944

M. H.F.

For the Great Seal Rooks printing, a few further correc­ tions have been made in the introduction and translation, an