Reflections on the first Milanese edition (1801) of Giambattista Vico's New Science

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reconstruct—as far as possible, given the gaps in the scholarship—the meaning and role, in the Milan of the Cisalpine Republic, of the first edition of Vico’s Scienza Nuova, published by the “Collection of Italian Classics” in 1801, by the “Typography of Italian Classics” (located at Carrer del Bocchetto, nº 2536), where the young Giovanni Silvestri worked as director. Consolidated studies have now brought into light the role accomplished by numerous editorial initiatives that were undertaken in that period, some of them organized thanks to the contribution of the main protagonists of the time (from Foscolo to Monti, from Lomonaco to Cuoco, to cite just a few names). While engaged in a difficult quest for harmony with political power, those characters had a direct or indiret role in the birth and formation of a “modern state commission”.