A chronicle of the Republic of letters: Literary Naples in the Viquian epistolary

Abstract

The article investigates the chronicle that unfolds in Vico's epistolary writings. In the messages exchanged with the intellectuals and authorities of the time, Vico makes the account of his life as a teacher and man of letters the occasion to examine the conjuncture of the intellectual class in Naples at the beginning of the 18th century. After exposing, in the light of the epistles, both the external and internal causes of the ruin of the Republic of Letters, related to the negligence of the monarchs and the misuse of erudition, the article details two events linked to the introduction of modernity in Naples, illustrating, with examples, the dysfunctional dynamics of erudite disputes in that city that threatened to corrode from within the conviviality of the literati.