Contains the first printing of the aphorism “verum esse ipsum factum” 16 VICO, Giambattista.
A superb Vico Sammelband, comprising four early works, each in first edition and exceedingly rare. Liber Primus Metaphysicus , Vico’s first major publication, is bound with his two important Replies to the Giornale dei letterati d’Italia (1711 and 1712), and De nostri temporis (1709), “perhaps the most brilliant defense of the humanities ever written” (Healey, p. 293). Liber Primus Metaphysicus contains Vico’s fullest statement of the verum factum principle (“the true is precisely what is made”). It is the first book in the unrealized series of three outlining his anti-Cartesian philosophical system, and the 1710 edition is rare. It “remained virtually unknown for over a hundred years, although during Vico’s lifetime it was widely read in Neapolitan academic circles” (Palmer, p. x). It was not translated from Latin into Italian until 1816 and it was only reprinted in 1828. The second and third books, Liber Secundus Physicus and Liber Tertius Moralis , were never completed for unknown reasons. In Vico’s two uncommon Replies , he defends and elucidates his views on the theory of knowledge and metaphysics in response to the criticisms levied against De antiquissima sapientia by the Giornale dei letterati d’Italia in 1711. The first contains Vico’s answer to an anonymous reviewer, which Benedetto Croce suggests was Bernardo Trevisano, a contemporary Venetian scholar of philosophy. The second work is another risposta , this time addressed to the entire editorial staff of the Giornale , written in response to their printed answer to his first Reply . In this essay, longer and more detailed than its predecessor, Vico takes an even stronger stand against Descartes’s methodology. The Giornale proposed (and Vico agreed) that this exchange be considered “a kind of completion of the De antiquissima sapienta ” (Marshall, p. 143). One of Vico’s duties as the professor of rhetoric at the University of Naples was “to open the academic year with a Latin oration, and Vico carried out this responsibility by giving the introductory lectures between 1699 and 1708. The last one, printed in 1709 under the title De nostri temporis studiorum ratione (‘On the Method of the Studies of Our Time’), is rich with his reflections about pedagogical methods. This work was followed almost immediately by the publication of Vico’s great metaphysical essay, De antiquissima italorum sapientia” ( Ency. Brit .). Vico’s writings gained popularity during the 19th century, and his impact on the modern philosophy of history, culture, and mythology was profound. Marx cites Vico in Das Kapital and Trotsky quotes him on the first page of his History of the Russian Revolution ; Coleridge and Yeats were enthusiastic disseminators of Vichian ideas; and Joyce composed Finnegans Wake using Vico’s four-part cyclical theory of civilization. Provenance: from the library of Neapolitan nobleman Giovanni Domenico Berio, marchese di Salza (d. 1791) and subsequently his son, the author and librettist Francesco Maria Berio (1765–1820), with their Marchionis Salsae armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. The majority of their famous library was purchased after Francesco Maria Berio’s death by William Ward, 3rd Viscount Dudley and Ward (1750–1823), for his son John William Ward, later 1st Earl of Dudley (1781–1833); the younger’s armorial bookplate bearing the motto “Comme je fus” is on the rear pastedown.
De antiquissima italorum sapientia ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda libri tres. Naples: Felicis Mosca, 1710 [with] Risposta nella quale si sciogliono tre gravi oppositioni fatte da dotto signore, 1711 ; [and] Risposta all’articolo X. del tomo VIII. del Giornale de’ letterati d’Italia, 1712 ;
[and] De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, 1709 £17,500
[ 156919 ]
4 works bound in 1 volume, duodecimo (145 × 82 mm). Contemporary vellum, later red paper spine label imitating earlier gilt-ruled design beneath, edges sprinkled blue, green silk bookmarker. Woodcut title page devices, headpiece in first work, initials. Engraved armorial bookplates on pastedowns (see note). Vellum soiled, spine wormed in places with some loss to vellum at head, cords remaining firm, spine label a little chipped at edges; contents browned (more so in the last two works) and sporadically marked, small red paper remnant adhered to front free endpaper. In very good condition overall. ¶ Robin Healey, Italian Literature Before 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929–2008 , 2011; David L. Marshall, Vico and the Transformation of Rhetoric in Early Modern Europe , 2010; Lucia M. Palmer, trans., De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia Ex Linguae Latinae Originibus Eruenda , 1988.
SIXTY FINE ITEMS
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