History and Creativity in G. B. Vico

Vico and the conspiracy of the sciences

“…Gaetano Gambacorta, the prince of Macchia, lent his name to a conspiracy that Vico had interpreted as a collective enterprise (Naddeo, 2011: 26–8). He wrote as a witness to the events and scoured the city to interview people from every station in life (Pinton, 2013: 146–9, 161). Assuming that the authorities wanted the rebel leaders portrayed in the traditional way, they appear in his report as ambitious, cunning, and conspicuously ungrateful to the viceroy they had planned to assassinate.…”

“…The cardinal appeared again at the end of Vico’s unpublished report as a possible author of another plot, posterior to the Conspiracy of Macchia (ibid. : 119–21 [22.70–79]; see also Pinton, 2013: 281–2; Stone, 1997: 139–44). 4…”

“…His professional loyalty as a historian must have annoyed those who commissioned the work, the Bourbon viceroyalty authorities, which are believed to have rejected its publication in the end. Paradoxically, the decision saved Vico from greater difficulties when the Habsburgs assumed power (Marshall, 2010: 59; Naddeo, 2011: 22–3; see also Pinton, 2013: 180, 225).…”

“…In October 1707, at the behest of Field Marshal Count Wirich Philipp von Daun (1669–1741), the then Austrian viceroy, Vico had provided funerary inscriptions to honour the two Macchia conspirators he had denigrated in his report: Capece, who died fighting in the insurrection, and Carlo di Sangro, who was tortured and beheaded by the Bourbons (Vico, 2004[1707]: 14–35). In early 1708, he also published ‘the account of the funeral ceremonies’ celebrated that February, in which the conspirators once driven by greed were now described as having been compelled to action by their ‘devotion to the prince of Austria and the right of the House of Austria’ (Vico, 1975[1731]: 175; 2016[1708]: 89; see also Pinton, 2013: 221–7). 5…”

“…Everything seems to indicate that he was seeking to protect himself from the new political authorities. However, Pinton argues that his intent fell short of the mark: ‘His narration of the conspiracy had already taken on a life of its own, and remained as the major obstacle to his career throughout the three decades of the Austrian Kingdom of Naples’ (Pinton, 2013: 147).…”