Giorgio Tagliacozzo, Giambettista Vico, an international symposium, 1969

ELIO GIANTURCO 328 aspects o f Vico’s thought are thrown into prominent relief.3 Now these are not as important as the sociological aspects (it has been said that Vico is the greatest sociologist o f the pre-Comtean period)4 or, as I will try to show, hisjuristic contributions. Nevertheless, the net result o f Croce’s monograph was that o f focusing a dazzling light on the Scienza nuova: o f fixing the Scienza nuova, so to speak, at the central spot o f the firmament o f research, and hence o f obscuring and eclipsing Vico’s immeasurably significant achievements in the fields o f law. These achievements are embodied prin­ cipally in the II diritto universale . 5 As a consequence o f the foregoing, in order adequately to approach the topic that I have undertaken to treat, it is necessary for us to perform a kind o f “ Copernican” turning, a reorientation o f our categories. It is necessary to assume that the North Star o f our research, the cynosure o f our attention, is no longer the Scienza nuova, but II diritto universale. If we perform this reorientation, not only will the usual ranking o f the two works be inverted (the Diritto universale will appear more important than the Scienza nuova), but the character, the content, and the significance o f the latter opus will appear in a new dimension. Moreover, the meaning o f the transition from Diritto universale to Scienza nuova will become crucial to an understanding o f the whole intellectual evolution o f our author. The momentousness o f the Diritto universale in the history o f legal thought is so pivotal, so irrefutably patent, that one experiences a certain shock in realizing the almost total absence o f Vico’s juridical ideas from modern histories o f legal philosophy and from source books on jurisprudence. The Diritto universale logically fills the hitherto empty interval (not to call it the yawning gap) between the appearance o f the Jus belli ac pads (1625) and that o f the Esprit des lois (1748), and it rightfully claims its place between them. In Vico, we are confronted with the greatest legal intellect between Grotius and Montesquieu. The remark has been made that Vico is one o f the few philosophers who have been thoroughly acquainted with law and its history and have therefore been able to make contributions o f the highest value to 3 Croce, Lafilosofia di G. B. Vico, paperback ed., chaps. I and II. The chief viewpoints guiding Croce’s presentation o f Vico are detailed in A. Scrocca’s G. B. Vico nella critica di B. Croce (Naples: Giannini, 1919); among more recent treatments see A. M . Jacobelli Isoldi, “ II pensiero di Vico nell’interpretazione di Croce,” Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 1950. 4 See Jean Lamure, “ G. B. Vico, un precurseur de la sociologie en Italie,” Revue de I'Institut de Sociologie, 3 (July-September, 1949): 321-36 ; see also Lucio Mendieta y Nunez, “ J. B . Vico, precursor de la sociologia,” Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, 15, no. 1 (1953). 5 Ed. Fausto Nicolini, 2 vols. (I: Sinopsi, e De uno universi iuris principio et fine uno. II: De constantiajurisprudentis) (Bari: Laterza, 1936).