Religione e politica nella prima «Scienza Nuova»

In the first part of the essay, all the passages in which Vico insists on the originality of Scienza Nuova (1725) compared to Diritto Universale are revisited. The latter becomes a sort of still incomplete and provisional draft of Scienza Nuova (1725). The novelty, above all, lies in the shift of focus from the universality and eternity of the “natural law of nations” to the historicity of the “nature of nations”. The second part synthetically reconstructs Vico’s complex relationship between the new science and religion, as it is already shaped in Scienza Nuova (1725): “true religion” is at once providentially at the origin of science and yet also an object of science itself, in terms of its civil functions and its role in “public moral matters”, similarly to any other religion. With particular attention to the “course of nations” – especially the transition from the age of heroes to that of men – the third part of the essay finally highlights the key points that will remain firmly established in later versions of Vico’s masterpiece, as well as the provisional aspects still tied to Diritto Universale, which are destined to be set aside. This, in turn, allows for the emergence of the regularities and “necessities” of the new critical method.