Vico. Modernità del ricorso

The essay is divided into three parts. The first part describes the most important inter- pretations of Vico’s theory of «recurrence» since the nineteenth century, among which the prevailing idea is that this theory represents a backward concept, even though it ap- pears late in Vico’s philosophy. The second part describes the development of the idea of «recurrence» from Universal Law to the various editions of New Science. The third part aims to demonstrate how recurrence is not at all a backward idea of Vico’s, but rather has to do with his theory of the age of «fully developed human reason», in which the maximum power of a nation coexists with the permanent risk of its crisis.