Barbara Ann Naddeo
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449161
- eISBN:
- 9780801460876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449161.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples. His magnum opus, the Scienza nuova (3rd ed., 1744), has been hailed by many contemporary scholars as the precursor of modern social theory and its disciplinary affiliations. In particular, the chapter identifies the oft-neglected aspects of Vico's social theory as exemplified in his ideals of a metropolis. The second half of the chapter elaborates on the particular subject of Vico's investigations—Naples—and the questions of society and citizenship brought about by its urbanization and expansion during the early eighteenth century.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of this book's inquiry into the intellectual accomplishments of Giambattista Vico (1668—1744), the famed professor of Rhetoric at the University of Naples. His magnum opus, the Scienza nuova (3rd ed., 1744), has been hailed by many contemporary scholars as the precursor of modern social theory and its disciplinary affiliations. In particular, the chapter identifies the oft-neglected aspects of Vico's social theory as exemplified in his ideals of a metropolis. The second half of the chapter elaborates on the particular subject of Vico's investigations—Naples—and the questions of society and citizenship brought about by its urbanization and expansion during the early eighteenth century.
