An extremely rare first edition of Vico's Scienza Nuova, a genuine, untouched copy, with manuscript corrections to the text made by Vico himself.

A fundamental historiographical work, the Scienza Nuova was "the vehicle through which the concept of historical development finally entered Western European thought" (PMM). The history of this edition is well known. Vico intended it to be much more substantial, but Prince Corsini's lack of funding prompted him to print a different, shorter version than the original manuscript. Printed in 1,000 copies at his own expense, and completed in about a month, the edition has its own distinctive and distinctive appearance. "The Scienza Nuova of 1725 represents a writing of great linearity and distinctive beauty, on which Vico's usual need to return to his works to rethink and refine them had little or no opportunity to express itself in the short time it took to prepare for publication and even during its initial circulation. (Nuzzo, p. xxv) “It should be noted that the practice that characterizes the set of authorial interventions carried out on the copies of the 1725 text does not respond to a systematic strategy such as that” [applied] for the 1730 edition. The limited production time of the 1725 volume, and the desire to circulate numerous copies as quickly as possible, are therefore reasons that in fact limited this circumstance, but ultimately do not contradict Vico's congenial practice of positioning himself as a “habitual frequenter of the printing house, concerned with correcting the most obvious errors or personalising – from the point of view not only of form, but also of content – copies intended for particular people” (Sanna, Note, p.17) – pp.XVII-XVIII.” Enrico Nuzzo was able to collate 35 of the 36 witnesses surveyed (one is missing) and identified several corrective phases: the printing variants, present in a few copies but presumably more frequent than has been detected; the corrections introduced directly into the text, without being able to intervene at that point in the print run on the typographical forms ( pen corrections ) "after the Conclusion, of the aforementioned AAR [Additions, Amends and Reproofs]"; the affixing of the cartouche to the lines of the penultimate leaf, after the sheet had been printed. “A further, obviously particularly relevant, type of intervention on the published text (therefore pertaining to a fourth phase) is represented by the addition, on the 23 annotated witnesses, of a significant number, although overall not copious (less than thirty), of autograph annotations: predominantly corrections written in the body of the line, with rare marginal additions. The majority of these emendations concern the introduction of 'corrective' readings on typos; very few, however, are the variants that can be defined as substantial, or 'improving', or rethinking. For the purposes of relevant textual considerations, this fact must be linked to the very close timing, with respect to the publication of the work, of the work of interventions on the witnesses.” p.XIX “It is certain that the collation of the witnesses attests, as already noted, to the lack of care on the part of the author such as to systematically make a series of corrections and additions to them [as instead happened in 1730]. (…) The majority of the interventions on the text, during its printing or immediately after it, concerned the correction of typos. (…) the set of interventions subsequent to the publication of the text, which can be placed strictly close to the publication of the work, in no way defines a phase of evolution of Vico's meditation (…)”. p. XXVI. Giambattista Vico, La Scienza Nuova 1725 , edited by Enrico Niuzzo. Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2023. Brunet V, 1175; Croce I, p. 1; Nicolini Bibliografia Vichiana I, p. 37ff; Nicolini Opere III, p. 335ff.; Printing and the Mind of Man, 184. Marino Parenti, Bibliographical information on the original editions of the 'Scienza Nuova' , GC Sansoni, c. 1950.
We would like to sincerely thank Professor Enrico Nuzzo for the philological examination conducted on this specimen.