Pagina 16 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

16 LEON POMPA
ideas and to introduce his favoured distinction between thè occasion and
thè cause of an idea. Thus, when it comes to our grasp of thè idea of
truth, to which, along with his account of thè distinction between il cer­
to and il vero, his generai theological framework, commits him, he ad-
mits that this does not arise from sensory perception but explains it as
reason’s power to grasp an eternai idea that God has left in us8. Thus
there is considerable rationalism involved in his account of thè nature of
ideas that is often obscured by an over-concentration upon thè nature of
poetic characters.
3. When we turn to thè first New Science, however, we find that it in­
volves two different conceptions of poetic characters, to only one of
which is thè explanation by way of antonomasia relevant. First, however,
we must consider thè account that Vico offers in chapters II and III of
book III of thè creation of thè ‘first fable’, i.e. thè first god, who, along
with thè other gods, is described as being thè ‘character’ of a corporeal
substance imagined as being intelligent. It is also described as a creation
that is entirely ‘imaginary’ like thè work of a painter of ideas, and ‘not
representational’, like that of a painter of portraits9. The first god, and
thè same applies to thè other divinities, is what he is, a ‘character’, but
not a character who represents something. It is useful to note that thè
word ‘character’ (carattere) comes from thè Greek xapatcxip, which can
have a number of meanings, most of which derive from thè notion of a
stamp engraved on coins. Two are particularly appropriate to Vico’s use
of ‘character’: (I) «thè concept of a ‘distinctive mark or token impressed,
as it were, on a person or thing, by which it is known from others»; and
(II) «thè type or character, regarded as shared with others, of a thing or
person, rarely of an individuai nature»10. Given thè context, and partic­
ularly Vico’s insistence upon thè non-representative nature of thè char­
acter of which he is talking, thè first of these meanings seems to encap-
sulate what he has in mind here. Jove, thè first god, arises rather as a dis-
that at thè highest level there are two kinds of things, intelligent substance and corporeal sub­
stance, and that man consists of both. It is thè work of thè mind to judge thè truth of things.
8 lbid., chapter XXXV.
9 G. Vico, The New Science 1725, § 257. Hereafter I shall refer to this as Sn25 and to thè
edition of 1744 as Sn44, in both cases citing thè text in terms of Nicolini’s well known system of
numbered paragraphs. Translations of passages from thè first work are taken from my G. Vico,
The First New Science, Cambridge-New York, 2002, and thosc from thè second from The New
Science of Giambattista Vico, translated by Th. G. Bergin and M. H. Fisch, Ithaca, 1968.
10 H.G. LlDDELL, R. SCOTT, A Greek-English Lexicon, ninth edition, Oxford, 1953, p.
1997.