Pagina 128 - BCSV, XL, 2

then mentions the exemplar of the Oesterreichische National Bibliothek of
Vienna, where Vico’s volume was placed, with the signature BE VIII M 9
(according to Benedetto Croce and scholars thereafter) among the other ten of
thousand volumes from the private library of Prince Eugene of Savoy. In the
Katalog 1501-1929 of that Bibliothek, the signature BE.8.M.9 (not BE VIII M
9) is assigned to Du, MF7158 is for De const., and 36.R.27 for Notae. If this is
the case, the question is to be raised on the time when Notae was sent to the
Prince or the Prince’s library. The Prince received Du and De const. from Vico
through the mediation of the Prince’s new librarian Biagio Garofalo, when
Garofalo moved from Rome to Vienna towards the end of April-beginning May
1722. Garofalo already had received his free copy of the Du on September 1721,
we do not know if with Vico’s autograph dedication at the bottom of the title
page. The volume dedicated to Eugene is generously rich with praises of Vico
and the texts of Du and De const. are, contrary to what can be found in the pre-
vious exemplar, enriched with numerous autograph interventions of the author,
from simple corrections of words to the addition of complete short essays that
fit between the margins. We know about the comments in this exemplar and of
many others because Vico, on the suggestion of Prince Giambattista Filomarino,
at last decided to print a book full only with comments, rectifications, substitu-
tions, and additions. Filomarino must have paid for that. The trilogy of Diritto
universale was thus completed with the third book, the Notae, which received
its final approval for publishing on 13 August 1722.
Given that all of our discourse verges on the autograph presence (person-
ally produced by Vico) of ink marks or spots, symbols, legible or illegible com-
positions of alphabetic letters within the printed text and its wide right/left
and top/bottom margins, we may ask about the method Vico used to preserve
the copy of these profusely added marginal observations and comments, as we
find them printed in Notae. Placella answers by describing the third surviving
exemplar copy that binds together Du, De const., and Notae.
This third exemplar is a volume of 580 pages that contains all the three
books we mentioned, and includes four separate printed sheets of the Sinopsi,
which is a condensed summary of the Du, in a journalistic style and typing; a
letter dated 13 September 1722 of Biagio Garofalo; and a nine pages hand-
written list of the printer’s errors in the first two books, with suggested correc-
tions (Mendorum ab typis literariis Emendationes). Garofalo’s letter and some
observations on its date, with more information on Du , can be read in
Regarding the De Uno … in «New Vico Studies» XXVI (2008). In that article,
the names of the translators and of the publishers of the translations of the Du,
De const., and Notae are mentioned.
Vico kept this volume for his own use and consultation until 1734 when, hav-
ing completed the most famous work of the New Science and reached the age of
66, he gave it to F. F. A. Gervasi, of whom we still know nothing. From Gervasi
GIORGIO A. PINTON 128