Pagina 186 - BCSV, XL, 2

The Wildenstein Exemplar shows that Vico was ready to distribute copies
of his books in gratitude of favors received or with the hope of receiving. In
doing this, he also considered many variables, like the age, the education, the
profession, the class status of the persons to whom he planned to give one of
his books, because, working at his desk, he certainly could not hand-copy
from the Gervasi Exemplar all the modifications and additions in the copy he
was preparing for a donation. Consider how much planning and physical work
indeed he had to make just for one copy to be given to someone! He made
choices, as we can see very well from the Gervasi-Wildenstein comparison. All
of this needs a lot of more studying and research, before we can formulate a
theory.
Several immediate observations nevertheless can already be formulated.
With the quizzical exception of the dedication, the Wildenstein Exemplar
shows how Vico carefully maintained a legible neat handwriting in correcting
and commenting; how he placed his writing on the page keeping the page
clean and still harmonious; how he kept an equilibrated balance between the
required corrections and the simplest comments properly at level with the age,
class, and culture of the individual to whom it is dedicated. In fact, the Count
of Wildenstein never opened the book. He touched it once, wrote a reminder,
and put it back in the trunk. For what we know, he never sent a note of thanks
to Vico; and Vico, after Leclerc confirmed the reception of the copy, never
bothered to write to the Count. The truth may also be that the copy given to
the Count had been prepared for someone else. Vico, after hearing from
Alfani of the opportunity and immediate leaving of the Count, grabbed the
copy he was modifying, in haste wrote the dedication to Maximilian, and gave
this signed copy with an extra one for Leclerc back to Alfani to bring to the
count. I bet that the copy for Leclerc is unsigned and unmodified!
If we consider the Wildenstein Codex as it is, not in connection with either
the new owner or the author, we can say that it has notably provided the proof
that the Gervasi Codex cannot be used as if it were the Ur-document of the
Diritto universale, and implicitly that we still have a long way to go before a
definitive text would be done. Any exemplar may reveal not only variations,
corrections, or reduced commentaries but also presents some new ones in a
positive or negative way, as they cannot be found in the Gervasi Codex, though
some are in the autograph Mendorum … Emendationes document. In the Du,
at page 56, in locis, we see the substitution of the author of a citation; at page
138, lines 25-26, that the example given in seven words is cancelled; and at
page 157, lines 22-23, the modified sense of the sentence. If this will be the
emerging result of the comparison, then our next job will be to work on the
ecdotica of the different texts in question, their origin, their geological layer of
stratification, their philosophical impact on other points in the system and
thought of Vico, when he was in his early fifties.
GIORGIO A. PINTON 186