Giambattista Vico

Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), Italian philosopher of history. Born in Naples, Vico was the son of a poor bookseller. He studied law at the University of Naples, where he was professor of rhetoric from 1699 to 1741. From 1735 until his death he was royal historiographer to the king of Naples. Vico's best-known work is the Principi di scienza nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni (Principles of a New Science Concerning the Common Nature of Nations, 1725), usually called the Scienza nuova. In it he propounded a cyclical theory of history, according to which human societies progress through a series of stages from barbarism to civilization and then return to barbarism. In the first stage—called the Age of the Gods—religion, the family, and other basic institutions emerge; in the succeeding Age of Heroes, the common people are kept in subjection by a dominant class of nobles; in the final stage—the Age of Men—the people rebel and win equality, but in the process society begins to disintegrate. Vico influenced many later social theorists, including Montesquieu, Auguste Comte, and Karl Marx.