Description
Book SynopsisIn September of 1701, events transpired in Naples that, through frequent retellings, became popularly known as “the conspiracy of the Prince of Macchia.” Rapidly gaining fame, this apparently anonymous narrative was soon incorporated by different historians in their history of the transition years between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But who was the initial bard or narrator, the town clerk or citizen who first gave testimony of this event by creating a Latin text of the story of the Prince of Macchia? Giambattista Vico was not among the claimants to the authorship of the fabulous story that changed the future of the Kingdom of Naples. Nevertheless, four scholars across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were themselves convinced, and managed to convince the intellectual world as well, that Vico, then a young teacher of rhetoric at the University of Naples, was indeed the source of this original Latin narration of this oft retold Neapolitan history. This book provides the original Latin text with a parallel translation, as well as historical context and analysis of both the text’s authorship history and the account itself.
Table of ContentsList of Figures Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction by Paolo Fabiani: “Special Psychological Traits of the Prince of Macchia” The Latin Text and the Translation of The Conspiracy of the Prince of Macchia The Narration in Translation The Narrator and the Authorship The Making of the Narration History in the Eighteenth Century Searching for Two Autograph Originals History of the Text of the Narration The Narrative in the Eighteenth Century The Narrative in the Nineteenth Century The Narrative in the Twentieth Century The Narrative in the Twenty-First Century Eyewitnesses and the Uncertainty of Heroism Don Luiz Francisco De La Cerda The Primary Sources of the Narration Authorities and Documents of the Narrative History and Creativity in G. B. Vico The Tree of the Story Personae and Stage Development The State Council Records César D’Avalos, Marquis Del Vasto The Viceroy and the Official Proclamations The Manifestos: F. Spinelli and B. Ceva Grimaldi Epilogue Works Cited About the Author Index of Names
