ABSTRACT
The history of the scholarship that perceives a substantial link between Giordano Bruno and Giambattista Vico is characterized by powerful insights as well as notable reticence. The object of this study is to lend a voice on behalf of an important aspect of the Bruno-Vico link upon which critics have remained silent – namely, whether or not there are any connections regarding how the two philosophers understood and made use of the art of memory. However, before attempting such an undertaking, a review of the research that deals with the Bruno-Vico relationship is in order. As early as 1836 we find scholars meditating upon the important affinity between Bruno and Vico,2 but it was Francesco De Sanctis who played the key role in establishing the philosophical parameters for any discussion involving the Nolan and the Neapolitan. In the Storia della letteratura italiana De Sanctis contends that the art of memory becomes in Bruno a true art of thinking, a logic which is at one with ontology. De Sanctis goes to the extent of stating that the De umbris idearum is recommended reading for all
1 Gentile, Giovanni (1968), Studi vichiani, 3a edizione riveduta e accresciuta a cura di Vito A. Bellezza, Florence: Sansoni, p. 34n. My translation.
