Abstract

Giambattista Vico's Scienza nuova often appeals to several kinds of "proofs": historical, philological or theological... A further kind of proof may be added, which may be called "artistic proof". In Vico's view, art is the sign of the increasing ability of a civilisation to imitate nature - a correlation already proposed by Vasari and Winckelmann. The form of art to which the greatest explanatory power is attached is painting, as it requires abstraction. The more complex a painting is, the older is the civilisation that produced it. The Scienza Nuova's parts dedicated to the Ancient Egyptian and Chinese art give an example of how Vico applies such kind of proof. He concludes that those civilisations cannot be as old as it has always been retained, since their paintings lacks perspective. Oppositely, the lack of any mention to paintings whatsoever is evidence for Homer's and Moses' antiquity. Artistic proof - alongside those previously mentioned - is indeed used by Vico to ground his ideas on chronology, historical subdivision in Eres and writing techniques.