Vico

• Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), Neapolitan philosopher, and author of Principi di Scienza Nuova ("The New Science"), in which he developed a cyclic theory of history. The Viconian cycle consists of three recurring phases: (1) the Theocratic or Divine Age of gods, represented in primitive society by the family life of the cave, to which the voice of God (thunder) has driven mankind; (2) the Aristocratic or Heroic Age of heroes, charactized by incessant conflict between the ruling patricians and their subject plebeians; (3) the Democratic Age of people, in which rank and privilege have finally been eradicated by the revolutions of the preceding age. These three ages are typified by the institutions of birth, marriage and burial respectively. In Vico, they are followed by a short period of chaos caused by the collapse of democratric society, which is inherently corrupt. Out of this chaos a new cycle in initiated by the ricorso, or "return", to the Theocratic Age. In FW, Joyce elevated the lacuna between successive cycles into a fourth age: the Chaotic Age. Vico's theory is applied to the image of the history of mankind as depicted in Earwicker's dream. The four phases also symbolize the four evangelists, the four points of the compass and the four provinces of Ireland.
  • Third Census of Finnegans Wake
  • "There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed graduations, and at the last one pause: - through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally." (Melville, Moby Dick)[1]

• Father Francesco de Vico (1805 – 1848) was an Italian astronomer at Vatican Observatory, and also a Jesuit, who discovered a number of comets and made observations of Saturn and the gaps in its rings, and unsuccessfully attempted to determine the rotation period of Venus.

• Vico Road: a shore road from Dalkey [2] to Killiney [3], along Dublin Bay [4]
  • A Finnegans Wake Gazetteer
  • Ulysses 024.25: "Vico Road, Dalkey"
  • Google Maps

• There is also a commune named Vico in the Corse-du-Sud département of France