entire course of civilization.  Experience and not ratiocination, history and not reason must help human wisdom to understand the civil and political regimes which were the result not of reason or philosophy, but rather of common sense, or if you will of the social consciousness of man” and farther on (pages 373-374), “to Vico we owe the conception of history in its fullest sense as magistra vitae, the search after the humanity of history, the principle which makes the truth progress with time, the discovery of the political ‘course’ of nations.  It is Vico who uttered the eulogy of the patrician ‘heroic hearts’ of the ‘patres patriae’ first founders of states, magnanimous defenders of the commonwealth and wise counsellors of politics.  To Vico we owe the criticism of democracies, the affirmation of their brief existence, of their rapid disintegration at the hands of factions and demagogues, of their lapse first into anarchy, then into monarchy, when their degradation does not make them a prey of foreign oppressors.  Vico conceived of civil liberty as subjection to law, as just subordination, of the private to the public interests, to the sway of the state.  It was Vico who sketched modern society as a world of nations each one guarding its own imperium, fighting just and not inhuman wars.  In Vico therefore we find the condemnation of pacifism, the assertion that right is actualized by bodily force, that without force, right is of no avail, and that therefore ‘qui ab iniuriis se tueri non potest servus est.’”

It is not difficult to discern the analogies between these affirmations and the fundamental views and the spirit of Fascism.  Nor should we marvel at this similarity.  Fascism, a strictly Italian phenomenon, has its roots in the Risorgimento and the Risorgimento was influenced undoubtedly by Vico.

It would be inexact to affirm that the philosophy of Vico dominated the Risorgimento.  Too many elements of German, French, and English civilizations had been added to our culture during the first half of the XIX century to make this possible, so much so that perhaps Vico might have remained unknown to the makers of Italian unity if another powerful mind from Southern Italy, Vincenzo Cuoco, had not taken it upon himself to expound the philosophy of Vico in those very days in which the intellectual preparation of the Risorgimento was being carried on.

An adequate account of Cuoco’s doctrines would carry me too far.  Montemayor, in the article quoted above, gives them considerable attention.  He quotes among other things Cuoco’s arraignment of Democracy:  “Italy has fared badly at the hand of Democracy which has withered to their roots the three sacred plants of liberty, unity, and independence.  If we wish to see these trees flourish again let us protect them in the future from Democracy.”

The influence of Cuoco, an exile at Milan, exerted through his writings, his newspaper articles, and Vichian propaganda, on the Italian patriots is universally recognized.  Among the regular readers of his Giornale Italiano we find Monti and Foscolo.  Clippings of his articles were treasured by Mazzini and Manzoni, who often acted as his secretary, called him his “master in politics."[5]