I RAMI D’ORO. DALLA MAGIA ALLA SCIENZA NUOVA: VICO E FRAZER

THE GOLDEN BOUGHS. VICO AND FRAZER FROM MAGIC TO NEW SCIENCE. The aim of this essay is to demonstrate some unexpected affinities between Giambattista Vico, author of The New Science (1744), and the Scottish anthropologist James G. Frazer, author of The Golden Bough (1890-1915). They were distant in time and different for culture, but we can assume that Frazer inherited from Vico — through Turgot and Comte — the idea of the cyclical three ages of History. Also the so called «ricorsi storici» (historical returns), set out in The New Science, perhaps had some influence into the frazerian idea about the presence of «survivals», or «relics of savage ignorance» in our modern society. Moreover, Vico and Frazer held in high esteem the poetic wisdom of the ancient world, and studied its extraordinary mythopoeic results. The philosophy of both thinkers remains perhaps an important tool to understand human creativity and, perhaps, to prevent dan-gerous drifts in History.