Enfilade

Starting today, from ArtHist.net and the conference programme:

Vico, l’Antiquité et les Arts Visuels

Online and in-person, Besançon, MSHE Ledoux, 3–4 November 2025

On the occasion of the tricentenary of the first edition of La Scienza Nuova (Naples, 1725), this international conference aims to analyze, in an innovative and interdisciplinary way, a central aspect of Giambattista Vico’s work: the importance he attributes to images and visual signs, which he considers the original language, historically prior to the development of spoken language. Although he rarely mentions the arts, Vico’s thought allows us to understand the visual artifact of ancient civilizations as an image-object (factum) that embodies the way in which humans perceive, experience, and interpret the world, thus constituting their reality (the historical verum).

The corpus of his ancient visual sources, as well as the influence of his thought on Antiquity and on the creative imagination of the first “universals of imagination” and “ornamental metaphors” within the disciplines of Visual Studies, have never been studied as such by specialists. The exploration of these themes raises numerous methodological challenges and requires a multidisciplinary approach. The three sessions will address theories and histories of art and collecting, literary theory, iconology, mythology, heraldry and emblem studies, the history and comparative study of law, architecture, archaeology, palaeography, anthropology, museology, semiotics, the geography of perception, as well as the psychology and sociology of art, extending to design and the pedagogy of the imagination. The symposium will be broadcast live.

Contact: anna_eleanor.signorini@umlp.fr

m o n d a y ,  3  n o v e m b e r

Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85036141522?pwd=LJ4sv9sRfCIsrxMoSxTA1L9Oqlf2mG.1

9.00  Ouverture du colloque – Présentation par Anna E. Signorini

9.10  Session 1 | The Construction of Visual Knowledge from Antiquity to the Age of Vico
• Marcus Jan Bajema (Leyde) — Vico and the Longue Durée of Aegean Art (Vico et la longue durée de l’art égéen)
• Maurizio Harari (Université de Pavie) — Sul potente regno de’ toscani in Italia: architettura più antica, religione più tragica, arte militare più sapiente
• Italo Iasiello (Université de Naples Federico II) — Il contesto antiquario di Giambattista Vico: Napoli e l’Antichità nel primo Settecento
• Daniel Orrells (King’s College) — Vico and the Visual World of 18th-Century Antiquarianism

12.00  Déjeuner

14.30  Session 1 | The Construction of Visual Knowledge from Antiquity to the Age of Vico, continued
• Loredana Lorizzo (Université G. D’Annunzio de Chieti-Pescara) — Nella biblioteca di Giuseppe Valletta: Vico e la letteratura artistica

14.50  Session 2 | Semiotics, Law, Pedagogy, Design: Vico’s Iconic Thought
• Davide Luglio (Sorbonne) — La Scienza Nuova et la sémiotique figurale de G.B. Vico
• Osvaldo Sacchi (Université de la Campanie Luigi Vanvitelli) — Gli ‘universali fantastici’ di Vico e la ‘grande bellezza’ del diritto romano
• Donald Kunze (Pennsylvania State University) — Representing Nothing: Vico’s Induction and Inversion
• Marco Dallari (Bologne) — Disegno infantile e rappresentazione del mondo e di sè alla luce della théorie vichiana
• Oliver Reichenstein (Information Architects, Zurich) — (Inter)facing the Truth: Maker’s Knowledge in Human Centered Design

t u e s d a y ,  4  n o v e m b e r

Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89987641547?pwd=r3qY5x1duD4qhYqIU77eMJCctqv2a3.1

9.00  Dora d’Auria (UMLP Besançon, ISTA) — La connaissance des antiquités du Cilento à l’époque de Vico

9.20  Session 3 | Modern and Contemporary Receptions of Vico in the Visual Arts and Visual Studies
• Silvia Davoli (Oxford et Strawberry Hill House, Londres) — Vico and Antiquarian Collecting in Milan during the 19th Century
• Paolo Heritier (Université de Turin) — Vico, les emblèmes et les Legal Visual Studies
• Frances S. Connelly (Université du Missouri-Kansas City) — Reimagining Culture: Vico’s Poetic Monsters in Contemporary Art
• Isabela Gaglianone (Université de São Paulo) — Vico et le regard philologique d’Aby Warburg
• Anna Eleanor Signorini (UMLP Besançon, ISTA) — Vico vu par les critiques d’art du XXe siècle