Was Vico appreciated in the course of the eighteenth century? Did any one read him, understand him and follow his lead? The question has been answered with equal decision in the affirmative and the negative. The affirmative answer has been supported by a diligent collection of scattered passages up and down the writers of the century mentioning his name and doctrines and an accumulation of possible or apparent traces of his thoughts visible though unacknowledged in Italian and foreign literature. But a thinker like Vico can only be said to be known when his fundamental thought has been grasped and the spirit that animated him has been felt. Now the majority of the facts alleged as proof of the efficacy of his work concerns particular doctrines detached from the whole and accepted or contested just like those of any other scholar and critic or any paradox-monger of his time. This is true in the first place of his theory on the origin of the Twelve Tables, discussed in the controversy between Bernardo Tanucci and Guido Grandi from 1728 to 1731, contested in 1736 by Damiano Romano, accepted in France by Bonamy in 1735 and recalled in 1750 by Terrasson; of the views on the history and primitive government of Rome, mentioned by Chastellux, adopted and expanded by Duni, and used by Du Bignon who learnt them from Duni; of the hypotheses as to the prehistoric period and the origins of humanity, employed and modified by Boulanger in France and Mario Pagano in Italy; and lastly, of some conceptions upon poetry and language which reappear in Pagano, Cesarotti and some others.
A more essential question was that of the method of studying and judging political institutions and laws; a question upon which Montesquieu has been compared with Vico and accused of freely using the _Scienza Nuova_ without acknowledging his debt. It is now established through Montesquieu's journal that in 1728 Antonio Conti at Venice advised the future author of the _Esprit des Lois_ to buy Vico's book at Naples; and Montesquieu must have followed this advice on reaching Naples in the following year; for a copy of the 1725 edition of the _Scienza Nuova_ is still preserved in the library at the château of La Brède. But the mind of the French writer was too different from and inferior to that of Vico to draw vital nourishment from a work such as the _Scienza Nuova;_ and the traces of imitation alleged to have been discovered in the _Esprit des Lois_ are very doubtful and in any case of minor importance. It must be said on the other hand that the merit generally attributed to Montesquieu of having introduced the historical element into positive laws and thus considering legislation in a truly philosophical manner (as Hegel said later), that is, as a moment depending upon a totality relative to all the other determinations which go to form the character of a people or a period; this merit, in order both of time and of excellence, belongs in reality to Vico.