Giambatista Viko or the space of an intermedial mediality

When Giambatista Viko was published in 1975 critics were torn as to how to characterise it. For some it was a novel for others a short story for still others an essay. We wanted to understand one of the phenomena behind its exotic character: intermediality. How can we explain the presence of so many different scientific and artistic fields that permeate this text which the publisher has simply called a narrative? Can we speak of a fiction when the weak or strong polyphony turns it into a genuine serious illocution a scientific argument? What is the impact of the co-presence of several media in this single artefact? These are the questions we have tried to answer in three chapters. After a brief presentation of the theories of intermediality we defined the boundaries of the media in which the publisher has theoretically enclosed the work. Finally we examined intermediality as it operates in the text under study.