Notwithstanding the scarce evidence of a direct influence of the Vichian conception of history on Schiller's works, there are many commonalities between the historical visions elaborated by the two authors. In this essay, the author examines the parallel conceptions of rhetoric, as the key to an integral humanist knowledge, and as an alternative to Cartesian rationalism; the author also carries out an analysis of the discontinuities between Vico's cyclical representation of the historic evolution, and the Schillerian idea of the accomplishment of history as a cultural reinforcement of a primitive naivety.
