GRAVINA, Gian Vincenzo. — Scholar and jurist, born at Rogiano (Cosenza) on 20 February 1664, died at Rome on 6 January 1718. He was introduced to classical studies by his cousin Gregorio Caloprese, a Cartesian, and pursued history and law in Naples. In 1689 he moved to Rome as secretary to Cardinal Pignatelli. In 1690 he was among the founders of the Arcadia and drafted its statutes in the archaic style of the Twelve Tables; however, he later dissented from the other Arcadians, finding their literary approach too superficial, and in 1711 left to found the Accademia dei Quirini.
He alternated literary studies with research into the history of law, and was not unconcerned with specifically moral and spiritual issues, as evidenced by the pamphlet *Hydra mystica sive de corrupta morali doctrina* (1691, under the pseudonym Priscus Censorinus Fotisticus), in which he denounced the dangers both of casuistry and of Protestant heresy. In 1699 Innocent XII appointed him to the chair of civil law at the University of Rome, following the publication of *Specimen priscî iuris* (1697), which revealed his juridical talent; in 1703 he moved to the chair of canon law. His originality lay in his reaction against the abstract natural-law theories of Cartesian inspiration, reconnecting law with history with a less synthetic but more immediately clear and effective mastery than that of Vico, who was his friend; thus he may be considered a precursor and stimulus to Vico himself, and one of the sources of Montesquieu. He developed these themes further in *De ortu et progressu iuris civilis* (1701), which became the first book of his definitive work, *Originum iuris civilis libri tres* (1708).
In literature his principal work is *Ragion poetica* (1708; see the ed. by G. Natali, Lanciano 1920), in which he returned to Aristotelian poetics to counter theatrical abuses, while insisting on the intrinsically moral value of literary practice; this foreshadowed and prepared the climate of the literary renewal of the eighteenth century. His five tragedies (1712), by contrast, were unsuccessful, though they helped combat the vanity of romantic tragedies by steering tragedy back toward history; in this regard, the treatise *Della tragedia* (1715) was more effective.
Noteworthy too are the discourses he wrote on the method of studies: *De instauratione studiorum* (1712), and the unpublished letters to Francesco Pignatelli, Bishop of Naples, in which he sketches the Roman events of the late seventeenth century.