Abstract
The aim of the article is to show the practical and theoretical implications of Furio Jesi’s critique of Johann Jakob Bachofen’s work. In the first part I focus on the main topics that define the author’s approach to the main ideas of the “Patrician of Basel”. This analysis is carried out by examining the essays Myth and Bachofen and the Relation to the Antiquity, which was supposed to be the first introduction to Jesi’s translation of the Mutterrecht. In the second part I shed light on the shift of perspective in Jesi’s thought between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s. In conclusion, I attempt to highlight the connection between this critical enquiry and the elaboration of the mythological machine model.