Carlo Ginzburg (1939–2026)
Author of The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
About the Author
Carlo Ginzburg is Professor Emeritus of History at UCLA and the author of, among other things, The Night Battles and The Cheese and the Worms (the first of his hooks to appear in English, winning instant acclaim).
Works by Carlo Ginzburg
The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966) 811 copies, 7 reviews
The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes on a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice (1991) 121 copies, 1 review
A micro-história e outros ensaios 5 copies
L'Italia: regioni e paesaggi — Author — 2 copies
Indagini su Piero. Il «Battesimo», il ciclo di Arezzo, la «Flagellazione» di Urbino. Nuova ediz. (2022) 2 copies
La letra mata. 2 copies
High and low 2 copies
Religioni delle classi popolari 2 copies
Czytać między wierszami 1 copy
The 12 steps for Christians 1 copy
Associated Works
The New History: The 1980s and Beyond (Studies in Interdisciplinary History) (1983) — Contributor — 17 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Ginzburg, Carlo
- Birthdate
- 1939-04-15
- Date of death
- 2026-06-17
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Pisa (dottore in Lettere | 1961)
Scuola Normal Superiore, Pisa - Occupations
- historian
art historian
professor - Organizations
- University of Bologna
Institute for Advanced Study
University of California, Los Angeles
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa - Awards and honors
- Balzan Prize (2010)
Aby Warburg Prize (1992)
American Philosophical Society (International Member, 2013)
Erasmus Medal (2009)
Academia Europaea (2009) - Relationships
- Ginzburg, Natalia (mother)
Ginzburg, Leone (father)
Ciammitti, Luisa (wife) - Short biography
- Carlo Ginzburg is an Italian historian who comes from a distinguished Italian literary and political family. His father was Leone Ginzburg (1909-1944) and his mother was Natalia Levi Ginzburg (1916-1991). He attended one of Italy's most prestigious secondary schools before receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Pisa. He became known as an innovative historian with the publication of his book Night Battles. After teaching in Italian universities, he came to the USA in 1973 to serve as a visiting professor. He was appointed Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Italian Renaissance Studies at UCLA in 1988. He was instrumental persuading the Vatican to open its archives on the Inquisition to scholars and researchers.
- Nationality
- Italy
- Birthplace
- Turin, Italy
- Places of residence
- Turin, Italy
Pisa, Italy
Los Angeles, California, USA
Bologna, Emilia Romagna, Italy - Place of death
- Bologna, Italy
- Associated Place (for map)
- Italy
Members
Reviews
A great account of the inquisition of a miller who can read and think independently which turns into a major problem in the 16th century. His own personal religion is a bizarre collection of folk wisdom and logic applied to a theology of which he only partially understands the orthodox version in the first place. He's also stubborn and unrepentant enough to come back for seconds after getting clemency for a sentence that nearly kills him. Fascinating character.
‘The sequence cheese-worms-angels-holy majesty-God, the most powerful of the men-angels, had been abbreviated along the way to that of cheese-worms-men-God, the most powerful among men.’
Such an engrossing analysis of a 16th century heresy trial, Menocchio is such an inspiring figure (aside from his all too human lapses and contradictions when he becomes too verbose and realises he won’t achieve clemency, denying what he had previously said and in the process demeaning himself). His show more individual musings on Christian theology, with his radical humanist assertion that the love of one’s neighbour supersedes the love of God in importance, as well as his invocations of oral traditions and influences ranging from the Quran to pantheism to the Anabaptists to the Lutherans even through to the Greek conception of chaos, were immensely enjoyable to read. I feel like him and Judge Schreber would have recorded an absolutely great podcast over goblets of mead in some tavern.
It’s also darkly amusing to reflect on just how willing religious authorities were to employ methods of torture and months of interrogations on a man who everybody was pretty much assured posed no real threat - it’s so strange to think that the Pope himself stooped so low as to sign and intensely follow the progress of this man’s death warrant. He was externally submissive to the daily trappings of the Church (following Pascal’s advice a whole century before he penned it), had no real interest in converting those around him to his fancies (he himself was always careful to say he never wished his family to share his views, and that his thoughts were mere opinions and not the truth) and was a greatly appreciated member of his society, even being allowed to work in the Church after being branded a heretic and forced to don the habitello which he hated so much. In spite of the torture, the years of prison he endured and the illness and frailty he fell prey to, he never once ratted on those companions to who he may have indulged both his mind and tongue on rare occasions. Shoutout to Menocchio, the man who made the Inquisition his bitch in the only way a self-taught Miller could. show less
Such an engrossing analysis of a 16th century heresy trial, Menocchio is such an inspiring figure (aside from his all too human lapses and contradictions when he becomes too verbose and realises he won’t achieve clemency, denying what he had previously said and in the process demeaning himself). His show more individual musings on Christian theology, with his radical humanist assertion that the love of one’s neighbour supersedes the love of God in importance, as well as his invocations of oral traditions and influences ranging from the Quran to pantheism to the Anabaptists to the Lutherans even through to the Greek conception of chaos, were immensely enjoyable to read. I feel like him and Judge Schreber would have recorded an absolutely great podcast over goblets of mead in some tavern.
It’s also darkly amusing to reflect on just how willing religious authorities were to employ methods of torture and months of interrogations on a man who everybody was pretty much assured posed no real threat - it’s so strange to think that the Pope himself stooped so low as to sign and intensely follow the progress of this man’s death warrant. He was externally submissive to the daily trappings of the Church (following Pascal’s advice a whole century before he penned it), had no real interest in converting those around him to his fancies (he himself was always careful to say he never wished his family to share his views, and that his thoughts were mere opinions and not the truth) and was a greatly appreciated member of his society, even being allowed to work in the Church after being branded a heretic and forced to don the habitello which he hated so much. In spite of the torture, the years of prison he endured and the illness and frailty he fell prey to, he never once ratted on those companions to who he may have indulged both his mind and tongue on rare occasions. Shoutout to Menocchio, the man who made the Inquisition his bitch in the only way a self-taught Miller could. show less
History tends to focus on the big people and big events. With The Cheese and the Worms, Ginzberg shows that examining history with the equivalent of a microscope can be equally enlightening. In telling the story of Mennochio, a too-smart-for-his-own-good, free-thinking miller during the Roman inquisition, we learn about the underdocumented life and religious beliefs of the peasant class. Ginzberg connects Mennochio’s heterodox and heretical religious beliefs with a vast, ancient show more undercurrent of peasant spirituality that was, of course, at odds with the ruling class. This book is testament to the fact that outside the halls of power, where standards, regulations, and dogma rule, the average person’s beliefs are often surprisingly weird. A persecution that seems like it was motivated by religion when seen from the perspective of typical historical inquiry, suddenly seems more like an oppressive tactic meant to keep the underclass in line. The irony of typical historiography is that the beliefs, practices, and thoughts of the vast majority of the population is rarely as well preserved as those in power, tipping the scales away from knowledge about how most people actually lived. Ginzberg’s book stakes a more radical path at interpreting history, and by zooming in so closely, actually provides a panorama of an under-documented facet of the time period. show less
Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms offers the story of the miller Menocchio and an interpretation of the popular culture of the sixteenth century. Menocchio was the focus of a church inquisition because of his own views on God and faith – he was a reader and a thinker, and believed that his view of Christianity was better than that of the church. He had a unique view of the world colored by the unique way he read texts, which Ginzburg supposes is the juxtaposition of Menocchio’s show more surrounding oral culture and the written word. Because of the abundance of documented material about Menocchio’s trial, however, we have a uniquely wider view of Menocchio’s life and beliefs than we do of almost any other individual of his time, and thus he gives us a valuable insight into the popular culture of the time, which of course was greatly controlled by the Church – as is evident in the ultimate silencing of Menocchio for his beliefs, which were seen as a denial of Catholicism and therefore an ultimate crime against God.
By Ginzburg's estimation, Church and religion, seen as superstitious and based outside of practical reality, hold back a civilization. There is a distinct sense in the Cheese and the Worms that pulling away from the fantastic and moving into the world of science and free thought outside of a religious construct is what it means to advance civilization. show less
By Ginzburg's estimation, Church and religion, seen as superstitious and based outside of practical reality, hold back a civilization. There is a distinct sense in the Cheese and the Worms that pulling away from the fantastic and moving into the world of science and free thought outside of a religious construct is what it means to advance civilization. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 49
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 4,819
- Popularity
- #5,211
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 46
- ISBNs
- 240
- Languages
- 22
- Favorited
- 11
