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) 806 copies, 7 reviews
The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes on a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice (1991) 120 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
Religioni delle classi popolari 2 copies
High and low 2 copies
The 12 steps for Christians 1 copy
Czytać między wierszami 1 copy
Miti, emblemi, spie 1 copy
Associated Works
The New History: The 1980s and Beyond (Studies in Interdisciplinary History) (1983) — Contributor — 17 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- 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 - Associated Place (for map)
- Italy
Members
Reviews
Such a fascinating book! I knew that this book was a notable example of "microhistory," which Ginzburg is known for developing and practicing. It is a methodological practice of history that examines events through the small-scale interactions and words of individuals. Instead of looking at historical events and allowing them to be subsumed and explained by broad historical moments and their associated political and social paradigms, microhistory (as I understand it) works more inductively, show more moving from individuals to trace their connections to something bigger.
This particular microhistory tells the story of a 16th century miller who stood accused of heresy during the Counter-Reformation. Rather than talking about this case of heresy as exemplifying or echoing the politics of peasant uprisings or the teachings of the Protestant Reformation, Ginzburg spins a tale of Menocchio's (i.e., the miller's) interactions with artists, church officials, and farmers. It is about the books that Menocchio was known to have had and read. Ginzburg uses the very words of Menocchio's testimonies before the Inquisition to find echoes of points, errors, metaphors, and misconceptions from the books he had. Ginzburg then looks at church and accounting records to reveal the web of social relations that Menocchio had by virtue of his position as a miller. These connections, amplified by the accessibility of printed literature, show a 16th century world getting smaller due to connections between people across culture and geography and socio-political boundaries. And this web of interactions is what is offered to illuminate how Menocchio came to be accused of and called upon to account for his heretical thinking.
The book is a riveting, quick read and well worth it for the demonstration of microhistorical methods alone. show less
This particular microhistory tells the story of a 16th century miller who stood accused of heresy during the Counter-Reformation. Rather than talking about this case of heresy as exemplifying or echoing the politics of peasant uprisings or the teachings of the Protestant Reformation, Ginzburg spins a tale of Menocchio's (i.e., the miller's) interactions with artists, church officials, and farmers. It is about the books that Menocchio was known to have had and read. Ginzburg uses the very words of Menocchio's testimonies before the Inquisition to find echoes of points, errors, metaphors, and misconceptions from the books he had. Ginzburg then looks at church and accounting records to reveal the web of social relations that Menocchio had by virtue of his position as a miller. These connections, amplified by the accessibility of printed literature, show a 16th century world getting smaller due to connections between people across culture and geography and socio-political boundaries. And this web of interactions is what is offered to illuminate how Menocchio came to be accused of and called upon to account for his heretical thinking.
The book is a riveting, quick read and well worth it for the demonstration of microhistorical methods alone. show less
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.
quando vedo su un banco di libreria uno di quei tomi di centinaia di pagine, con titoli a sensazione e copertine a tinte forti che pretendono di spiegare che cosa sia stata la stregoneria, mi viene il nervoso e penso a Carlo Ginzburg.
In questo libro, circa 250 pagine di piccolo formato, il più originale storico modernista italiano in attività, ricostruisce una vicenda di ritualità magica, senza fronzoli, ma con grande rigore filologico.
E' stato il primo a ri-scoprire questi tipetti dei show more benandanti e poi molti ne hanno approffittato ma, a mio giudizio, l'originale resta sempre il migliore.
Uno di quei lavori dai quali si può evincere che la storiografia seria forse è un "mattone", ma non è mai una palla. show less
In questo libro, circa 250 pagine di piccolo formato, il più originale storico modernista italiano in attività, ricostruisce una vicenda di ritualità magica, senza fronzoli, ma con grande rigore filologico.
E' stato il primo a ri-scoprire questi tipetti dei show more benandanti e poi molti ne hanno approffittato ma, a mio giudizio, l'originale resta sempre il migliore.
Uno di quei lavori dai quali si può evincere che la storiografia seria forse è un "mattone", ma non è mai una palla. show less
‘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
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