The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller

by Carlo Ginzburg

Other authorsJohn Tedeschi (Translator), Anne C. Tedeschi (Translator), Glen Burris (Cover designer)

Paperback, 1992

Status

Available

Call number

BR877.F74 G5613

Genres

History

General Nonfiction

Religion & Spirituality

Publication

Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, 1992). Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition, 5th printing. 208 pages

Description

The now-classic tale of a sixteenth-century miller facing the Roman Inquisition. The Cheese and the Worms is an incisive study of popular culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, the miller known as Menocchio, who was accused of heresy during the Inquisition and sentenced to death. Carlo Ginzburg uses the trial records to illustrate the religious and social conflicts of the society Menocchio lived in. For a common miller, Menocchio was surprisingly literate. In his trial testimony he made references to more than a dozen books, including the Bible, Boccaccio's Decameron, Mandeville's Travels, and a "mysterious" book that may have been the Koran. And what he read he recast in terms familiar to him, as in his own version of the creation: "All was chaos, that is earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and of that bulk a mass formed--just as cheese is made out of milk--and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels." Ginzburg's influential book has been widely regarded as an early example of the analytic, case-oriented approach known as microhistory. In a thoughtful new preface, Ginzburg offers his own corollary to Menocchio's story as he considers the discrepancy between the intentions of the writer and what gets written. The Italian miller's story and Ginzburg's work continue to resonate with modern readers because they focus on how oral and written culture are inextricably linked. Menocchio's 500-year-old challenge to authority remains evocative and vital today.… (more)

Media reviews

The Owl Has Flown, in [The Gutenberg elegies: the fate of reading in an electronic age]

Then there is the fascinating study of Menocchio, the sixteenth-century miller. Historian Carlo Ginzburg anatomizes his intellectual universe by triangulating between Menocchio's few books and the depositions taken at his trial for heresy. In The Cheese and the Worms, Ginzburg combines scholarly

excavation with shrewd surmise to suggest how this lettered worker assembled a cosmology--one coprised in part from the rich reserves of the dominantly oral culture, and in part from his intense and methodical, if also fanciful, readings of the few texts he owned.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member Stbalbach

The Cheese and the Worms is called 'microhistory', which doesn't mean only small, but typically the history of peasants tried for heresy drawing on the Inquisition for source documents to help reveal something about popular culture which is otherwise obscure. The Cheese and the Worms is probably

the most popular book of this genre. Menocchio seemingly arose from the ferment of uneducated peasant culture with sophisticated ideas about the cosmos. Ginzburg struggles to explain how he obtained ideas similar to high European culture. Indeed so did the Inquisition. Unsurprisingly the questions the Inquisition sought answers for (and documented) are what Ginzberg follows. It's never possible to conclude, but Menocchio himself says his cosmological ideas were self-invented, and this is probably true. There is no evidence of an underground organized heresy, rather an outspoken Uncle Bob sort of figure who doesn't know when to shut up about his peculiar ideas, shunned by his community, abandoned by his family, given every chance to reform - yet he goes on talking heresy. As Bobby Fuller Four might say, he fought the church and the church won.

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LibraryThing member heidilove

not the world's greatest mind, Ginzburg presents some fascinating data nonetheless. worth his shoddy conclusions to get to the raw material of the time.

LibraryThing member Othemts

A short historical work attempts to look into the cosmos of a 16th-century miller in the north of Italy. Based on transcripts and letters for his two trials for heresy, Ginzburg attempts to trace the origin of Menocchio's views and how they developed and contradicted his previously stated views.

Ginzburg uses this microhistory to ask whether Menocchio's cosmology represent great folk mythology of the time or if they're unique to this one heretic. It's a short but challenging read, and one with surprises - eg. despite his heresy Menocchio was chosen as mayor of his town and even in his trials his inquisitors are impressed and interested in his strange theology. They ultimately executed him all the same for a sad ending. Menocchio may a mad-man raving conspiracy theories on the T, yet his thought process is so complex it makes you wonder about what people describe as madness.

"Although the lower classes are no longer ignored by historians, they seem condemned, nevertheless, to remain 'silent.'" - p. xx

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LibraryThing member starbox

Ginzburg takes us into the mind of a 16th century Italian miller- Domenico Scandella AKA Menocchio - who, unusually, was literate and possessed of some very unusual views.
Some are stand-up opinions- a disbelief in the value of confession; some strangely misguided- if Christ had actually been

divine, he wouldn't have let himself be crucified - and some frankly off-the-wall - his explanation of creation: "all was chaos...and out of that bulk a mass formed - just as cheese is made out of milk - and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels."
One feels Menocchio would have been a fascinating person to converse with, his 'singular cosmogeny' all his own. Yet as someone who left no great legacy of useful thought, the reader soon wonders why he has a book devoted to him - we deplore his untimely end at the hands of the Inquisition, but still...
It seemed to me, as I read, that rather than being a study of one man, the author's interest was in teasing out the influences that put those ideas there. A number of different sources are investigated: obviously, the religious thoughts of the time, as the Reformation got going, but also politics (the peasant uprisings finding an echo in Menocchio's refusal to accept others - nobles or priests- having power over him). And books...he seemed to have read quite widely for the time, his thoughts a hotchpotch of elements from different works. And folk belief ...

This is a fairly dense albeit readable work. I made it halfway through. I took on board the many threads that go together to inform our belief system. But I just couldn't sustain enough interest in the man to pursue it any further.

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LibraryThing member rivkat

Odd little book, apparently a classic of the field. It’s hard to reconstruct the history of non-elites, and Ginzburg argues in opposition to those who say it can only be done through statistics. Reading records of an inquisition, Ginzburg identifies what he argues is a peasant tradition of

religious belief that contradicted a lot of Catholic doctrine, which the titular miller expressed when he was hauled up on blasphemy charges. The miller definitely seems to have had a well developed and elaborate theory of religion, though he struck me as a classic outsider whose own theories might not have been based on anything directly from a peasant tradition.

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LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom

This one I've actually read (amazing!) and just forgot to pack. If you have to read one history of Europe ever, this is a great one. It is a an outstanding look at a microslice of 16th-century Italy, where the author takes on the reconstruction of an entire world view as seen through the eyes of a

miller who had the sad misfortune to become a victim of the Inquisition. You won't look at history the same way after you've finished this book. This is absolutely one of my favorite books ever.

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LibraryThing member A.Godhelm

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.

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