The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century MillerThe Cheese and the Worms is a study of the popular culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, a miller brought to trial during the Inquisition. Carlo Ginzburg uses the trial records of Domenico Scandella, a miller also known as Menocchio, to show how one person responded to the confusing political and religious conditions of his time. 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." |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - Othemts - LibraryThingA 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 ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - heidilove - LibraryThingnot the world's greatest mind, Ginzburg presents some fascinating data nonetheless. worth his shoddy conclusions to get to the raw material of the time. Read full review
Contents
Menocchio | 1 |
The town | 4 |
First interrogation | 5 |
Possessed? | 6 |
From Concordia to Portogruaro 6 To speak out against his superiors | 12 |
An archaic society | 13 |
They oppress the poor | 16 |
A miller a painter a buffoon | 21 |
Peasant religion | 68 |
The soul | 69 |
I dont know | 70 |
Two spirits seven souls four elements | 72 |
Contradictions | 75 |
Paradise | 76 |
A new way of life | 79 |
To kill priests SO 42 A new world | 81 |
head | 27 |
The books | 28 |
Readers of the town | 30 |
Printed pages and fantastic opinions | 32 |
The temple of the virgins | 34 |
The father of Christ | 36 |
Judgment day | 37 |
Mandeville | 41 |
Pigmies and cannibals | 44 |
God of nature | 47 |
The three rings | 49 |
Written culture and oral culture | 51 |
Chaos | 52 |
Dialogue | 54 |
Mythical cheeses and real cheeses | 56 |
The monopoly over know ledge | 58 |
The words of the Fioretio | 60 |
The function of metaphors | 62 |
An hypothesis | 65 |
End of the interrogations | 86 |
Letter to the judges | 87 |
Rhetorical figures | 90 |
Prison | 93 |
Return to the town | 95 |
Denunciations | 98 |
Second trial | 102 |
Fantasies | 103 |
Vanities and dreams 206 | 107 |
Oh great omnipotent and holy God 208 | 108 |
If only I had died when I was fifteen | 109 |
Second sentence | 110 |
Scolio | 112 |
Master steward and workers 62 | 115 |
Pellegrino Baroni | 118 |
Two millers | 119 |
Notes 229 | 129 |
Index of Names | 171 |
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The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller Carlo Ginzburg Limited preview - 2013 |