Overview

The fiftieth-anniversary edition of the 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. In the fiftieth anniversary edition of this now-classic book, 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 massively influential book has been widely regarded as an early example of the analytic, case-oriented approach known as microhistory. In the 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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Carlo Ginzburg (Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Italian Renaissance Studies and Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Ital, UCLA) ,  John Tedeschi ,  Carlo Ginzburg (Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Italian Renaissance Studies and Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Ital, UCLA) ,  Anne C. Tedeschi
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Edition:   Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.340kg
ISBN:  

9781421454634

ISBN 10:   1421454637
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   28 April 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Language:   Italian

Table of Contents

Contents Preface to the 2013 Edition Translators' Note Preface to the English Edition Preface to the Italian Edition Acknowledgements 1. Menocchio 2. The town 3. First interrogation 4. ""Possessed?"" 5. From Concordia to Portogruaro 6. ""To speak out against his superiors"" 7. An archaic society 8. ""They oppress the poor"" 9. ""Lutherans"" and Anabaptists 10. A miller, a painter, a buffoon 11. ""My opinions came out of my head"" 12. The books 13. Readers of the town 14. Printed pages and ""fantastic opinions"" 15. Blind alley? 16. The temple of the virgins 17. The funeral of the Madonna 18. The father of Christ 19. Judgment day 20. Mandeville 21. Pigmies and cannibals 22. ""God of nature"" 23. The three rings 24. Written culture and oral culture 25. Chaos 26. Dialogue 27. Mythical cheeses and real cheeses 28. The monopoly over knowledge 29. The words of the Fioretto 30. The function of metaphors 31. ""Master,"" ""steward,"" and ""workers"" 32. An hypothesis 33. Peasant religion 34. The soul 35. ""I don't know"" 36. Two spirits, seven souls, four elements 37. The flight of an idea 38. Contradictions 39. Paradise 40. A new ""way of life"" 41. ""To kill priests"" 42. A ""new world"" 43. End of the interrogations 44. Letter to the judges 45. Rhetorical figures 46. First sentence 47. Prison 48. Return to the town 49. Denunciations 50. Nocturnal dialogue with the Jew 51. Second trial 52. ""Fantasies"" 53. ""Vanities and dreams"" 54. ""Oh great, omnipotent, and holy God..."" 55. ""If only I had died when I was fifteen"" 56. Second sentence 57. Torture 58. Scolio 59. Pellegrino Baroni 60. Two millers 61. Dominant culture and subordinate culture 62. Letters from Rome Notes Index of Names

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Author Information

Carlo Ginzburg has taught at the University of Bologna, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He is the recipient of the 2010 International Balzan Prize and the author of Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method.

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