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

Author: Carlo Ginzburg Year: 1976 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Religion, Anthology Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780801843877 0801843871

The 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." Similar books: Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg Witches and Neighbors by Robin Briggs Inquisition by Toby Green The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara by David I. Kertzer Absolute Monarchs by John Julius Norwich A History of Contemporary Italy by Paul Ginsborg The Grand Inquisitor's Manual by Jonathan Kirsch A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich Dogs of God by James Reston Jr. The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg God's Secret Agents by Alice Hogge The House of Medici by Christopher Hibbert The Renaissance by Will Durant A Brief History of the Western World by Thomas H. Greer From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun The Evolution of Civilizations by Carroll Quigley The Civilization of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas Big Gods by Ara Norenzayan Religion in Human Evolution by Robert N. Bellah