The Cheese And The Worms: The Cosmos Of A Sixteenth-Century Miller

As the previous chapters illustrate, Menocchio’s manner of interacting with the Inquisition had remained relatively unchanged between the first and second trials, but the content of his religious ideology had developed in intriguing ways. Another change that Ginzburg highlights is Menocchio’s seeming adoption of a new pseudo-prophetic identity, which the author theorizes might have been derivative of the mystical prophetic language in the Koran (101). Furthermore, his core belief in religious tolerance now seemed to be derived from an equal apathy towards the earthly religious institutions of various faiths, rather than a belief in spiritual equality across cultures (100).

Chapter 54 is another composed of raw primary source material, this time a missive submitted by Menocchio to the inquisitors after this first round of interrogation. The note has a strikingly sorrowful tone, as Menocchio bemoans the isolation he has experienced as a result of his heresy, particularly from his own children, and wishes he had died when he was 15 to spare himself and his loved ones the social shame brought by his conviction. Melchiori once again attempted to protect Menocchio, writing an endorsement of the miller at the bottom of this same note, but this time, his defense was relatively feeble. Ginzburg perceives the anguish and resignation in Menocchio’s tone to be an authentic expression of his emotional state in this particular moment (103).

In July 1599, a second interrogation led to the ruling that Menocchio was a relapsed heresiarch. Ginzburg notes that Menocchio was unable to provide for legal counsel as he had in the previous trial, in part because of the interim death of his most supportive son, Ziannuto. In the aftermath of the sentencing, Menocchio was tortured and his house was searched. Some of his personal writings were confiscated, but these have not survived for historians to examine. During the torture session, Menocchio was subjected to the strappado, but refused to name any accomplices to his heresy. Ginzburg speculates that Menocchio was hiding something from the inquisitors, but cannot confirm this instinct (105).

Beginning in Chapter 58, Ginzburg begins to address cases of heresy similar to Menocchio’s from roughly the same time period and region. The first such case is that of Scolio, the pseudonym for the author of Settenario, an unpublished heretical poem written 20 years before the first of Menocchio’s trials. The poem endorses religious tolerance, practical application of religious morality, and the formation of a new utopian society based on these principles. Ginzburg uses Scolio’s writings as evidence that his proposed peasant culture was not unique to Menocchio, but was in fact shared by other radical peasant thinkers (111).

Even more similar to Menocchio is the example of Pellegrino Baroni, who was also a miller. Baroni put forward an egalitarian vision of Paradise, sparred rhetorically with his inquisitors, and refused to admit to having any accomplices. Based on this striking similarity, Ginzburg puts forward one of his most speculative arguments yet: that millers were more prone to engaging in heretical belief than others because of their working conditions. He calls them “an occupational group especially receptive to new ideas and inclined to propagate them” (114).

Ginzburg traces Baroni’s introduction to heretical thought to a clandestine meeting in Bologna at the house of Vicenzo Bolognetti, where the famous heretic Camillo Renato is known to have spoken. Also present at this meeting, he asserts, was Turca, the translator of De Trinitatis erroribus, a text which Ginzburg previously theorized was read by Menocchio. Within this one meeting, therefore, Ginzburg perceives a surprisingly small network of heretical thinkers across Northern Italy, drawing direct connections between Menocchio and other known peasant radicals, all within the home of a nobleman.

Now approaching the end of his analysis, Ginzburg reaffirms his belief in an undercurrent of peasant culture, invisible to modern historians, but nonetheless socially and ideologically influential. He furthermore refutes this idea of monodirectional idea transmission from upper classes to lower classes (119). He understands increasing efforts at suppression of popular culture during the period, through institutions such as the Inquisition, as an upper-class effort towards quelling this circularity.

By autumn 1599, word of Menocchio’s heresy had reached the Pope himself, who determined that the miller should be killed as an example for others. On the eve of the 17th century, Menocchio was burned at the stake, and reports of his death reach the historical record by 1601.