The Cheese and the Worms

Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms offers the story of the miller Menocchio and an interpretation of the popular culture of the sixteenth century. Menocchio was the focus of a church inquisition because of his own views on God and faith – he was a reader and a thinker, and believed that his view of Christianity was better than that of the church. He had a unique view of the world colored by the unique way he read texts, which Ginzburg supposes is the juxtaposition of Menocchio's surrounding oral culture and the written word. Because of the abundance of documented material about Menocchio's trial, however, we have a uniquely wider view of Menocchio's life and beliefs than we do of almost any other individual of his time, and thus he gives us a valuable insight into the popular culture of the time, which of course was greatly controlled by the Church – as is evident in the ultimate silencing of Menocchio for his beliefs, which were seen as a denial of Catholicism and therefore an ultimate crime against God.

By Ginzburg's estimation, Church and religion, seen as superstitious and based outside of practical reality, hold back a civilization. There is a distinct sense in the Cheese and the Worms that pulling away from the fantastic and moving into the world of science and free thought outside of a religious construct is what it means to advance civilization.