Carlo Ginzburg

Carlo Ginzburg
Ginzburg in 2013
Born (1939-04-15) 15 April 1939 (age 85)
Turin, Italy
Alma materUniversity of Pisa
Occupation(s)Historian and microhistorian
Parent(s)Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg

Carlo Ginzburg (Italian: [ˈkarlo ˈɡintsburɡ]; born 15 April 1939) is an Italian historian and a proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for Il formaggio e i vermi (1976, English title: The Cheese and the Worms), which examined the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina.

In 1966, he published The Night Battles, an examination of the benandanti visionary folk tradition found in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Friuli in northeastern Italy. He returned to looking at the visionary traditions of early modern Europe for his 1989 book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath.


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