Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese And The Worms

Walter Benjamin, Jewish philosopher and cultural critic, once said, “History is created by the victors.” Assuming that this belief is true, the question becomes what then happens to the losers? Carlo Ginzburg presents a similar notion in his book “The Cheese and the Worms.” Rather, his notion is “history is created by the literate.” Historically, the population who could read and write was limited to the well-to-do upper class. This proves to be a problem for historians who seek to know more about the lower class who seemingly left few traces of their lives. Literature has always been an important component in preserving culture and the beliefs of a population, but it cannot be assumed that the “high” and “low”, as Ginzburg refers to the upper and the lower class, had the same experiences or outlook on life. The lower, uneducated class has no way to preserve their way of life other than through oral culture, which can become distorted over the years. During his research Ginzburg stumbled across the 16th century manuscripts of the trial of Domenico
“I have said, in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together, and out of that bulk a mass formed—just as cheese is made out of milk—and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels” (page 5). The idea of worms and cheese if very similar to the 18th century belief of spontaneous generation. This theory was used to explain how maggots appeared on meat. Menocchio’s ideas combined both myth and science. Arguably, Menocchio was far ahead of his time. As an intellectual, Menocchio had tried to explain creation in terms of material things. He believed everything came from chaos and matter, even God. This works in stark contrast to the beliefs of the Catholic Church; however, it is not so different from beliefs that would later become accepted within