The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg

Author:Carlo Ginzburg [Ginzburg, Carlo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2013-09-23T04:30:00+00:00

43

The interrogations ended on the 12th of May. Menocchio was conducted back to his cell. A few days passed. Finally, on the 17th, he refused the services of a lawyer, which had been offered him, and submitted a long letter to his judges in which he asked to be forgiven for his past errors—the letter that his son had asked him to write three months before, in vain.

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“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I, Domenego Scandella, called Menocchio of Montereal, am a baptized Christian and have always lived in a Christian way and have always performed Christian works, and I have always been obedient to my superiors and to my spiritual fathers to the best of my power, and always, morning and night, I crossed myself with the sign of the holy cross, saying, ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ And I recited the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria and the Credo with a prayer to our Lord and one to the Madonna. It is indeed true that I thought and believed and said, as appears in the trial records, things against the commandments of God and of the holy Church. I said them through the will of the false spirit who blinded my intellect and memory and will, making me think, believe, and say what was false and not true, and so I confess that I thought and believed and said what was false and not true and so I gave my opinion but I did not say that it was the truth. I want to take four words briefly as an example from Joseph, son of Jacob, when he was speaking with his father and with his brothers about certain dreams that revealed that they should adore him. For this his brothers became angry with him and wanted to kill him, but it did not please God that they should kill him, but, rather, that they should sell him. And so they sold him to certain Egyptian merchants who took him to Egypt where he was thrown in prison because of some transgressions. And the king Pharaoh had a dream where he thought he saw seven fat cows and seven lean ones, and no one could interpret this dream for him. He was told that there was a youth in prison who would know how to explain it, and so [Joseph] was taken from prison and led before the king. [Joseph] told him that the fat ones meant seven years of plenty, and the lean ones seven years of famine in which it would not be possible to find grain even to buy. And so the king believed him and made him chief and governor over the entire kingdom of Egypt. Then came the abundance and Joseph set aside enough grain to last for more than twenty years; then came the famine when it was not possible to find grain, even to buy.

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