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Cheese and Worms

 

He wasn't shy about going against the authority of the priest. He felt his calling was to blaspheme and did so with pride. He sensed that evidence was mounting up against him and that suspicion became a reality when he was arrested, put in hand cuffs and sent to the Holy Office in Concordia.
             He had been warned about keeping quite. Menocchio went about defending himself, not by apologizing for speaking his views but by admitting the things he said but retracted their influence on his listeners by saying that he never told them what to believe. The inquisitors were trying to determine whether he was speaking out of jest, in earnest or if he was out of his mind. .
             Ziannuto, was the illiterate son of Menocchio, who proved to be the most diligent in trying to help his father, hiring an attorney and petitioned statements to help defend his father. Menocchio continued to seek forgiveness but wasn't really willing to retract anything he had said. He went on through out his trial to reveal that he questioned that Jesus was born of a virgin. He believed in the sacraments and child baptism but rejected the divine creation, and redemption. His argument against confession was that man had invented it and that we only needed to confess to God. He maintained that he believed that God the father, was the Master but it was less important to love God than his neighbor. He believed that God's image was that of authority.
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             There were two important sentences in the reading regards to understanding Ginzburg's text. The first is found in the twenty-fifth chapter. It is demonstrative of Menocchio's metaphoric language in which he attempts to deliver his idea of the creation; "I have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos and out of that bulk a mass formed-just as cheese is made out of milk-and worms appeared in it, and these were angles." This sentence is important because it enables the reader to understand the title of the book and understand Menocchio's perception of the creation.


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