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Carlo Ginzburg: Reflections on the intellectual cosmos of a 20th-century historian

2004; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2003.08.004

1873-541X

Tony Molho,

Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

Abstract Carlo Ginzburg is best known as the author of a popular and widely commented work of microstoria Il formaggio e i vermi, published in 1976. Rather than focusing on Ginzburg's contributions to the genre of microstoria, or on the development of his long and very productive scholarly career, my aim in this article is to reflect on a set of themes that recur, with impressive persistence, in his work, from his earliest publications in the mid-1960s, to his most recent works. Above all, I suggest that two elements recur in his work, and that these, jointly, impart upon it its defining character. They are the concern with epistemological issues of knowing, and the ethical conception of the historian's work, which Ginzburg expressess and defends with urelenting rigour. ☆ The passages from Ginzburg's works that I cite in the following pages come from available translations, although I have on occasion felt free to adjust them to render a more literal meaning. To avoid the use of numerous footnotes, I have adopted a simple system of notation: When a work of Ginzburg's is referred to for the first time, I offer a full footnote reference to it. Subsequent references to this work are documented by a reference, in the text and in parentheses, to the letter G (for Ginzburg), the work's year of publication, and the appropriate page number. Thus, (G 1966, 3) refers to Ginzburg, I Benandanti, 1966, p. 3. Works not written by Ginzburg are cited in footnotes. A complete bibliography of Ginzburg's publications is found in Uno storico, un mugnaio, un libro. Carlo Ginzburg, Il formaggio e i vermi 1976–2002, a cura di Aldo Colonello e Andrea Del Col (Montereale Valcellina, 2002), pp. 165–187. Notes ☆ The passages from Ginzburg's works that I cite in the following pages come from available translations, although I have on occasion felt free to adjust them to render a more literal meaning. To avoid the use of numerous footnotes, I have adopted a simple system of notation: When a work of Ginzburg's is referred to for the first time, I offer a full footnote reference to it. Subsequent references to this work are documented by a reference, in the text and in parentheses, to the letter G (for Ginzburg), the work's year of publication, and the appropriate page number. Thus, (G 1966, 3) refers to Ginzburg, I Benandanti, 1966, p. 3. Works not written by Ginzburg are cited in footnotes. A complete bibliography of Ginzburg's publications is found in Uno storico, un mugnaio, un libro. Carlo Ginzburg, Il formaggio e i vermi 1976–2002, a cura di Aldo Colonello e Andrea Del Col (Montereale Valcellina, 2002), pp. 165–187. 1 Hannah Arendt, 'Introduction,' in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, edited and with an Introduction by Hannah Arendt (New York, 1968), pp. 1–55: 3–4. 2 Keith Luria and Romolo Gandolfo, 'Carlo Ginzburg, An Interview,' Radical History Review, 35 (1986), pp. 89–111: 100. Cited in the text as G. 1986. 3 Miti emblemi spie. Morfologia e storia (Torino, 1986). Cited in the text as G. 1986. First, partially, published in German as Spurensicherungen. Über verbogene Geschichte, Kunst and Soziales gedächtnis (Berlin, 1983). 4 I. Benandanti, Stregoneria e culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento (Torino). Second Italian edition, 1972. [Cited in text as 1966/1972.] French translation: Les batailles nocturnes: sorcellerie et rituels agraires en Frioul, xvi–xviie siécles (Paris, 1980). [Cited in text as 1966/1980.] 5 Da A. Warburg a E.H. Gombrich, Note su un problema di metodo, Studi medievali, (3, 7) (1966) 1015–1065 [Cited in the text as 1966a/1986.]. 6 The original passage is in Gertrud Bing, 'Introduzione," to Aby Warburg, La rinascita del paganesimo antico. Contributi alla storia della cultura (Firenze, 1980), pp. IX–XXXI: XIV. 7 Paola Zambelli, ' Uno, due, tre, mille Menocchio," Archivio storico italiano, 137 (1979), pp. 51–90; Paola Zambelli, 'From Menocchio to Piero della Francesca: the Work of Carlo Ginzburg,' The Historical Journal, 28, 4 (1985), pp. 983–999. 8 'L' inquisitore come antropologo' in Studi in onore di Armando Saitta dei suoi allievi pisani, a cura di Regina Pozzi e Adriano Prosperi (Pisa, 1989), pp. 23–33. 9 Il nicodemismo. Simulazione e dissimulazione religiosa nell' Europa del '500 (Torino, 1970). 10 Il formaggio e i vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del '500 (Torino, 1976). 11 Indagini su Piero. Il Battesimo, il ciclo di Arezzo, la Flagellazione di Urbino (Torino, 1981). 12 Storia notturna. Una decifrazione del sabba (Torino, 1989). 13 Miti emblemi spie. Morfologia e storia (Torino, 1986). First, partially, published in German as Spurensicherungen. Über verbogene Geschichte, Kunst und Soziales gedächtnis (Berlin, 1983). 14 Occhiacci di legno. Nove considerazioni sulla distanza (Milano, 1998). 15 History, Rhetoric, and Proof (London and Hanover, N.H., 1999). Italian translation as Rapporti di forza. Storia, retorica, prova (Milan, 2000). [Cited in text as 1999/2000]. 16 No Island is an Island. Four Glances at English Literature in a World Perspective (New York, 2000). 17 'Spie. Radici di un paradigma indiziario, in Crisi della ragione. Nuovi modelli nel rapporto tra sapere e attività umane, a cura di Aldo Gargani (Torino, 1979), pp. 59–106. [Cited in the text as 1979/1986]. 'Spie. Radici di un paradigma scientifico, Rivista di storia contemporanea 7 (1978), pp. 1–14. 18 'Just One Witness,' in Probing the Limits of Representation. Nazism and "Final Solution" ed. Saul Friedlander (Cambridge, MA, 1992), pp. 82–96, 350–355. [Italian text: 'Unus testis. Lo sterminio degli Ebreı́ e il principio de realtà,' Quaderni storici, 80 (1992) pp. 529–548.] 19 Giochi di pazienza, Un seminario sul 'Beneficio di Cristo' (Torino, 1975) (with Adriano Prosperi). 20 History, Rhetoric, and Proof (London and Hanover, N.H., 1999). Italian translation as Rapporti di forza. Storia, retorica, prova (Milan, 2000). [Cited in text as 1999/2000.] Dedicated to Arnaldo Momigliano and Italo Calvino, the book's Italian version offers an additional tribute to Calvino by appropriating the title of one of Calvino's chapters (rapporti di forza) in his book Una pietra sopra. 21 One can perhaps begin to understand the complex meanings of the term indiziario by referring to the term's definition in Niccolò Tommaseo e Bernardo Bellini, Dizionario della lingua italiana (Torino, 1865) ad vocem: "Diconsi cause indiziarie quelle in cui non si hanno prove dirette dei fatti da cui la causa dipende, ma solamente indizi; nelle quali perciò la certezza morale risulta da un complesso di numerose e minute circostanze, di cui una sola od anche parecchie insieme non varrebbero a costituire una prova." 22 Antonio Pinelli, 'Storia e storia dell' arte. Per uno statuto della prova indiziaria. In margine a "Indagini su Piero" di Carlo Ginzburg,' Quaderni Storici, 50 (1982), pp. 692–701: 692. 23 Pinelli, pp. 693, 695. 24 Pinelli, p. 701. 25 'Mostrare e dimostrare: risposta a Pinelli e altri critici, Quaderni storici, 50 (1982), pp. 702–727. 26 Edward Muir, 'Introduction: Observing Trifles,' in Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe, ed. by Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimore, MD, 1991), pp. vii–xxviii: xiii–xiv. 27 'Mitologia germanica e nazismo: su un vecchio libro di Georges Dumézil', Quaderni storici 57 (1984), pp. 857–882. [Cited in text as 1984a/1986.] 28 A. Momigliano, 'Premesse per una discussione su Georges Dumézil,' Opus, II (1983). 29 Il giudice e lo storico. Considerazioni in margine al processo Sofri (Torino, 1991). English translation as The Judge and the Historian. Marginal Notes on a Late Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice (London, 1999). [Cited in text as 1991/1999]. 30 Citations in the text are to the English version, because it was based on the revised French edition that had appeared in 1997. 31 Le cas Sofri: un jugement honteux. Le Monde, 6 février 2000, 1. 32 Checking the Evidence: The Judge and the Historian. Critical Inquiry, 18, n. 1 (Autumn 1991), pp. 79–92. [Republished in Questions of Evidence. Proof, Practice and Persuasion Across the Disciplines, ed. By James Chandler, Arnold I. Davidson and Harry Harrotunian (Chicago, 1994), pp. 290–303, to which reference is made in the text as 1991a/1994.] 33 To the best of my knowledge, the first book-length translation in Italian of Benjamin's works had appeared in 1962, Angelus Novus: Saggi e frammenti (Torino, 1962). Interestingly, it had been published by Einaudi, the firm that from 1966 until 1998 would be Ginzburg's Italian publisher. 34 David Frisby, 'The flâneur in Social Theory,' in The Flâneur, ed. by Keith Tester (London, 1994), pp. 81–110: 99. 35 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, V, p. 969. 36 M. Opitz, 'Lesen und Flanieren. Über das Lesen van Städten, von Flanieren in Büchen,' in Aber Ein Sturm weht von Paradies Her. Text Walter Benjamin (Leipzig, 1992), pp. 162–181: 178. 37 Matti Peltonen, 'Clues, Margins, and Monads: The Micro-Macro Link in Historical Research,' History and Theory, 40 (2001), pp. 347–359. 38 Peltonen, p. 349. Only a little before Peltonen published his essay, I had made very much the same point in my presentation to the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, in January 2001, eventually published in Tony Molho, 'Riflessioni sull' epistemologia di Ginzburg,' in Uno storico, un mugnaio, un libro…pp. 35–41. This is also the point forcefully made by Jacques Revel in the Introduction to the collective volume Jeux d'échelles: la micro-analyse à l'expérience: textes rassemblés et présentés par Jacques Revel (Paris, 1996). 39 I follow the text in Walter Benjamin, Sul concetto di storia, a cura di Gianfranco Bonola e Michele Ranchetti (Torino, 1997), p. 50, 52. 40 Only after finishing this essay, did I read Ginzburg's 'Machiavelli. L' eccezione e la regola. Linee di una ricerca in corso,' Quaderni storici 38 (2003), pp. 195–213. A much shorter version of this paper was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Historical Association, in Boston. I am grateful to Jim Amelang, organizer of the panel devoted to Carlo Ginzburg's Il formaggio e i vermi for his invitation to participate in that encounter. In anticipation of this meeting, I taught a seminar at Brown University's History Department, in autumn, 2000, and wish to thank my students, especially Francesco Borghesi, Mira Edwards, and Brina Goldfarb, for the help they gave me in beginning to think, more carefully than I had before, about Ginzburg's work. Several friends read different versions of this article and I am grateful to them for their suggestions: They are Rika Benveniste, Rita Costa Gomes, Jules Kirshner, Socrates Petmezas, Jacques Revel, Athina Voyazoglou, and Gordon Wood. Above all, I am grateful to Zetta Gotsi, a splendidly supportive critic.