Menocchio

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the Italian Curia Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church see Giuseppe Bartolomeo Menocchio .

Domenico Scandella , called Menocchio (also: Menoch, Menochi; * 1532 ; † 1599 ) was a miller from the Italian village of Montereale Valcellina in Friuli , northern Italy , which lies directly at the transition from steep mountains to fertile flatlands. Menocchio was interrogated several times by the Inquisition and eventually convicted. In 1599, at the age of 67, he was finally burned at the stake . This was done on the instructions of Pope Clement VIII. The unusually extensive interrogation protocols that have been preserved are a historical source that gives a unique insight into the peasant religion and “popular materialism ” towards the end of the Middle Ages .

Carlo Ginzburg's study of Menocchio (in the original: Carlo Ginzburg: Il formaggio ei vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del '500 , published 1976) is one of the more recent trends in cultural history within historical studies .

The first trial

Menocchio lived - with the exception of two years, which he spent in nearby Arba - all of his life with his wife and seven children in the village of Montereale, which then had about 650 inhabitants. Menocchio could read, write and do arithmetic. In 1581 he was Podestà of Montereale and surrounding villages as well as administrator of the local parish.

On September 28, 1583, the pastor of Montereale (Don Odorico Vorai) reported Menocchio anonymously to the Inquisition as a heretic. There were numerous witnesses, so that on February 4, 1584, the Inquisitor (Franciscan Felice da Montefalco) ordered Menocchio's arrest and imprisoned him in Concordia prison. Menocchio was interrogated for the first time on February 7, 1584. On May 27, 1584, the verdict was announced: life imprisonment for particularly serious heresy because he had also spread his religious convictions to ordinary people and those who did not know how to write.

After almost two years in prison, Menocchio's son (Ziannuto Scandella) brought a petition for clemency on January 18, 1586: Menocchio wanted to live like a good Christian in the future, his health was ailing from prison and his family needed his labor. The inquisitors wanted to be gracious and released him under the conditions that he resettled in Montereale, did not leave the place and would wear the heretics' clothing for life (yellow robe with two large red crosses on his chest and back).

The second process

Despite his conviction as a heretic, Menocchio was nominated administrator of the parish of Santa Maria di Montereale in 1590. In 1595 he was called in as an appraiser in the event of a conflict of interest between the landowner and the tenant and leased another mill with a son (Stefano Scandella). Menocchio took part in the life of the village community. Due to the death of his son Ziannuto, however, the economic conditions worsened, so that he asked to be allowed to move outside his small village. This dispensation was granted to him by the Inquisition in early 1597 to avert poverty from the family.

However, Menocchio did not cease to speak frankly about his religious ideas. He confided in a Jew that he was a heretic and knew that sooner or later the Inquisition could kill him for it. However, he was old and alone - he didn't seem to get along with his children who were still alive - so that he could not even live his life. B. wanted to save by fleeing to Geneva.

When word got around that Menocchio doubted the divinity of Christ and the morality of Mary, the Inquisitor General of Friuli, Gerolamo Asteo, had him taken to Aviano prison and then to Portogruaro prison in June 1599. From July 12, 1599, he was interrogated again. Menocchio first admitted to having spoken against the Catholic faith in jest. Later he tried to justify his beliefs before the commission: of the four elements of nature, fire is God, while God the Father is the air, God the Son is the earth and the Holy Spirit is the water. On August 2nd, 1599 he was declared a heretic by the Friulian Inquisition. The Roman Inquisition was informed; on August 14, 1599, Cardinal Santori Menocchio sentenced to death on the basis of the trial files. The Friulian inquisitors, however, had doubts about the execution of the death sentence, which they formulated in a letter to Rome on September 5, 1599. Santori's answer of October 30, 1599 left no alternatives open: the judgment was also the will of Pope Clement VIII. Santori also insisted on the death sentence in a letter of November 13, 1599. According to this, only a letter from a notary dated January 26, 1600 gives information about Menocchio, in which Menocchio is written as the deceased.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carlo Ginzburg: The cheese and the worms. The world of a miller around 1600 . Frankfurt a. M. 1979, p. 104.

literature

• Carlo Ginzburg: The cheese and the worms. The world of a miller around 1600 . Syndicate , Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-8108-0118-6 .