This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.

1. 1. The Cheese And The Worms

   The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller

   

   Set in the late 16th century, this captivating historical narrative delves into the life of Menocchio, a miller from the Friuli region of Italy, who becomes embroiled in the Inquisition due to his unorthodox beliefs. Drawing from inquisitorial records, the story explores Menocchio's unique worldview, shaped by a blend of folk traditions, personal interpretations of religious texts, and a curious mind that challenges the established doctrines of the Catholic Church. His imaginative cosmology, likening the creation of the universe to the fermentation of cheese and worms, serves as a poignant reflection on the clash between popular culture and institutional authority during the Renaissance.

   The 17161st Greatest Book of All Time

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2. 2. The Judge & The Historian

   Marginal Notes on a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice

   

   Blending legal analysis and microhistorical inquiry, this study reexamines a late-twentieth-century Italian murder trial from the Years of Lead, scrutinizing witness testimony, memory, and documentary traces to reveal contradictions that underpinned the convictions. It contrasts judicial certainty with the historian’s probabilistic method, showing how political pressures and narrative closure can override doubt, and argues for a more rigorous, transparent approach to evidence to guard against miscarriages of justice.

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3. 3. Clues, Myths And The Historical Method

   

   A collection of essays that advances an “evidential” approach to history, showing how minute traces—gestures, slips, and marginal details—can reveal larger structures of belief, culture, and power. Drawing analogies with practices like connoisseurship, clinical diagnosis, and detective work, it argues that historians reconstruct the past through interpretive reasoning from fragmentary clues rather than through purely positivist proof. Ranging across topics such as myth, witchcraft, and visual culture, it models a microhistorical method that reads signs to illuminate broader historical realities and the limits of interpretation.

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