Domenico Scandella, also known as Mennochio, was an Italian peasant who lived during the 1500s. He knew how to read a little, so was considered semi-educated, and it is known that he read a number of contemporary histories and religious works. The Roman Inquisition branded him a heretic for teaching a version of unorthodox Christianity to his fellow peasants – twice.
The first time he was accused, Mennochio abjured, and claimed to have reformed. He was sent home in 1586 but had to wear a burning cross on his clothing as a visible symbol of what he had done. In 1598 he was re-arrested for preaching, again, his own beliefs. At his questioning, he gave his rendition of Creation as he thought the Church had taught him. Taken from The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg (1976):
“I have said that, in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels. The most holy majesty decreed that these should be God and the angels, and among that number of angels there was also God, he too having been created out of that mass at the same time, and he was named lord with four captains, Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.”
Unfortunately this was considered blasphemy in the eyes of the Catholic Church. It did not help that at his trial Mennocchio also spoke out against masses helping the dead get out of purgatory, against the sacraments including baptism against Latin as the language of religion and the courts, and against the Church hierarchy’s wealth and abuse of the peasantry. He was burned at the stake in 1599.
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