In the quarter-century since these books appeared, and in large part following from their example, microhistory has emerged as a significant historical genre. It has also increasingly split into two distinct currents, which might be labelled “the microhistory of the extraordinary” and the “microhistory of the ordinary.” The first and better-known of these takes as its principal subject either an extraordinary set of sources, or an extraordinary event, or both. Often drawing explicit inspiration from the cultural anthropology of Clifford Geertz, historians have used these materials as privileged texts offering points of entry into unfamiliar cultures. In many cases, the historians' own posture as intrepid explorers has reinforced this anthropological analogy: the silt of time having formed a thick coat over many of the cases, they came to light only thanks to the historians' own forays deep into the alien cultures buried under the dust and clutter of the archives. Thus Gene Brucker, exploring the rich notarial and judicial sources of early modern Florence, uncovered the bitter quarrel between Lusanna di Girolamo and her alleged secret husband Giovanni di Ser Lodovico della Casa. In the same sources, Judith Brown found a dossier pertaining to the life of a lesbian nun, Benedetta Carlini of Vellano, who was first investigated for her unusual mystical experiences, including the appearance of stigmata on her body. David Sabean's long-term social historical research in the archives of Württemberg turned up a number of fascinating episodes – including the murder of a village pastor and the live burial of a village bull – which he used to explore the relations between peasant communities and the state in early modern Germany.