His name was Domenico Scandella, but he was called Menocchio. He was born in 1532 (at his first trial he claimed he was fifty-two years old) in Montereale, a small hill town of the Friuli twenty-five kilometers north of Pordenone at the foot of the mountains, Here he had always lived, except for two years when he was banished following a brawl (1564-65). These years he spent at the neighboring village of Arba and in an unspecified place in the Carnia. He was married and had eleven children, four of whom had died. He declared to the canon Giambattista Maro, vicar general to the inquisitor of Aquileia and Concordia, that he earned his living as a "miller,carpenter,sawyer,mason,and otherthings." But mostly he worked as a miller; he also wore the traditional miller's costume, a jacket, cloak, and a cap of white wool. Thus dressed in white he presented himself at his trial in 1584.
A couple of years later he told the inquisitors that he was “very poor”: “I do not have anything but two rented mills and two fields in perpetual lease, and with these I have supported and continue to support my poor family." But certainly he must have been exaggerating. Even if a good part of the in come went to pay the rent (probably in produce) on the two mills, in addition to the ground rent on the land, there must have been enough left over to live on and to scrape by on even in difficult times. When he had found himself banished to Arba, he had immediately rented another mill. When his daughter Giovanna married (Menocchio had died about a month before), she received a dowry equal 256 lire and 9 soldi: to she wasn't rich but she was not that poor either, considering the practices of the area in those years.
On the whole, it seems that Menocchio's place in the small world of Montereale wasn't the most negligible. In 1581 he had been mayor of the village and surrounding hamlets (Gaio, Grizzo, San Lonardo, San Martino) as well as, at an unspecified date, "camararo" or administrator o the parish church of Montereale. We don't know if here, as in other localities of the Friuli, the old system of rotating offices had been replaced by elections. If the latter were true, the fact that he knew how to"read, write, and add" might have given Menocchio an advantage. Administrators, in fact, were almost always selected from among persons who had attended an elementary public school, even learning perhaps a little Latin. Schools of this type existed at Aviano and at Pordenone; Menocchio may have attended one of these.
On 28 September 1583 Menocchio was denounced to the Holy Office. He was accused of having uttered "heretical and most impious words" about Christ. It wasn't a matter of an occasional blasphemy Menocchio had actually tried to disseminate his opinions, bolstering them up by "preaching and dogmatizing shamelessly," a fact that seriously aggravated his situation.
His attempts at proselytization were attested to abundantly at the preliminary inquest, which opened a month later at Portogruaro and was continued at Concordia and in Montereale itself. "He is always arguing with somebody about the faith just for the sake ofarguing-even with the priest," Francesco Fasseta testified to the vicar general. And another witness, Domenico Melchiori added: “He will argue with anyone, and when he started to debate with me I said to him: Tam a shoemaker, and you a miller, and you are not an educated man, so what's the use of talking about it?’ ” Such questions concerning the faith are supposed to be exalted and difficult, out of reach of millers and cobblers. To talk about them one needed knowledge, and the repositories of knowledge were, above all, the priests. But Menocchio liked to say that he didn't believe the Holy Spirit governed the church, adding, "Priests want us under their thumb, just to keep us quiet, while they have a good time"; as for him, he knew God better than they did. So when the village priest took him to the vicar general in Concordia so that he might be set straight, the priest warned him, "these fancies of yours are heresies," and Menocchio promised not to meddle in such matters again-only to begin anew soon afterward. In the public square, at the inn, on his way to Grizzo or Daviano, returning from the mountains, "no matter who his companion might be," stated Giuliano Stefanut, "he usually turns the conversation to matter concerning God, and always introduces some sort of heresy. And then he argues and shouts in defense of his opinion."
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It isn't easy to understand, from the records of the inquiry, what the villagers' reaction was to Menocchio's words. It's clear that no one was willing to admit to having listened approvingly to the talk of a suspected heretic. In fact, one of them went so far as to tell the vicar general who was conducting the inquest of his own indignant reaction: "Menocchio, please, for the love of God, do not say such things" Domenico Melchiori claimed to have exclaimed. And Giuliano Stefanut testified: "I told him many times, and especially on our way to Grizo, that I am fond of him but I cannot stand his talking about things that concern the faith, because I would always fight with him, and if he killed me a hundred times and I returned to life, I should die for the faith again." The priest Andrea Bionima even uttered a veiled threat: "Be still, Domenego, do not say such things, because one day you may regret it." Another witness, Giovanni Povoledo, the vicar general, ventured to pin a label on Menocchio, however vague: "He has a bad reputation; he has evil like those of the sect of Luther." But this chorus of voices shouldn't mislead us. Almost all those interrogated declared that they had known Menocchio for a longtime, some for thirty or forty years, some for twenty-five, some for twenty. One, Daniele Fasseta, said that he knew him “from childhood because we were in the same parish.” Apparently, some of Menocchio's assertions went back not just a few days but "many years," as much as thirty years before. In all that time no one in the village had denounced him yet his talk was known to everyone: people repeated it-perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps shaking their heads. In the testimony gathered by the vicar general one doesn't discern real hostility toward Menocchio, at most disapproval. True, some of the testimony came from his relatives, for example, Francesco Fasseta or Bartolomeo d'Andrea, his wife's cousin, who called him "an honorable man." But even Giuliano Stefanut who had stood up to himself ready to “die for the faith,” added "I like him very much." This miller who had been mayor of the village and administrator of the parish church certainly wasn't living on the fringes of the community of Montereale. Many years later at the time of the second trial a witness asserted, "I see him having dealings with many, and I think he is everybody’s friend." And yet at a certain point someone had denounced him, a denunciation that paved the way for the inquest.
Menocchio is children, As we shall see immediately suspected that the anonymous accuser was the priest of montereale, don odorico vorai, and they were not mistaken. The two had a long-standing disagreement. for four years menocchio actually had been going outside the town for confession. granted , vorai is testimony , which closed the preliminary inquest , was singularly vague : i do not remember specifically what things he said. i have a bad memory and had other things on my mind. apparently , no one was in a better position to infrom the holy office on this matter than he was , but the vicar general did not press him. he had no need to ; it had been vorai himself , instigated by another priest , don ottayio montereale , a member of the local seigneurial family , who had furnished the circumstantial evidence on which the vicar general based the specific questions he addressed to the witnesses.
The hostility of the local clergy can be easily explained. as we saw , menocchio did not recognize any special authority in the ecclesiastical hierarchy when it came to questions of the faith : what popes! what prelates! what priests! these words were spoken with contempt. he just did not believe in these people , domenico melchiori testified. By haranguing and arguing in the streets and inns , menocchio must have ended by practically setting himself up against the authority of the priest. but what was menocchio saying , in fact?
To begin with , not only did he blaspheme beyond measure but he also insisted that to blaspheme is not a sin ( according to another witness , he had said that to blaspheme against the saints was not sinful , but to blaspheme against god was ). he added sarcastically , everybody has his calling , some to plow , some to hoe , and i have mine , which is to blaspheme. he also said strange things , which the villagers reported in a more or less fragmentary and disconnected way to the vicar general : the air is god...the earth is our mother ; who do you imagine god to be ? god is nothing but a little breath , and whatever else man imagines him to be ; everything that we see is god , and we are gods ; the sky , earth ,esa , air , abyss , and hell , all is god ; what did you think , that jesus christ was born of the virgin mary ? it is impossible that she gave birth to him and remained a virgin. it might very well have been this , that he was a good man , or the son of a good man. finally , it was said that menocchio possessed prohibited books , particularly the bible in the vernacular : he is always arguing with one person or another , and he has the vernacular bible and imagines that he he bases his reasoning on it , and he remains obstinate in these arguments of his.
While the evidence was accumulating, Menocchio sensed that something was shaping up against him. So he had gone to the vicar of Polcenigo, Giovanni Daniele Melchiori, a childhood friend who urged him to present himself voluntarily to the Holy office, or at lea