During the preliminary inquest, because of the strange tales reported by witnesses, the vicar general had first asked then if Menocchio spoke “in earnest or in jest” and lather, if he was of sound mind. The answer to both questions had been clear: Menocchio spork “in earnest” and “he was sane, not mad.” Actually, after the beginning of the trial it had been one of his children, Ziannuto, at the suggestion of some of his father’s friends (Sebastiano Sebenico and an unidentified “pre Lunardo”), who spread the word that Menocchio was “mad” or “possessed”. But the vicar put no worth in this, and the trial continued. There had been the temptation to dismiss Menocchio’s opinions, and especially his cosmogony-the cheese, the milk, the worm-angels, God, the angel created out of chaos-as a mass of impious but innocuous fantasies, but it was discarded. A century or so lather Menocchio probably would have been committed to an insane asylum, as someone affected by “religious delirium.” But while the Counter-Reformation was in full sway, methods of exclusion were different, the most prevalent being that of identifying and prosecuting one as a heretic.