On The Theories And Methodologies Of Study Of Carlo Ginzburg’s Cultural History

Carlo Ginzburg is one of historians who have tremendous influence since the1970s. He made remarkable achievements in cultural history，and his creative ideasabout historical theory and methodology are worthy of investigating and probingdeeply. This thesis explained and analysed Ginzburg’s cultural history from fourtopics，which contains the Microhistory，the history of image-eyewithessing，themorphological comparative studies，the argument and practice of cultural historyaround rhetoric，and summarized the features of concepts and academic contributionof his historical researches.Ginzburg’s microhistorical study was a research model which refered toindividual case of popular culture. It concentrated on the stories about the nobodiesfrom below. On the interpretation of the popular culture，Ginzburg objected to see itas the sub-product of elite culture，and also disagreed to see it as absolute eliteculture’s antithesis. He deemed the popular culture as a cultural form which has itsisolation，and has been keeping interaction with elite culture all the time. Ginzburghas always unfolded the peculiarity and initiative of popular culture through thenobodies’ words and deeds in his microhistorical works. Ginzburg’s microhistoricalpractices had three theoretical references. It objected elitism historical idea，payingattention to the nobodies’ histories. It criticized the model of history of Mentalités，saying highly of the popular cultural complexity. It was a forceful repulsion againstquantitative methods，underlining to write the histories from below as the elites’.Ginzburg’s microhistorical studies triggered debates whether the case could studymodel of microhistory interpret the common nature of popular culture or not. Hisstudies also caused debates if there wore other documents suitable for themicrohistory beyond the judicial files of inquisition and how people treated the trendof fragmentation which the microhistory studies had set. All of these need Ginzburgand other microhistorians’ further introspections. Ginzburg’s research at the history of image-eyewitnessing is an approach thatemphasized the uses of images as historical evidence. His idea inspired fromiconological theory. Ginzburg had expounded the developing process and theoreticalmarrow of iconology，and he utilized its theory to investigate the cultural historyduring the Renaissance. He exploited the content changes of religious emblem books，showing the evolution of the idea of learning to know. He analysed the source ofTitian’s inspiration，attesting that the popular culture maybe the spiritual nutrition forthe elite culture. Moreover，iconological method aroused Ginzburg to ponder over theparadigm of perceiving history. In Ginzburg’s opinion，the paradigm by which theHistoriography abides is similar to hunting or divining and guessing. This paradigm isdifferent from scientific and quantitative one. Therefore，Ginzburg advocated findhistorical fact from trifles，arguing that the more imperceptible，the more reliable theevidence is. He used inference method to observe the Piero’s fresco，refounded thehumanism group of Arezzo in Italy. The history of image-eyewitnessing madehistorical visualization possible，expanding the channels of acquiring documentation.But the expressions of images are often amphibious，so that inevitably its conclusionsstopped with some hypothesizes.Ginzburg’s Morphological comparative study has double objectives. On the onehand，Ginzburg used it to overcome the micro-approach’s centralization，and regardedit as an attempt that turning the research perspective from micro to macro. On theother hand，Ginzburg tried to overstep the principal that historical compare should becarried between temporal and spatial adjacent phenomenas，which Bloch had drawnup. Morphological compare stresses concentration on such phenomenas：seeingsuperficially，they are unrelated chronologically and geographically，but have somefamily resemblances. Firstly，it assumes two similar phenomenas have inherentconnections. Then，you can prove that the assuming is true by searching theintermediary displaying the characters of the former both. Ginzburg used themorphological inquiries as a probe，traced to the ritual and intellectual source ofwitches’ Sabbath，and examined the immanent relations between the history of English literature and European academic development. Morphology has providedtheoretical foundation for comparative subjects which lacked of text evidence. But itencountered queries from other historian because its proofs and conclusions oftendepended on presuming.Ginzburg’s theoretical analyses and practices at cultural history aiming torhetoric are replies to postmodern skepticism. Ginzburg’s microhistorical approachcorresponded to the pluralism of the postmodernism，but he set himself against thatthe postmodern skeptics had criticized historiography with linguistic theories. Inaddition，he also objected the argument of positivism historians，who locatedrhetorical narrative in opposite position with historical studies. Ginzburg argued thateven if rhetoric has always mixed plentiful subjective factors that historian had beentried to avoid all the time，it built itself on real facts，and its nature has objectiveingredients. With this argument， Ginzburg claimed historian could identify adocumentation to be fake by pointing out anachronism in rhetoric，recalled theintellectual histories by analyzing the narrative forms in text，and carried forward thehistories of concepts by inspecting the meaning change of designated words.Ginzburg’s argument on rhetoric refuted the radical speech of postmodern skepticismfrom academic logic. His cultural history practices on the basis of rhetoric pinpointedthe direction of historical development in the postmodernism context. However，ifdocumental register and the documental content had been in same era，anachronismwould not exist，although the register had distorted the true facts. So Ginzburg’sstrategy on identifying documentations with rhetorical analysis has limitation oncertain condition. Meanwhile，his cultural investigations based on rhetoric had a littleovergeneralization.Because the schemes and implications of rhetorical narratives arealways ever-changing，the idea of clarifying a generality from individual text’s traitsremains to be seen.Ginzburg’s culture history researches had inspirations. His researches involvedhistorical micro and macro visual fields，and he can keep impartial and absorbed theadvantages between positivism and postmodern skepticism. He insisted the history and historiography are heterogeneous，so he asserted any historical paradigm orinterpretative tool can revel merely one profile of polyhedral human past. Therefore，he think that the paradigmization of a historiographical model means the oblivion ofthe other profiles of history. Given this，in order to unfold the lost and neglectedfacts，he used to penetrate the past from some contrary or opposite approaches otherthan the mainstream one.