Biography
The son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg, he was born in 1939 in Turin, Italy. He received a PhD from the University of Pisa in 1961. He has subsequently held teaching positions at the University of Bologna and at the University of California, Los Angeles (1988–2006); currently he teaches at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. His fields of interest range from the Italian Renaissance to early modern European history, with contributions to art history, literary studies, and the theory of historiography.
In 1979, Ginzburg formally requested that the recently elected Pope John Paul II open the Inquisition Archives. Whilst the immediate response of those in the Vatican to his request has not come to light yet, by 1991 a limited group of scholars were already allowed access to review the material in the archives. In January 1998 the archives were formally opened to "qualified researchers." Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI) credited Ginzburg, and his 1979 letter, as having been instrumental in the Vatican's decision to open these archives.
Along with Paul Ginsborg, Marcello Flores, Sergio Luzzato, Claudio Pavone, Enzo Traverso, etc., Ginzburg signed a call in January 2007 against a law project, presented by Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, which was to specifically penalize Holocaust denial. They argued that Italy's legislation was sufficient to cope with such acts. The amended law project finally restricted itself to reinforcing sentences concerning hate speech.
In 1993, the Club de l'Horloge, a French far-right organization, "awarded" Ginzburg a "Prix Lyssenko" (Lysenko Prize) as a demonstration of their disapproval of his criticism of Georges Dumézil's work.
In 2010 he was awarded the Balzan Prize.
Read more about this topic: Carlo Ginzburg
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