BOLOGNA — Carlo Ginzburg, the Italian historian known for developing microhistory, died at age 87 in Bologna, Italy. The Scuola Normale Superiore announced his death.

Ginzburg was a student and later a professor emeritus at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He developed the microhistory approach, which involves examining small units such as individuals, communities, or events to identify broader historical patterns. He also developed the evidential paradigm, a historical method that uses clues and minor details to reconstruct past experiences of people excluded from dominant narratives.

His early research focused on the benandanti, a 16th- and 17th-century pagan fertility cult in the Friuli region. Members of the benandanti were viewed as shamanic healers and were accused of heresy by the Inquisition. In 1966, Ginzburg published a book that traced the benandanti's roots to older Central European beliefs. In 1976, Ginzburg published the book "The Cheese and the Worms", which reconstructs the trial of a 16th-century Friulian miller accused of unorthodox beliefs about the origins of the world and Jesus Christ. Ginzburg used inquisitorial records to document how power structures and popular resistance appear within the same historical documents.

Ginzburg held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. His published books have been translated into more than 30 languages. He received honors including the Prix Aby Warburg, the Balzan Prize, the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize, and the Humboldt Research Award.

The Scuola Normale Superiore said, "He changed the way of practicing the historian’s craft. He restores voice to those who lack it, shows that the rigor of proof is a form of justice, and upholds a demanding idea of truth." Ginzburg was born in Turin in 1939 to writer Natalia Ginzburg and anti-fascist activist Leone Ginzburg. He is survived by his daughters, Silvia, an art historian, and Lisa, a writer and essayist. His previous marriage was to historian Anna Rossi-Doria, who is deceased.