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A seminar, a sixteenth-century heretical text, and the art of slow reading--this is historical research as you've never seen it before. Patience Games: A Seminar on the 'Benefit of Christ' invites readers into the unpredictable world of scholarly discovery, where interpretation is not a straight path but a labyrinth of dialogue revision. At the heart of this book is a seminar held forty years ago at the University of Bologna, where students wrestled with
The Beneficio di Cristo, the incendiary sixteenth-century text that questioned Church authority and championed salvation through grace alone. This is not a neatly packaged historical study, however--it is an unfiltered look at the errors and insights that emerge in the collective process of reading and debating a text.
Through shifting hypotheses and the sheer unpredictability of research,
Patience Games dismantles the illusion of scholarship as a sterile pursuit, revealing instead a messy, deeply human endeavor. Blending sharp analysis with wit and self-irony, the book makes a compelling case for the continued importance of slow reading--even in an age where knowledge is just a click away.
About the author
Carlo Ginzburg has taught at the University of Bologna, UCLA, and the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He has received numerous awards and has published several books including
Fear Reverence Terror and
The Soul of Brutes.
