Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2021
Through Venetian Inquisition trials relating to Protestantism, witchcraft, and Judaism, this article illuminates the centrality of food and eating practices to religious identity construction. The Holy Office used food to assert its model of post-Tridentine piety and the boundaries between Catholics and the non-Catholic populations in the city. These trial records concurrently act as access points to the experiences and beliefs—to the lived religion—of ordinary people living and working in Venice from 1560 to 1640. The article therefore offers new insight into the workings and impacts of the Counter-Reformation.
With warm thanks to my PhD supervisors Ulinka Rublack and Craig Muldrew, and to Irene Galandra Cooper, Mary Laven, Valerio Zanetti, and Giulia Zanon for their help with Italian sources. Thanks are also due to the staff at the Archivio di Stato in Venice, where I carried out the research for this article. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the AHRC-DTP and the Levy-Plumb Fund at Christ's College, University of Cambridge, Grant Number 1796905.