As Ginzburg says in the Preface: «Those browsing through this book will perhaps be struck by the variety of themes addressed. Some will wonder if there are recurring elements behind such heterogeneity. I will try to suggest one, following in the tangle of essays the trace proposed by the volume’s title. “The letter kills, the spirit gives life,” said Paul of Tarsus in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (3:6), contrasting the Jewish law into which he was born with the new faith of which he was the founder. “Kills,” “gives life” are metaphors, which are not to be taken literally. They can be answered with another metaphor: the letter kills those who ignore it. It is an unsurprising reversal. Expressions such as the English “literally minded” or the French “au pied de la lettre” have a dismissive tinge: those who stop at the letter are shallow. The essays collected here, published in the last two decades (plus a couple of unpublished ones), are written from the opposite perspective: to bring out the complexity hidden in the literal dimension of a text - of any text: from Paul’s letters, to Montaigne’s essays, to the reflections on Indian and Judaic rites elaborated in the early 1700s by a person who signed himself Monsieur de la C.***»

They essays share a recurring element: a reflection on the method, on the intertwining of “case” and “chance” between case studies and random elements, often deliberately produced. The reader will certainly discover the often unpredictable results of Aby Warburg’s statement: “The book you need can be found next to the one you are looking for”.

«One is lost and found again and again in the company of Carlo Ginzburg: it is his way of proceeding in research and also in writing. ... Indeed, one comes away from reading The Letter Kills full of surprising answers about the past and questions about today. For example, about the usefulness of the digital for historical research.» Paolo Di Stefano, La Lettura - Corriere della Sera