Giambattista Basile

Giambattista Basile (born c. 1575, Naples [Italy]—died February 23, 1632, Giugliano, Campania) was a Neapolitan soldier, public official, poet, and short-story writer whose Lo cunto de li cunti, 50 zestful tales written in Neapolitan, was one of the earliest such collections based on folktales and served as an important source both for the later fairy-tale writers Charles Perrault in France in the 17th century and the Brothers Grimm in Germany in the 19th century, and for the Italian commedia dell’arte dramatist Carlo Gozzi in the 18th century.

Basile was a soldier as a young man and began a career in government after moving to Naples in 1608. He later was part of the Mantuan court of Ferdinando Gonzaga, and then moved on to become governor, successively, of several small Italian states.

Basile was most at home in Naples, and during his career he became fascinated with the folklore, customs, literature, music, and dialect of the Neapolitan people. He began serious study of things Neapolitan and began to collect fairy tales and folktales, setting them down in a lively Neapolitan style with much local flavor and all the ornament and flamboyance of his influential contemporary Giambattista Marino.

Basile’s collection, Lo cunto de li cunti (1634; “The Story of Stories”), was published posthumously under the anagrammatic pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbattutis and referred to by its first editor as Il pentamerone (for pénte, the Greek word for five) because of the similarity of its framework to that of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (“Ten Days’ Work”). (In the Decameron 10 young people flee plague-stricken Florence for the countryside, where each person rules for a day and tells 10 daily tales over the course of two weeks. Because two days are set aside for personal adornment or for religious devotions, the total number of stories told is 100.)

In Lo cunto de li cunti, a prince and his wife, an slaved woman who has been posing as a princess, are entertained for 5 days by 10 women, who tell them 50 stories, among which are the familiar tales of Puss in Boots, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White and Rose Red, and Beauty and the Beast. On the last day of storytelling, the real princess appears, tells her story, “Le tre citre” (“The Three Citrons,” also called “The Love for Three Oranges”), and ousts the deceptive imposter.

Basile’s tales include “Sole, Lune, e Talia” (“Sun, Moon, and Talia”), a story about a princess named Talia who falls into a long, deathlike sleep after she accidentally pricks her finger with a splinter of flax. While asleep, she is visited by a king who rapes her and impregnates her. After giving birth to twins, named Sun and Moon, Talia suddenly awakens when the children suck the splinter from her finger while attempting to nurse from her. The king eventually visits Talia again and stays with her and their children for several days before returning to his queen, whose jealousy causes her to hatch a plot that involves ordering her cook to kill the children and tricking the king into eating them. The queen then attempts to have Talia cast into a fire. However, her wicked plan is foiled by the cook’s sympathy for Sun and Moon and by Talia’s quick thinking. In the end the queen is cast into the same fire that she prepared for Talia, whom the king marries.

Perrault’s tale of Sleeping Beauty removes the references to rape (the princess is awakened when a visiting prince merely kneels at her bedside) and adultery but retains the element of cannibalism. In the Grimms’ tale of Brier-Rose the princess is awakened by a kiss from a prince, which brings the story to a quick end.

Basile also wrote Italian and Spanish verse. Le muse napolitane (1635) is a series of satirical verse dialogues on Neapolitan mores.