Giambattista basile biography books

Italian fairy tale collector (1566–1632)

Giambattista Basile (Giugliano in Campania, 15 February 1566 (date of baptism)^[1] – February 1632) was an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector.

His collections include the oldest recorded forms of many well-known (and more obscure) European fairy tales.^[2] He is chiefly remembered for writing the collection of Neapolitan fairy tales known as Il Pentamerone.

Biography

Born in Naples into a middle-class family, Basile was a soldier and courtier to various Italian princes, including the doge of Venice.

Giambattista basile fairy tales

In Venice he began to write poetry. Later he returned to Naples to serve as a courtier under the patronage of Don Marino II Caracciolo, prince of Avellino, to whom he dedicated his idyll L'Aretusa (1618). By the time of his death he had reached the rank of "Count" Conte di Torone.^[3]

Basile's earliest known literary production is from 1604 in the form of a preface