Giambattista Basile

Giambattista Basile was an Italian poet and writer of fairy tales, the first to record and write down many tales that later became canonical in the versions of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm (in particular, “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” and “Puss in Boots”).

He was born in Naples into a poor noble family; he served as a soldier in the Venetian army, and later as a courtier to the Prince of Avellino, to the Viceroy of Naples, the Duke of Alba, and to Vincenzo I Gonzaga, from whom he received the title of palatine count, and he also managed estates. The writer’s brothers also served the Spanish and Italian princes.

The Neapolitan storyteller was a selfless man. His friends reproached him for his inability to make a living and build a fortune while in the service of noble lords. For many years Basile managed large estates, including state properties of the Spanish crown; huge sums passed through his hands, yet the writer returned to Naples just as poor as before.

Basile’s career was greatly helped by the fame of his sister Adriana, acknowledged as the finest singer in Italy. John Milton, who lived in Rome in the late 1630s, admired the singer’s talent, and poets dedicated collections of verse to her. Basile wrote texts for music, many of which were intended for performance by Adriana and her daughter, who was also a singer.

Works

Basile wrote poems praising the aristocrats he served. His long poem in ottava rima, “The Feagen,” and the pastoral drama “Misfortunes with Adventures” are examples of the Marinist style fashionable at the time. His greatest success, however, was the poetic collection “The Neapolitan Muses” (“La Musa Napoletana,” 1635), in whose nine eclogues-dialogues vivid and fanciful pictures of the city of Naples are presented. The reader hears and vividly imagines how street vendors, adventurers, prostitutes, thieves, gossips, naïve young men who have come from nearby villages to the capital in search of amusement and money, argue, gossip, and converse.

Among Basile’s works, the one still read and translated into modern languages