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Giambattista Basile
Photo courtesy of il portal del Sud
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By Giovanni di Napoli
"Whoever reads Basile's tales can't fail to see the direct ties they have with southern Italian folklore. And we should remember with pride the debt that the European imaginary owes to both our culture and Basile. But we should remember above all that The Tale of Tales is more, and to this it owes its present and perennial greatness." — Carmelo Lettere (1)
The distinction for composing Europe's first collection of literary fairy tales belongs to Giambattista Basile, a Neapolitan soldier, poet and courtier. His Lo cunto de li cunti, overo Lo trattenemiento de 'peccerille (The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones) contains the West's earliest literary versions of some of the most celebrated fairy tales, including "Cinderella," "Rapunzel," "Sleeping Beauty" and "Hansel and Gretel." Sometimes called Il Pentamerone, the collection was written in the early seventeenth century and published posthumously in 1634-'36. Basile's Tale of Tales predates Germany's renowned Brothers Grimm by nearly two hundred years.
Because he wrote his tales in Neapolitan, Basile's magnum opus remains fairly unknown today. After Italian unification in 1861 Neapolitan was officially replaced with the so-called "Italian language" (i.e. the Florentine vernacular) and undeservedly relegated to the rank of "dialect." The literary works written in the languages of the South have suffered as a consequence and Basile's Tales fell into obscurity. Neapolitan, like the other regional tongues of Italy (e.g. Sicilian), continue to decline in importance due to the cultural leveling taking place in Italy.
Unfortunately, we have very little information about Basile's childhood. We do know, however, that he was born in Posillipo, on the outskirts of Naples, circa 1575, and had as many as seven brothers and sisters by Cornelia (née Daniele) and his father, surnamed Basile. According to Benedetto Croce, they were "respectable although not well-to-do." His sister Adriana would go on to become an accomplished singer and composer, using her popularity to help promote her siblings.
Unable to find a patron in his native Naples, Basile sought his fortune abroad. He arrived in Venice around 1600 and served as a soldier of fortune in Candia, defending Venetian interests against the Ottoman Empire. In 1607 he fought in a naval battle against the Turks near Corfu. During his service Basile began writing poetry and befriended the Venetian nobleman Andrea Cornaro. An important historian, poet and hero of Lepanto, Cornaro invited Basile to join his prestigious literary society, the Accademia degli Stravaganti.
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Adriana Basile
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Homesick, Basile returned to Naples in 1608. Thanks to his sister's connections he served as a courtier, writing verse for his patrons, including madrigals, odes and villanelle, a popular music genre originating in Naples a century earlier. A series of letters dated from 1604 and an ode to the A lo re de li viente (King of the winds) are his earliest known works. They were later used as a forward in La vaiasseide (The Epic of the Servant Girls) by Neapolitan poet Giulio Cesare Cortese.
In 1611, under the patronage of Prince Luigi Carafa of Stigliano, Basile published Le avventurose disavventure (The Adventurous Misadventures), a semi-autobiographic marine pastoral set in his native Posillipo. Soon after, he founded the Neapolitan Accademia degli Oziosi, with one of Naples' leading poets Giambattista Manso, the Marquis of Villa.
Basile traveled north again in 1612 to join his sister Adriana, who, due to her immense success as a singer, acquired an estate as part of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga's court in Mantua. He gained the favor of Duke Ferdinando (Vincenzo's son) in 1613, and served as court poet. Here, Basile published his Opere poetiche (Poetic works), which was comprised of many of his earlier writings.
Later that year Basile was back in Naples bouncing from post to post, providing administrative services for various nobles. He was in Montemarano in 1615, Zuncoli in 1617, and Avellino in 1619. His frustration with the uncertainty of "public life" and the lack of appreciation from certain court lords was revealed in his letters and Le Muse napoletane. Thanks to Adriana's influence with the viceroy Duke Antonio Alvarez de Toledo, Basile obtained the governorship of Anversa in 1626. And finally, in 1631, he was appointed governor of Giugliano.
At the height of his success, and following an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Giambattista Basile died on February 23, 1632 during a virulent flu epidemic. He's buried in Santa Sofia Church in Giugliano. After his death, Adriana was instrumental in getting some of his most important works published, including his Del Teagene, Le Muse napoletane and Lo cunti de li cunti.
Basile and fellow seicento poets Cortese and Felippe Sgruttendio (almost certainly a pseudonym) are often credited with the evolution of Neapolitan, one of Italy's oldest and richest vernaculars, into a literary language. His Tale of Tales would also be instrumental in influencing the development of the fairy tale genre throughout Europe, inspiring such notable storytellers as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Inexplicably, the work would not be translated into English until 1847 by John Edward Taylor and into Italian in 1925 by Croce. While many today would consider the original stories to be inappropriate for "little ones," they continue to be told in sanitized versions and loved by children around the world. The Tale of Tales is a must read for anyone interested in Southern Italian cultural history.
(1) Quoted from his "Illustrator's Note" in The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones by Giambattista Basile, translated by Nancy L. Canepa, Wayne State University Press, 2007, p. xxvi
Further reading:
• The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones by Giambattista Basile, translated by Nancy L. Canepa.
