Giambattista Basile
Giambattista Basile (February 1566 – 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. Biography. Born in Giugliano to a Neapolitan middle-class family, Basile was a courtier and soldier to various Italian princes, including the doge of Venice. According to Benedetto Croce he was born in 1575, while other sources have February 1566. 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 Torrone". Basile's earliest known literary production is from 1604 in the form of a preface to the Vaiasseide of his friend the Neapolitan writer Giulio Cesare Cortese. The following year his villanella "Smorza crudel amore" was set to music and in 1608 he published his poem "Il Pianto della Vergine". He is chiefly remembered for writing the collection of Neapolitan fairy tales titled "Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille" (Neapolitan  for "The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones"), also known as "Il Pentamerone" published posthumously in two volumes by his sister Adriana in Naples, Italy in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis. It later became known as the "Pentamerone". Although neglected for some time, the work received a great deal of attention after the Brothers Grimm praised it highly as the first "national" collection of fairy tales. Many of these fairy tales are the oldest known variants in existence. They include the earliest known European versions of "Rapunzel" and "Cinderella" with the Chinese version of  Cinderella dating from 850–60 AD. Giambattista Basile spent much time in the courts of the nobles of the kingdom of Naples; tales of Pentamerone are set in the woods and castles of the Basilicata, in particular the city of Acerenza. In popular culture. The 2015 film "Tale of Tales" is a screen adaptation loosely based on his fairy tale collection. The recent bts has also praised Basile for his work by including some of his lines in their songs