Hubbry Logo
PentameronePentameroneMain
Open search
Pentamerone
Community hub
Pentamerone
logo
8 pages, 0 posts
0 subscribers
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Pentamerone
Pentamerone
Pentamerone
View on Wikipedia
from Wikipedia

Il Pentamerone from a 1788 edition, Naples

The Pentamerone, subtitled Lo cunto de li cunti (lit. 'The Tale of Tales'), is a seventeenth-century Neapolitan fairy tale collection by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile.

Background

[edit]

The stories in the Pentamerone were collected by Basile and published posthumously in two volumes by his sister Adriana in Naples, Italy, in 1634 and 1636 under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis. These stories were later adapted by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, the latter making extensive, acknowledged use of Basile's collection. Examples of this are versions of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel.

While other collections of stories have included stories that would be termed fairy tales, his work is the first collection in which all the stories fit in that single category.[1] He did not transcribe them from the oral tradition as a modern collector would, instead writing them in Neapolitan, and in many respects was the first writer to preserve oral intonations.[2]

The style of the stories is heavily Baroque, with many metaphorical usages.[3]

This has been interpreted as a satire on Baroque style, but as Basile praised the style, and used it in his other works, it appears to have no ironic intention.[4]

Illustration by George Cruikshank (1847) to The Stone in the Cock's Head

Influence

[edit]

Although the work fell into obscurity, the Brothers Grimm, in their third edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, praised it highly as the first national collection of fairy tales, fitting their romantic nationalist views on fairy tales, and as capturing the Neapolitan voice. This drew a great deal of attention to the work.[5]

This collection (Basile's Pentamerone) was for a long time the best and richest that had been found by any nation. Not only were the traditions at that time more complete in themselves, but the author had a special talent for collecting them, and besides that an intimate knowledge of the dialect. The stories are told with hardly any break, and the tone, at least in the Neapolitan tales, is perfectly caught.... We may therefore look on this collection of fifty tales as the basis of many others; for although it was not so in actual fact, and was indeed not known beyond the country in which it appeared, and was never translated into French, it still has all the importance of a basis, owing to the coherence of its traditions. Two-thirds of them are, so far as their principal incidents are concerned, to be found in Germany, and are current there at this very day. Basile has not allowed himself to make any alteration, scarcely even any addition of importance, and that gives his work a special value – Wilhelm Grimm

Basile's writing inspired Matteo Garrone's 2015 film, The Tale of Tales.[6]

Geography of the stories

[edit]

The tales of Giambattista Basile are set in Basilicata and Campania, where he spent most of his life at the local nobles. Among the places related to the stories we find the city of Acerenza and the Castle of Lagopesole, the latter connected to the fairy tale Rapunzel.

Synopsis

[edit]

The name of the Pentamerone comes from Greek πέντε [pénte], 'five', and ἡμέρα [hêméra], 'day'. It is structured around a fantastic frame story, in which fifty stories are related over the course of five days, in analogy with the ten-day structure of the much earlier Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (1353). The frame story is that of a cursed, melancholy princess named Zoza ("mud" or "slime" in Neapolitan, but also used as a term of endearment). She cannot laugh, no matter what her father does to amuse her, so he sets up a fountain of oil by the door, thinking people slipping in the oil would make her laugh. An old woman tried to gather oil, a page boy broke her jug, and the old woman grew so angry that she danced about, and Zoza laughed at her. The old woman cursed her to marry only the prince of Round-Field, whom she could only wake by filling a pitcher with tears in three days. With some aid from fairies, who also give her gifts, Zoza found the prince and the pitcher, and nearly filled the pitcher when she fell asleep. A Moorish slave steals it, finishes filling it, and claims the prince.

This frame story in itself is a fairy tale,[7] combining motifs that will appear in other stories: the princess who cannot laugh in The Magic Swan, Golden Goose, and The Princess Who Never Smiled; the curse to marry only one hard-to-find person, in Snow-White-Fire-Red and Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa; and the heroine falling asleep while trying to save the hero, and then losing him because of trickery in The Sleeping Prince and Nourie Hadig.

Princess Grannonia meets the helpful fox, while searching for her missing husband.

The now-pregnant slave-princess demands (at the impetus of Zoza's fairy gifts) that her husband tell her stories, or else she would crush the unborn child. The husband hires ten female storytellers to keep her amused; disguised among them is Zoza. Each tells five stories, most of which are more suitable to courtly, rather than juvenile, audiences. The Moorish woman's treachery is revealed in the final story (related, suitably, by Zoza), and she is buried, pregnant, up to her neck in the ground and left to die. Zoza and the Prince live happily ever after.

Many of these fairy tales are the oldest known variants in existence.[8]

The fairy tales are:

The First Day
  1. "The Tale of the Ogre"
  2. "The Myrtle"
  3. "Peruonto" - connected to Russian tale "At the Pike's Behest" ("Emelian the Fool")
  4. "Vardiello"
  5. "The Flea"
  6. "Cenerentola" – translated into English as Cinderella
  7. "The Merchant"
  8. "Goat-Face"
  9. "The Enchanted Doe" - a variant of The Knights of the Fish
  10. "The Flayed Old Lady" - variant of The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife
The Second Day
  1. "Parsley" – a variant of Rapunzel
  2. "Green Meadow" - variant of The Bird Lover
  3. "Violet"
  4. "Pippo" – a variant of Puss In Boots
  5. "The Snake"
  6. "The She-Bear" – a variant of Allerleirauh
  7. "The Dove" – a variant of The Master Maid
  8. "The Young Slave" – a variant of Snow White
  9. "The Padlock"
  10. "The Buddy"
The Third Day
  1. "Cannetella"
  2. "Penta of the Chopped-off Hands" – a variant of The Girl Without Hands
  3. "Face"
  4. "Sapia Liccarda"
  5. "The Cockroach, the Mouse, and the Cricket" - variant of The Princess Who Never Smiled
  6. "The Garlic Patch"
  7. "Corvetto"[9]
  8. "The Booby"
  9. "Rosella"
  10. "The Three Fairies" – a variant of Frau Holle
The Fourth Day
  1. "The Stone in the Cock's Head"
  2. "The Two Brothers"
  3. "The Three Enchanted Princes"
  4. "The Seven Little Pork Rinds" – a variant of The Three Spinners
  5. "The Dragon"
  6. "The Three Crowns"
  7. "The Two Cakes" – a variant of Diamonds and Toads
  8. "The Seven Doves" – a variant of The Seven Ravens
  9. "The Raven" – a variant of Trusty John
  10. "Pride Punished" – a variant of King Thrushbeard
The Fifth Day
  1. "The Goose"
  2. "The Months"
  3. "Pintosmalto" – a variant of Mr Simigdáli
  4. "The Golden Root" – a variant of Cupid and Psyche
  5. "Sun, Moon, and Talia" – a variant of Sleeping Beauty
  6. "Sapia"
  7. "The Five Sons"
  8. "Nennillo and Nennella" – a variant of Brother and Sister
  9. "The Three Citrons" – a variant of The Love for Three Oranges

Translations

[edit]

The text was translated into German by Felix Liebrecht in 1846, into English by John Edward Taylor in 1847 and again by Sir Richard Francis Burton in 1893 and into Italian by Benedetto Croce in 1925. Another English translation was made from Croce's version by Norman N. Penzer in 1934. A new, modern translation by Nancy L. Canepa was published in 2007 by Wayne State University Press, and was later released as a Penguin Classics paperback in 2016.

Adaptations

[edit]

The 2015 Italian film Tale of Tales, directed by Matteo Garrone, is generally based on stories from the collection, starring Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel and Toby Jones as protagonists of the tales "The Enchanted Doe", "The Flayed Old Lady" and "The Flea", respectively.[6]

References

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Pentamerone

View on Grokipedia
from Grokipedia
The Pentamerone, subtitled Lo cunto de li cunti ("The Tale of Tales"), is a seminal collection of fifty tales written in the Neapolitan dialect by the Italian poet and courtier (ca. 1575–1632) and published posthumously in across five volumes from 1634 to 1636. Structured as a frame narrative, the tales are told by ten women over five days to entertain a pregnant confined to a palace, with the overarching story resolving in the fiftieth tale to reveal the of an imposter bride. Basile, born in near to a middle-class family, pursued a peripatetic career as a soldier, administrator, and literary figure in courts across , including and , before returning to under the patronage of his sister, the singer Basile. The collection features complex tales of , enchantment, and adventure, drawing from Mediterranean while incorporating extravagance, grotesque imagery, sexual frankness, and cultural motifs such as Neapolitan proverbs, games, and . Notable stories include "Sole, Luna, e Talia" ("Sun, Moon, and Talia"), an early literary version of the Sleeping Beauty narrative involving themes of violation, infidelity, and royal intrigue, and "La Gatta Cenerentola" ("The Cinderella Cat"), a precursor to the classic tale with a bloody resolution involving the stepsisters' mutilation. Other prominent entries, like "Petrosinella," prefigure , showcasing Basile's innovative blending of oral traditions with literary sophistication. As the earliest major European compilation of literary fairy tales, the Pentamerone profoundly influenced subsequent collections, with two-thirds of its stories having analogs in the Brothers Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen and Charles Perrault's Contes de ma mère l'Oye, adapting folk motifs for courtly audiences while satirizing Neapolitan society through double entendres and metaphors. Its original Neapolitan prose, rich in dialectal idioms, has been translated into modern Italian by and into English by scholars like (1847), (1893), Norman Mosley Penzer (1932), and most recently Nancy L. Canepa (2007), who provided a literal rendition faithful to the 1634–1636 edition. Scholarly analysis highlights its role in comparative folktale studies, linking it to ancient Indian and Eastern narratives, and its value for motif indexing in works like the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification system.

Background

Author

(c. 1575–1632) was an Italian poet, courtier, soldier, and administrator born in , a village near , to a middle-class family. His Neapolitan origins immersed him in the vibrant oral traditions of . This exposure to popular customs, dialects, and storytelling practices profoundly shaped his literary approach, blending courtly sophistication with rustic elements. Basile's career spanned multiple Italian courts, beginning as a soldier of fortune in around 1600, where he honed his skills as a man of letters. He later served briefly as a and in under the Gonzaga family, contributing as a poet and organizer of festivities, before returning to to hold administrative posts in the provinces. In , he became a prominent figure in courtly circles, composing verse for academies and noble patrons while dividing his time between military duties and literary pursuits. His diverse oeuvre included poetry collections such as Le Muse napolitane (1635), an anthology of verses in Italian, Neapolitan, and Spanish, as well as works, madrigals, and an epic poem titled Il regno di Carlo Quinto. Basile also authored court masques and organized elaborate spectacles, reflecting his expertise in blending poetry with performance for aristocratic audiences. These works showcased his style, characterized by wit, , and linguistic versatility across dialects. Basile died on February 23, 1632, in Giugliano near . He succumbed to during an that followed the eruption of in late 1631. At the time of his death, he held the title of , and his unfinished manuscripts, including the Pentamerone, were left to his sister , who facilitated their .

Publication History

The Lo cunto de li cunti, overo lo trèventola (The Tale of Tales, or The Tréveta), commonly known as the Pentamerone, was published posthumously in following Giambattista Basile's death in 1632. The work appeared in two volumes: the first, containing the tales of Days 1 through 3, was issued in 1634 by the printer G. B. Cappello; the second, encompassing Days 4 and 5, followed in 1636 from the press of Honofrio Savio. Basile's sister, the renowned Adriana Basile, oversaw the publication and attributed it to the anagrammatic Gian Alesio Abbattutis, a rearrangement of her brother's name that preserved his authorship while evoking a courtly . Written entirely in the Neapolitan dialect, the original editions captured the oral flavor of southern Italian storytelling traditions, eschewing the Tuscan standard favored by contemporary literati. The volumes featured modest illustrations, including frontispieces and vignettes depicting key narrative elements such as the frame story's and fantastical motifs from individual tales, which enhanced their appeal to a popular readership in the Kingdom of . These prints, executed in a simple style, reflected the era's practices and helped frame the collection as an entertaining diversion akin to Boccaccio's Decameron. After initial circulation in Neapolitan circles, the Pentamerone faded from widespread attention amid shifting literary tastes and political upheavals in . Its 19th-century rediscovery coincided with the Italian Risorgimento's emphasis on regional and dialects, prompting scholars to recognize its influence on later European traditions. A pivotal moment came with Benedetto Croce's scholarly edition in 1925, which transcribed the Neapolitan text into standard Italian, provided extensive annotations, and established the work's literary significance for modern audiences. This edition, building on Croce's earlier 1891 efforts, revitalized interest and paved the way for subsequent critical studies.

Structure and Composition

Narrative Framework

The narrative framework of Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de li cunti (commonly known as the Pentamerone) employs a meta-story device that encloses fifty tales within a larger tale, creating a layered structure typical of early modern European collections. This frame narrative centers on a storytelling contest organized to entertain and advance the plot of the enclosing story, with ten female narrators selected to recount ten tales each over the course of five days, resulting in a total of fifty stories. The structure explicitly echoes Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (1349–1351), which features ten narrators telling one hundred tales across ten days, but Basile condenses the format to five days while shifting the focus to fantastical and folkloric elements, adapting the device to suit the Baroque literary tastes of seventeenth-century Naples. The inciting incident of the frame revolves around Princess Zoza, a melancholy figure cursed following an encounter with an old woman storyteller. After Zoza laughs at the old woman's comical mishap—triggered by a page boy's that causes her to spill oil and dance in frustration—the enraged places a on the princess, dooming her to marry only Prince Tadeo of Round Field, who lies in a deathlike , and requiring her to revive him through an arduous task of filling a pitcher with her tears over three days at a enchanted . Overcome by despair during this vigil, Zoza falls asleep just as the old woman begins recounting a tale to console her; upon waking, Zoza learns the curse has intensified, binding her fate to completing the interrupted narrative through a broader contest of stories. The old woman assumes the role of principal storyteller and overseer, embodying the folk and vengeful that propels the frame, while her presence underscores the collection's roots in transformed into literary art. Central to the frame's symbolism is the trèventola, a three-legged stool upon which the old woman sits to deliver her tales, representing the precarious yet foundational support for the entire narrative edifice. This humble object evokes the domestic origins of storytelling in Neapolitan culture, contrasting with the royal settings and highlighting the inversion of social hierarchies within the tales. Prince Tadeo, seeking to aid Zoza in her quest, proclaims a contest to gather the kingdom's women as potential narrators, ultimately choosing ten for their eloquence and variety; disguised among them is Zoza herself, adding intrigue to the proceedings. The rules governing the storytelling contest emphasize entertainment value, moral instruction, and temporal discipline: each tale must captivate the , impart a lesson on folly or , and conclude before the evening bell tolls, ensuring the sessions maintain a rhythmic flow without encroaching on rest. These guidelines reflect Basile's intent to blend with delight, mirroring the social rituals of courtly diversion while enforcing narrative economy. For instance, the first tale, "The Old Woman Who Was Skinned," illustrates adherence to these rules by delivering a yet cautionary yarn that resolves swiftly. Infused with Baroque exuberance, the framing incorporates elaborate prologues that set each day's tone through poetic invocations, riddles that challenge listeners to interpret the upcoming themes, and interludes—eclogues featuring dialogues between courtiers on topics like , fate, or —that bridge the days and provide philosophical respite. These elements amplify the text's rhetorical flourishes, such as metaphors and wordplay in the Neapolitan dialect, transforming the frame into a showcase of literary rather than mere for the inner tales.

Division into Days

The Pentamerone, subtitled Lo cunto de li cunti, organizes its fifty fairy tales into five days of narration, modeled after the structure of Boccaccio's Decameron but adapted to a Neapolitan context. Each day consists of exactly ten tales, told sequentially by ten women chosen from a group of elderly storytellers assembled in the frame narrative. This division totals fifty tales, with no on a sixth day as the enclosing reaches its resolution at the conclusion of the fifth day. Each day's session is framed by a that sets the scene and an that reflects on the tales shared, often commenting on their moral or entertaining value. Within a day, transitions between the ten tales occur through brief dialogues or interludes among the storytellers, who take turns narrating and occasionally interject with praise, critique, or jests to maintain the conversational flow. These elements create a rhythmic, communal atmosphere, emphasizing the oral tradition's improvisational quality. Inter-day connections heighten the narrative's progression, featuring lavish feasts that follow each session and riddles posed to determine the order of tale-tellers or to the group, while the frame story's underlying tension—centered on a for to aid her —escalates subtly across the days. The days exhibit distinct tones that evolve the collection's mood: the first day introduces wonder and enchantment through tales of magical transformations and supernatural interventions, subsequent days shift toward themes of trickery and romance, and the final day builds to resolutions laced with irony and moral insight. Early editions of the work, published separately between 1634 and 1636 as five distinct volumes (one per day), introduced variations in tale numbering and minor textual adjustments upon compilation into a full set in 1674; later translations and adaptations, such as those by or Sir Richard Francis Burton, occasionally alter divisions for linguistic or cultural reasons but preserve the core five-day format.

Content

Frame Story

The of Il Pentamerone revolves around Princess Zoza, the daughter of the King of Woody Valley, who is depicted as profoundly melancholic and unable to laugh despite her father's elaborate attempts to amuse her with performers, jesters, and spectacles. One day, an old woman, attempting to entertain the princess with clumsy dances and pratfalls, finally elicits laughter from Zoza, but the woman, humiliated, her in retaliation: Zoza shall never wed unless it is to the enchanted Prince Taddeo of Round Field, who slumbers in a distant , and she must awaken him by filling a large pitcher with her own tears within three days. This propels Zoza on a perilous journey, accompanied by her servant, the slave girl, highlighting the old woman's pivotal role as both catalyst and later organizer of the tale-telling assembly. Zoza reaches the enchanted site and weeps copiously for two days, nearly filling the pitcher, but exhaustion causes her to fall asleep on the third day. Seizing the moment, the deceitful slave girl completes the task by adding her own tears, awakens Taddeo, and presents herself as the devoted lover who endured the ordeal. The prince, moved by this apparent sacrifice, marries the slave girl and elevates her to queen, oblivious to Zoza's true role. Undeterred, Zoza receives aid from three fairies encountered along her path, who gift her enchanted nuts containing luxurious items—a gown from a , jewelry from a , and a magnificent bed from a —which she uses to subtly reveal her beauty and worth to Taddeo, rekindling his interest and sowing doubt about the slave girl's claims. As the slave girl, now pregnant with Taddeo's child, faces the impending birth and the risk of exposure, she demands diversion through elaborate to alleviate her discomfort and prolong the deception. Taddeo, honoring her whim, assembles ten elderly women—led by the curse-laying old woman—and confines them in the royal palace for five days, tasking them with recounting ten tales each day to entertain the court. Zoza, having infiltrated the group of , participates incognito. On the fifth day, as the gathering concludes, Zoza reveals her identity by narrating the full itself, exposing the slave girl's treachery; the slave girl attempts to but confesses under , leading to her by live up to her neck, while Zoza is acknowledged as the rightful queen, marries Taddeo, and the couple raises the newborn prince in prosperity. Embedded within this narrative are moral elements emphasizing deception's inevitable downfall, as the slave girl's cunning unravels through patience and truth-telling, and the transformative power of stories, which not only entertain but serve as a vehicle for justice and revelation in the frame. The old woman's dual role underscores themes of retribution and wisdom, while Zoza's endurance illustrates resilience against curses and betrayal.

The Tales

The Pentamerone, or Lo cunto de li cunti, comprises 50 fairy tales structured across five days, with ten stories recounted each day by the assembled storytellers in the royal palace. These tales, drawn from Neapolitan oral traditions, are presented in the original Neapolitan , capturing a raw, style that integrates riddles, songs, proverbs, and poetic interludes to mimic spoken . The narratives often feature grotesque and violent elements, such as , , and sexual undertones, reflecting the unpolished vigor of folk sources rather than the sanitized versions that would later emerge in literary collections. The tales can be broadly categorized into those involving and enchantment (e.g., transformations and aids), helpers or antagonists, clever trickery and wit, and moral lessons on , , or fate. tales dominate, with witches, ogres, and fairies driving plots of quests and reversals; highlight loyalty or cunning, as in collaborations between beasts; trickery narratives showcase protagonists outwitting foes through riddles or disguises; and moral tales underscore rewards for or punishments for . This diversity underscores the collection's role as a of popular Neapolitan , blending entertainment with . As the first printed collection of European fairy tales, published between 1634 and 1636, the Pentamerone predates Charles Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé by over 50 years, establishing Basile's work as a seminal that preserved and literarized oral traditions for a broader audience. Below is a catalog of the 50 tales, organized by day, using titles from the English translation by (1848), which renders Basile's Neapolitan originals.

First Day

  1. The Tale of the Ogre
  2. The Myrtle
  3. Peruonto
  4. Vardiello
  5. The Flea
  7. The Merchant
  8. Goat-Face

Second Day

  1. The Three Sisters
  2. Violet
  3. Pippo
  4. The Serpent
  5. The She-Bear
  6. The Dove
  7. Cannetella
  8. Corvetto
  10. The Stone in the Cock's Head

Third Day

  1. The Three Enchanted Princes
  2. The Dragon
  3. The Two Cakes
  4. The Seven Doves
  5. The Raven
  6. The Months
  7. Pintosmalto
  8. The Golden Root
  9. The Padlock
  10. The Grasshopper

Fourth Day

  1. The Three Citrons
  2. The Little Old Woman Who Was Flayed
  3. The Merchant's Wife
  4. The Quack Doctor
  5. The Golden Basin
  6. The King's Daughter
  7. The Seven Brothers
  8. The Cow
  9. The Three Oranges
  10. The Ogress

Fifth Day

  1. The Crab
  2. The Eleventh
  3. The One-Eyed Peasant
  4. The Stolen Thing
  5. The Sun, Moon, and Talia
  6. Nennillo and Nennella
  7. The Three Fountains
  8. The Rose Tree
  9. The Pomegranate Tree
  10. The Command Given to the Nightingale
Several tales serve as early literary variants of well-known fairy tales, influencing later authors like Perrault and the Grimms. For instance, "The Flea" (First Day, Tale 5) opens the collection with a king challenging suitors to produce a hide as fine as a flea's; the winner, an ogre, marries the princess, who later escapes his cannibalistic intentions with giants' aid, exemplifying themes of impossible tasks and monstrous unions. "Cenerentola, or The Young Slave" (First Day, Tale 6) features Zezolla, abused by her stepmother and stepsisters, who receives magical help from a fairy (in the form of a date tree and gifts) to attend a festival, lose a slipper-like item, and wed the king, marking an early Cinderella prototype with elements of disguise and revenge. "Parsley" or "Petrosinella" (First Day, Tale 10) tells of a girl stolen by an ogress for her mother's theft of parsley; imprisoned in a tower, Petrosinella lowers her hair to aid a prince's escape, using three magic acorns to outrun pursuers, providing the foundational Rapunzel motif of the long-haired climb. "Sun, Moon, and Talia" (Fifth Day, Tale 5) depicts a princess pricked by flax who sleeps in an abandoned palace; a passing king violates her, impregnating her with twins named Sun and Moon, who awaken her by sucking the flax from her finger; the king's jealous wife plots to cook the children, but they are saved, leading to Talia's marriage—this grim precursor to Sleeping Beauty includes rape and infanticide absent from later versions. Other notable examples include "The Myrtle" (First Day, Tale 2), where a prince enchanted as a myrtle tree is revived by a girl's devotion, blooming into human form at night and eventually marrying her after overcoming a rival. "Peruonto" (First Day, Tale 3) follows a lazy granted flight by fairies who wins a through absurd feats, highlighting folly's triumph. "The Three Citrons" (Fourth Day, Tale 1) involves a prince questing for a maiden contained in enchanted fruits, betrayed by a slave but ultimately reunited through trials of fidelity. "Cannetella" (Second Day, Tale 7) portrays a with unbreakable horns who flees her monstrous , enduring stable work before restoration. "Corvetto" (Second Day, Tale 8) centers on a boy who slays an ogress and retrieves treasures for his , only to face envious courtiers. These synopses illustrate the tales' blend of wonder, horror, and resolution, often with female protagonists displaying resourcefulness amid peril.

Geographical Settings

The Pentamerone, or Lo cunto de li cunti, draws extensively on the landscapes of southern Italy, particularly the regions of Basilicata and Campania, where Giambattista Basile spent much of his life as a courtier and administrator. Real locations such as Acerenza in Basilicata, where Basile served under the patronage of Galeazzo Pinelli, Duke of Acerenza, and Melfi, a historic Norman stronghold associated with Basile's regional travels, appear as backdrops that ground the tales in feudal and rural realities. In Campania, Naples serves as a central urban hub, reflecting the vibrant court life and dialect of the viceroyalty, while the Castle of Lagopesole—linked to Basile's time in nearby Lagonegro—evokes fortified isolation and noble intrigue in several narratives. These sites, often described with vivid topographic details like rugged hills and coastal plains, mirror the 17th-century socio-political environment of the Kingdom of Naples, incorporating elements of local architecture and terrain to enhance the tales' authenticity. Fictional kingdoms in the collection, such as Varrese, Ochuole, and Bisrule, are frequently modeled on these real southern Italian locales, blending imaginative geography with observable features to create enchanted realms. For instance, Varrese may draw from the verdant valleys around Acerenza, portraying a lush, hidden domain that symbolizes seclusion and discovery, while Ochuole echoes the ochre-hued hills of Basilicata's interior, infusing stories with a sense of ancient, mystical continuity. Bisrule, with its ruled expanses, likely reflects the structured feudal lands near and Lagopesole, where Basile governed, transforming historical baronial seats into allegorical spaces of power and peril. Other invented places, like Longapergola (possibly inspired by Lagopesole's towers) and Valle Pelosa, further hybridize reality and fantasy, using descriptive motifs such as flowing rivers or dense woods to evoke the porous boundaries between the natural and in southern . The role of in the Pentamerone underscores Basile's personal experiences, as his itinerant career—from courts to outposts—infused the tales with reflections of traversed terrains and encountered customs. Local from these areas, including Neapolitan proverbs and Basilicata mountain myths, shapes the settings, with dialects lending phonetic authenticity to place names and dialogues that capture 17th-century regional variations. Key sites recur across stories, such as ' Porta Capuana as a gateway to adventure or Salerno's coastal environs symbolizing exile, providing a cohesive map of southern Italy's without overt historical specificity. This integration not only preserves oral traditions but also ties the frame story's palace gatherings to the aristocratic milieu of places like Acerenza and Lagopesole, where thrived amid courtly leisure.
Key SiteRegionDescription and Significance
AcerenzaHilltop town with ; patronal seat reflecting feudal ties and isolation.
Castle town; evokes Norman heritage and rural governance in Basile's life.
Bustling port city; hub for court life, dialects, and urban tales.
Castle of LagopesoleRemote fortress; symbolizes , modeled in fictional towers like Longapergola.
Varrese (fictional)Inspired by valleysLush, hidden kingdom; reflects local wooded and discovery motifs.
Ochuole (fictional)Modeled on hills landscapes; ties to regional color and terrain in magical realms.
Bisrule (fictional)Echoing feudal landsRuled expanses; highlights power structures from Basile's administrative experiences.

Themes and Analysis

Motifs and Fairy Tale Elements

The Pentamerone, or Lo cunto de li cunti, employs a rich array of common motifs, prominently featuring magical objects that drive the narrative action and resolve conflicts. These include enchanted fruits, such as the golden apples in "The Flea," which possess transformative powers and symbolize fortune or curse, and fairies who intervene as benefactors or antagonists, often bestowing gifts or curses on protagonists. Animal transformations recur as a central device, with characters undergoing metamorphoses due to spells or divine intervention, as seen in "The She-Bear," where a is turned into a by jealous fairies, highlighting themes of enchantment and reversal. Impossible tasks also abound, serving as tests of wit or endurance, such as sorting grains or weaving without tools in tales like "The Golden Trunk," which underscore the hero's perseverance. Fairy tale archetypes are vividly embodied in Basile's stories, with persecuted heroines forming a core pattern; these young women, often of humble or royal birth, endure trials from envious kin or forces before achieving triumph through resilience or aid. Wicked s appear as archetypal villains, embodying cruelty and rivalry, notably in "The Cinderella Cat" (La gatta cenerentola), where Zezolla's and stepsisters inflict hardship to usurp her status. Clever tricksters, frequently the heroines themselves or animal helpers, employ deception and ingenuity to outmaneuver foes, as in "The Padlocked Door," where resourcefulness unravels a . Basile infuses his narratives with flourishes distinctive to his literary style, amplifying drama through in descriptions of beauty or horror, irony in the reversal of fortunes, and sensual depictions of bodies and desires that contrast with later moralized retellings. For instance, palaces and feasts are portrayed with extravagant, almost overwhelming detail, reflecting the era's aesthetic excess. Markers of are evident throughout, including repetitive phrases like ritualistic incantations to build rhythm, embedded that mimic folk performances, and dialectal idioms in Neapolitan that preserve the cadence of spoken storytelling. These motifs evolve from Basile's raw, earthy formulations to the more sanitized iterations in subsequent collections, prefiguring Charles Perrault's and the Brothers Grimm's versions by providing foundational structures that were later refined to suit bourgeois sensibilities; for example, the motifs of sleeping curses and awakening princes in "" anticipate but retain explicit sensuality absent in Perrault's 1697 adaptation.

Cultural and Social Commentary

The Pentamerone, or Lo cunto de li cunti, features a narrative frame where ten elderly women serve as the primary storytellers, subverting patriarchal norms by positioning female voices at the center of cultural transmission and intellectual discourse in 17th-century . This structure empowers marginalized women, often depicted as wise and cunning, to dominate the storytelling process over male listeners, challenging the male monopoly on authoritative narration prevalent in like Boccaccio's Decameron. In individual tales, such as "," Basile critiques patriarchal marriage through depictions of arranged unions and male infidelity, where the king deceives his wife and assaults the comatose Talia without consequence, highlighting the systemic subjugation and of women. The queen's vengeful response, though villainized, underscores the limited agency available to women, who face punishment for resisting deception and dominance. Basile employs class to expose the absurdities of Neapolitan , portraying kings and courtiers as petty and easily outwitted by lower-class characters, thereby mocking the rigid hierarchies of Baroque-era society. Servants and slaves frequently demonstrate superior cunning, as in tales where a lowly figure like a "cricket-legged slave girl" ascends through guile to marry a prince, inverting social expectations and critiquing the 's reliance on and . Courtly excesses are lampooned through exaggerated depictions of royal obsessions, such as a breeding fleas for amusement or hosting lavish spectacles with acrobats and jugglers, reflecting the wasteful indulgences of ' under Spanish rule. The tales address social issues like violence, sexuality, and morality as mirrors of Baroque Italy's turbulent realities, where raw human impulses often override ethical constraints. Violence permeates narratives, from infanticide plots to cannibalistic threats, serving as allegory for familial and societal brutality amid political instability in 17th-century Naples. Sexuality is portrayed explicitly and without sanitization, as in the rape of Talia, which critiques unchecked male desire and the moral hypocrisy of elites who evade accountability for carnal excesses. Morality emerges ambiguously, with cunning trickery rewarded over virtue, commenting on a society where survival demands deception in the face of oppression and inequality. Basile played a pivotal role in preserving peasant oral traditions by transcribing Neapolitan folktales into literary form, capturing the dialects, proverbs, and rustic humor of lower-class narrators like nursemaids and villagers amid the dominance of elite court culture. His use of vernacular Neapolitan elevated these stories from ephemeral to enduring literature, safeguarding cultural elements threatened by and Spanish colonial influences in . Modern scholarship has identified gaps in early analyses of racial and colonial elements in the Pentamerone's settings, with post-2015 studies addressing how tales like the and "The Three Oranges" racialize Black slaves as "masses of black flesh" or animalistic others, reflecting Mediterranean slavery's impact on Neapolitan identity under Spanish . These works highlight intersectional oppressions, where enslaved figures embody both racial stigma and gendered subjugation, contrasting with more nuanced portrayals of ogres and urging reevaluation of Basile's role in perpetuating colonial hierarchies.

Influence and Legacy

Impact on Fairy Tale Tradition

The Pentamerone exerted significant direct influence on subsequent fairy tale writers, particularly through its narrative motifs and plot structures that were adapted into canonical European tales. Charles Perrault's "" (), published in 1697, draws from Basile's "," transforming the tale's darker elements—such as the king's infidelity and the queen's cannibalistic intentions—into a more courtly romance while retaining the core enchantment and awakening sequence. Similarly, the incorporated variants inspired by Basile's stories into their Kinder- und Hausmärchen, with tales like "" echoing the locked-tower motif from "Petrosinella" and "" reflecting the displaced princess in "The She-Bear." These adaptations highlight how Basile's collection served as a foundational literary source for the genre's dissemination across and . In the , the Pentamerone experienced a revival amid Romantic nationalist movements, as collectors sought authentic folk voices to bolster cultural identities. , in the preface to Felix Liebrecht's German translation of the Pentamerone, lauded Basile's work as the first national collection of fairy tales, praising its preservation of Neapolitan oral traditions and its vivid dialectal style as a model for capturing indigenous storytelling. This endorsement aligned with broader Romantic efforts to romanticize as a pure expression of the , influencing similar projects in and beyond, where Basile's tales were seen as emblematic of southern European heritage against northern literary dominance. Scholarly recognition has solidified the Pentamerone's status as one of the earliest major printed collections of literary in Europe, the second after Giovanni Francesco Straparola's Le piacevoli notti (1550–1553), published in between 1634 and 1636. It expanded on Straparola's framed structure with a focus on wonder tales. , in his seminal anthology The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (2001), positions Basile's work as a pivotal bridge between traditions and modern genres, analyzing its contributions to motifs like animal transformations and magical helpers that recur in global variants. Zipes emphasizes how the collection's inventiveness challenged sanitized 18th-century retellings, fostering that explore power dynamics and social satire in . The Pentamerone shaped studies by providing a model for integrating oral and literary elements, influencing 20th-century anthropologists and comparatists in tracing tale types across cultures via the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index, where Basile's stories classify under types like ATU 410 () and ATU 510A (). Its grotesque and fantastical imagery also inspired surrealist interpretations, with scholars noting the tales' dreamlike absurdities—such as births from trees or crow-induced passions—as precursors to 20th-century explorations of the subconscious in literature and art. Post-2015 scholarship has expanded on the Pentamerone's global dissemination, examining its role in transcultural networks from ancient myths to contemporary media. Recent analyses trace Basile's adaptations of classical narratives, like the myth in "The Golden Root," to their influence on international retellings, including animations, underscoring the collection's enduring impact on worldwide genre evolution. Studies since 2019 further highlight morphological parallels between Basile's tales and non-European , such as Asian and African variants, revealing pathways for the Pentamerone's motifs in postcolonial literary exchanges.

Translations

The first complete translation of the Pentamerone into a modern language was the German edition by Felix Liebrecht in 1846, which featured an introduction by Jacob Grimm and played a key role in introducing Basile's Neapolitan tales to European scholars, highlighting their literary value beyond folkloric origins. This was swiftly followed by John Edward Taylor's partial English translation in 1848, which selected 30 of the 50 tales and adapted them into a more refined Victorian prose, often mitigating the original's coarse humor and explicit elements to suit contemporary tastes. A milestone in English scholarship came with Sir Richard Burton's 1893 full translation, the first to encompass all tales in a relatively literal rendering that preserved much of Basile's style, earthy , and violent imagery, though limited editions and posthumous editorial interventions occasionally toned down sensitive passages. In , Benedetto Croce's 1925 edition marked a significant standardization effort, converting the text from its original Neapolitan into modern literary Italian while adding historical notes, thereby broadening its appeal to non-regional readers and facilitating academic study. Building on Croce's work, the 1932 English edition edited by N. M. Penzer provided a scholarly English version with extensive prefaces, annotations, and appendices, emphasizing philological accuracy and cultural context. Nancy L. Canepa's 2007 unexpurgated English translation, published by Wayne State University Press and reissued in a edition in 2016, stands as a contemporary benchmark for fidelity to the source, capturing the tales' idiomatic vigor, rhythmic prose, and unvarnished depictions of human folly through meticulous attention to Basile's linguistic inventiveness. Translators have long grappled with the Pentamerone's inherent difficulties, including the opacity of 17th-century Neapolitan dialect—which demands inventive strategies to replicate puns, proverbs, and regional idioms without losing authenticity—and the raw portrayal of violence and eroticism, which has prompted expurgations in earlier versions or bold retentions in modern ones to honor the work's subversive edge. These challenges underscore the scholarly significance of translations that balance accessibility with textual integrity, as partial bowdlerizations like Taylor's risked obscuring Basile's proto-feminist and satirical intents. Post-2015 innovations have enhanced the Pentamerone's reach through digital formats and bilingual resources, including Italica Press's 2017 Neapolitan-English dual-language edition of selected tales, which juxtaposes original with facing-page to aid linguistic and cultural immersion. Such efforts, alongside e-book versions of Canepa's , have democratized access for global readers and educators, fostering renewed appreciation of Basile's foundational role in literature.

Adaptations

One of the most prominent modern adaptations of the Pentamerone is the 2015 Italian film Tale of Tales (original title: Il racconto dei racconti), directed by Matteo Garrone. The movie loosely interweaves three tales from Basile's collection—"The Flea" (La pulce), "The Enchanted Doe" (La cerva fatata), and "Sun, Moon, and Talia" (Sole, Luna e Talia)—into a dark, baroque fantasy narrative exploring themes of desire, mortality, and power. Featuring an international ensemble cast including Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, and Toby Jones, the film emphasizes the grotesque and sensual elements inherent in Basile's originals while diverging for cinematic effect, such as expanding the stories into interconnected royal intrigues across mythical kingdoms. In theater and opera, the Pentamerone exerted significant influence through 18th-century adaptations that continued to be staged and reinterpreted in the 20th century. Carlo Gozzi drew directly from Basile's "The Three Citrons of the Western Princess" (Le tre melarance) for his 1761 play L'amore delle tre melarance, transforming the tale of a prince's quest for enchanted into a satirical spectacle featuring traditional masked characters like and . This work, in turn, inspired Sergei Prokofiev's 1921 The Love for Three Oranges, a surreal production premiered in under Vsevolod Meyerhold's direction, which retained the original's whimsical absurdity and magical transformations while incorporating modernist staging innovations; the opera has seen numerous 20th-century revivals, including at the in 1982. Literary adaptations in the late often reinterpreted Basile's tales through a feminist lens, highlighting their subversive potential. Angela Carter's collection The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories draws on the raw, erotic, and violent undertones of the Pentamerone, particularly Basile's proto-Sleeping Beauty tale "Sun, Moon, and Talia," to craft stories like "The Lady of the House of Love," where passive female figures reclaim agency amid gothic horror and sexual awakening. Carter's approach subverts the patriarchal structures in Basile's narratives, emphasizing female desire and monstrosity as acts of empowerment rather than victimhood. While direct adaptations in animation and video games remain limited, the Pentamerone's Cinderella variant, "Cenerentola," has indirectly shaped broader media interpretations of the , influencing dark retellings that echo Basile's emphasis on wit and magical realism over moral purity. For instance, independent visual novels like Cinderella Phenomenon (2017) incorporate elements of enchanted transformations and social inversion reminiscent of Basile's version, though they blend multiple folk sources. Emerging post-2015 adaptations include audio formats such as podcast episodes in series like Myths and Legends, which dramatize and analyze specific Pentamerone tales for contemporary audiences, and international theater productions exploring the , such as experimental stagings in European festivals that highlight Neapolitan cultural roots. In 2025, the Italian film Pentameron, directed by Mattia Volonté, Federico Inversini, and Manuel Pagani, reimagines the as five friends sharing stories in a contemporary setting.

References

  1. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jfrr/article/view/40024
  2. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=honorstheses
  3. https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12302
  4. https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_69xzOsMJH7wC/bub_gb_69xzOsMJH7wC.pdf
  5. https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Giambattista-Basile
  6. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giambattista-Basile
  7. https://books.google.com/books/about/From_Court_to_Forest.html?id=2-kyBsL7A20C
  8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12138-017-0454-6
  9. https://www.academia.edu/35347506/_Se_lieie_la_favola_Apuleian_Play_in_Basile_s_Lo_cunto_de_li_cunti
  10. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/05/09/giambattista-basile-rabelais-naples/
  11. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/21279/
  12. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001218570
  13. https://books.google.com/books?id=2-kyBsL7A20C&pg=PA81
  14. https://books.google.com/books?id=2-kyBsL7A20C&pg=PA35
  15. https://asu.pressbooks.pub/race-in-the-european-renaissance-classroom-guide/chapter/ogres-and-slaves-representations-of-race-in-giambattista-basiles-fairy-tales/
  16. https://books.google.com/books?id=2-kyBsL7A20C&pg=PA53
  17. https://books.google.com/books?id=2-kyBsL7A20C
  18. https://books.google.com/books?id=2-kyBsL7A20C&pg=PA155
  19. https://archive.org/details/ilpentameroneort0000basi
  20. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2198/2198-h/2198-h.htm
  21. https://www.academia.edu/113988665/The_Grotesque_and_Myth_in_Giambattista_Basile_s_Il_Pentamerone
  22. https://doi.org/10.31902/FLL.36.2021.9
  23. https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Tale-of-Tales-Audiobook/B01AAXMWA2
  24. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pentamerone%2C_or_The_Story_of_Stories
  25. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pentamerone%2C_or_The_Story_of_Stories/Petrosinella
  26. https://ia600505.us.archive.org/20/items/locuntodelicunti01basi/locuntodelicunti01basi.pdf
  27. https://italianacademy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Puglia_paper%20%281%29.pdf
  28. https://www.academia.edu/53011301/G_B_Basile_and_Apuleius_first_literary_tales_morphological_analysis_of_three_fairytales
  29. https://journals.flvc.org/PCGSS/article/download/132929/136998
  30. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%257CA182274165&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=07417527&p=LitRC&sw=w
  31. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370095778_The_Golden_Root_Cupid_Psyche_and_Basile%27s_Pentamerone
  32. https://reactormag.com/writing-fairy-tales-in-dialect-giambattista-basiles-il-pentameron/
  33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41388443
  34. https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v13n1p195
  35. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366202359_Gender_Roles_in_Giambattista_Basile%27s_Sun_Moon_and_Talia_and_Walt_Disney%27s_Sleeping_Beauty
  36. https://fairytalefridays.substack.com/p/giambattista-basile-fairy-tale-godfather
  37. https://escholarship.org/content/qt49h6p5xh/qt49h6p5xh.pdf
  38. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1167&context=honors_theses
  39. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Great_Fairy_Tale_Tradition.html?id=U7V7QgAACAAJ
  40. https://www.apollonejournal.org/apollon-journal//the-maiden-who-seeks-her-brothers-from-basile-to-the-brothers-grimm-1
  41. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331331414_GB_Basile_and_Apuleius_First_literary_tales_morphological_analysis_of_three_fairytales
  42. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_69xzOsMJH7wC
  43. https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/burton-richard/pentamerone/55925.aspx
  44. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=basile&ds=30&sortby=17&tn=il+pentamerone&prevpage=1
  45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41388631
  46. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/258010/summary
  47. https://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/tale-of-tales-review-cannes-film-festival-1201495163/
  48. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397184030_The_Racial_Other_in_Italian_Folklore_Analyzing_The_Three_Oranges_and_Its_Adaptations
  49. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/commedia-dellarte-in-context/opera-music-dance-circus-and-iconography/8D6350A045AE5A6CD35FB493AAE1FCBF
  50. https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/92556/BPTX_2015_2_11210_0_408406_0_178818.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
  51. https://dicesuki.itch.io/cinderella-phenomenon
  52. https://fictionpodcasts.com/podcast/myths_and_legends
  53. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35106995/
Add your contribution
Related Hubs
User Avatar
No comments yet.