Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/158

 REVIEWS.

G. PiTRE, Bibliografia delle Tradizioni popolari d' Italia. Palermo, 1894.

Cavaliere Pitre has at last finished the elaborate biblio- graphy of Italian folk-lore, of which Miss Busk gave a preliminary description in FOLK-LORE, ii.

In the double-columned large octavo volume of six hundred pages Signor Pitre has given a full bibliographical description of over six thousand items relating to all branches of Italian folk-lore, of which he himself has been by far the greatest master. One cannot help thinking that the incitement to the compilation of this magnificent volume came from the example given by Mr. Gomme, by his compilation in the early volumes of the Folk-lore Journal; for the bibliographical information given seems to have been drawn up on very much the same lines as those adopted by Mr. Gomme. It is greatly to be regretted that our Society has allowed the initiative in this regard to have fallen away from its own hands. It is clear that a classified bibliography of this kind is the next step to be taken in the institution of Folk-lore as a science. The French Societies are already taking steps to carry out a plan similar to that of Signor Pitre's, and I should be much surprised if the American Folk-lore Society does not soon produce something on the same lines : for, next to the Germans, the Americans have grown to be the greatest bibliographers of the world. With this division of labour it ought not to be impossible for the whole European and American literature of folk-lore to be bibliographised within the next ten years ; and it is obvious from these hints that the lines on which it will be done will be set by