Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/13



reader will probably wish to know something of the author of this collection of tales, and I shall introduce the few remarks I intend to make with the following account of Basile and his writings, given by MM. Grimm in the Notes to the Kinder- und Haus-Märchen.

"In the seventeenth century a collection of Fairy Tales in the Neapolitan dialect, by Giambattista Basile, appeared in Naples, called, in imitation of the Decamerone, 'II Pentamerone,'—a work which has remained almost wholly unknown in other countries, and was first introduced to us by Fernow . The author, whose name was also transposed into Gian Alesio Abbattutis, lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. After spending his early youth in the island of Crete, he visited Venice, and was admitted into the Accademia degli Stravaganti. He followed his sister