Straparola, Giovanni Francesco

Autor: Straparola, Giovanni Francesco
Rok: asi 1480-asi 1557

Giovanni Francesco "Gianfrancesco" Straparola (c. 1480 – c. 1557) was an Italian writer and fairy tale collector from Caravaggio, Italy. He has been termed the progenitor of the literary form of the fairy tale. Charles Perrault borrowed most of his stories from Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile.While his given name is likely to have been "Giovanni Francesco", the last name of "Straparola" is not plausible. It is not typical of a family name of that time and place, and the literal meaning of it, "babbler", seems a likely nickname for a writer.Straparola's main work is two-volume collection Le piacevoli notti (published in English as The Nights of Straparola or The Facetious Nights of Straparola), with 75 stories. Modelled on Decamerone, it has participants of a 13-night party in the island of Murano, near Venice, tell each other stories that vary from bawdy to fantastic. It contains the first known written versions of many fairy tales.Among the tales included were:The Pig KingCostantino Fortunato, the oldest known variant of Puss-in-BootsAncilotto, King of Provino, the oldest known variant of The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking BirdBiancabella and the SnakeMaestro Lattantio and His Apprentice DionigiGuerrino and the Savage Man, the oldest known variant of Iron JohnFortunio, the earliest European appearance of a story about killing or injuring someone while attempting to shoo away a fly (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1586)Costanza / CostanzoVenice was the first place in Europe where the book-buying public included considerable numbers of literate artisans. This accounts for the predominance in Straparola's tales of stories involving social rise.