Giambattista Basile is the most significant early author of fairy tales in Western Europe.

Talk on fairy-tale author Giambattista Basile

Alongside Francesco Straparola, Giambattista Basile is the most significant early author of fairy tales in Western Europe. Described by Jack Zipes as ‘the most talented and innovative of the fairy-tale writers in Europe’, Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti is a seminal text, the influence of which – although contested – is immeasurable.

It is also an important product of the Italian Renaissance, and Neapolitan culture in particular. To mark the significance of Basile, the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction will hold this one-day conference to discuss Basile, his work, and the wider world of which he was a product.