Giovanni Francesco Straparola
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giovanni Francesco (or Gianfrancesco) Straparola (Caravaggio, c. 1480 - c. 1557) was an Italian writer and fairy tale collector. He has been credited with introducing to Europe the literary form of the 'fairy tale'. Charles Perrault borrowed most of his stories from Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile.
Straparola's main work is two-volume collection La piacevoli notti (published in English as The Nights of Straparola or The Facetious Nights of Straparola), with 75 stories. Straparola was translated into Spanish in 1583. It was modelled on Decamerone; in it, participants of a 13-night party in the island of Murano, near Venice, tell each other stories that vary from bawdy to fantastic. He is also thought to have written the original story of Beauty and the Beast.
