Giovanni Battista Basile

Giovanni Battista Basile (Giugliano, near Naples, 1566 – Giugliano, 1632) was a Neapolitan poet, writer and librettist whose work sits at the crossroads between dialect literature and the earliest steps of opera in Naples. His significance lies chiefly in his texts in Neapolitan, which are considered far superior to his writings in literary Italian, and in his role as one of the city's first librettists.

After a youth in Naples, he left the city at an early age and travelled around Italy until settling in Venice in 1604. He served as a soldier in the Venetian army during the defence of Crete, where he joined the Accademia degli Stravaganti under the name «Il Pigro». In 1608 he left military life, returned to Naples and began publishing poetry in dialect. His sister, Adriana Basile, supported his career: after she moved to the court of the Gonzaga in Mantua, he joined her there for a year and received honorary titles. Back in Naples, he married and entered the service of Prince Caracciolo di Avellino, who entrusted him with various administrative posts until his death in Giugliano from a contagious illness.

In Naples he enjoyed the patronage of Luigi Carafa, Prince of Stigliano, to whom he dedicated his first dramatic works in the pastoral style, among them the drama per musica Venere addolorata (1612), probably the first libretto used in a Neapolitan opera. In 1630 he was in charge of staging Monte Parnaso for the visit of Maria of Austria, Queen of Hungary, although only the libretto and descriptions of the dances survive, with music by Giacinto Lambardi.

His masterpiece is Lo cunto delli cunti, a collection of fifty folk tales in Neapolitan published under the anagrammatic pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbattutis (Naples, 1634–1636) and later translated into other languages. His legacy endures for giving literary value to the dialect and for fixing a repertoire of tales that influenced later European literature.