Giovanni Francesco Straparola

Who was Giovanni Francesco Straparola?

Giovanni Francesco "Gianfrancesco" Straparola 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, 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 King

Costantino Fortunato, the oldest known variant of Puss-in-Boots

Ancilotto, King of Provino, the oldest known variant of The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird