Pitré, Giuseppe (1841–1916), Italian folklorist and ethnographer. He was the foremost figure in 19th‐century Italian folklore studies, and had a central role in establishing the study of popular traditions as an independent discipline in Italy. He opposed a strictly aesthetic approach to folklore, maintaining that folk traditions offered precious historical information on national heritages that often revealed different realities from ‘official’ history. His homeland of Sicily offered him an especially rich corpus of materials, which he studied and collected throughout his life. Pitré's major works include the 25‐volume Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane (Library of Popular Sicilian Traditions, 1870–1913); Fiabe novelle e racconti popolari siciliani (Fairy Tales, Novellas, and Popular Tales of Sicily, 1875); the journal Archivio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari (Archive for the Study of Popular Traditions, 1882–1909), which he founded and edited; the 16‐volume Curiosità popolari tradizionali (Curiosities of Popular Traditions, 1885–99); and Bibliografia delle tradizioni popolari d'Italia (Bibliography of Italian Popular Traditions, 1894). Pitré's principal source for the Fiabe was the oral storyteller Agatuzza Messia, whose tales he transcribed with precision, opposing his method to that of more ‘creative’ scholars like the Grimms. The Fiabe became a precious document for later anthologists of Italian fairy tales such as Italo Calvino.
Bibliography
- Cocchiara, Giuseppe, Pitré, la Sicilia e il folklore (1951).
- ——The History of Folklore in Europe (1981).
— Nancy Canepa
