piacevoli notti, Le (1550–3), translated by W. G. Waters in 1894 as The Facetious Nights of Giovanni Francesco Straparola. Other possible titles are The Entertaining Nights or The Pleasant Nights. Little is known about the author Giovan Francesco Straparola. However, his collection of tales was very popular in the 16th century and went through 20 editions and influenced numerous European writers of fairy tales. Not all the novelle are fairy tales in this collection. Similar to Boccaccio's Decameron, the Notti has a framework: thirteen ladies and several gentlemen flee to the island of Murano near Venice during the last 13 days of Carnival to avoid political persecution. To amuse themselves, they dance and tell 75 stories. Each one ends with a riddle with multiple meanings. Of the 75 tales there are 14 fairy tales: ‘Cassadrino’ (‘The Master Thief’), ‘Pre Scarpafico’ (‘The Little Farmer’), ‘Tebaldo’ (‘All Fur’), ‘Galeotto’ (‘Hans My Hedgehog’), ‘Pietro’ (‘The Simpleton Hans’), ‘Biancabella’ (‘The Snake and the Maiden’), ‘Fortunio’ (‘The Nixie in the Pond’), ‘Ricardo’ (‘Six who Made their Way into the World’), ‘Aciolotto’ (‘The Three Little Birds’), ‘Guerrino’ (‘Iron Hans’), ‘I tre fratelli’ (‘The Four Skillful Brothers’), ‘Maestro Lattantio’ (‘The Thief and his Master’), ‘Cesarino’ (‘The Two Brothers’), and ‘Soriana’ (‘Puss‐in‐Boots’). These tales were either European or oriental in origin, and their translations in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries influenced French and German writers. Straparola's ‘Soriana’ is the first literary version of ‘Puss‐in‐Boots’. Straparola was not a great stylist, but his succinct, witty narratives have effective dramatic structures and contain biting social commentary. Indeed, some of the narratives about priests offended the Church during the Counter‐Reformation in the 17th century, and the Notti was placed on the Index in 1624.
Bibliography
- Boscardi, Giorgio, ‘Le Novelle di G. F. Straparola’,
Rassegna Lucchese , 3 (1952). - Pozzi, Victoria Smith, ‘Straparola's Le piacevoli notti: Narrative Technique and Ideology’ (Diss., University of California‐Los Angeles, 1981).
- Rua, Giuseppe, ‘Intorno alle Piacevoli Notti dello Straparola’,
Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana , 15 (1890). - Waters, W. G. (trans.), The Facetious Nights of Giovanni Francesco Straparola (2 vols., 1894).
— Jack Zipes
