The Facetious Nights of Straparola, also known as The Nights of Straparola, is a two-volume collection of 75 fairy tales produced by the Italian writer and fairy-tale collector Giovanni Francesco Straparola in the first half of the sixteenth century. The work was first published in Italy under the title Le piacevoli notti ("the pleasant nights"). Straparola was then translated into Spanish in 1583.

The work 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.^[1] It contains the first known written versions of many fairy tales.^[2] He is also thought to have written the original story of Beauty and the Beast.^{[citation needed]}

Among the fairy 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
• Biancabella and the Snake
• Maestro Lattantio and His Apprentice Dionigi
• Guerrino and the Savage Man, the oldest known variant of Iron John^[3]
• Costanza / Costanzo

[edit] External links

• SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Facetious Nights of Straparola

[edit] References