In the sea of malice envy frequently gets out of her depth. Giambattista Basile
Before the animation of Disney there was another Cinderella story. A darker version written by the Brothers Grimm (where the step sisters take to cutting off parts of their foot when they don’t fit into the golden shoe) and an earlier French version by Charles Perrault’s called Cendrillon, used by Walt Disney used to create his Cinderella movie in 1950.
In 1634 Giambattista Basile published a version of the story titled Cenerentola (the Cat Cinderella) because his Cinderella was clever like a cat. Giambattista Basile was a 16th/17th century Italian courtier, poet and lyricist from Naples who wrote crowd pleasing fables for the royalty who patronized him. His most famous work is a book of 50 tales titled Il Pentamerone which includes a lesser known version of the Cinderella story. Basile’s version begins. In the sea of malice envy frequently gets out of her depth; and, while she is expecting to see another drowned, she is either drowned herself, or is dashed against a rock, as happened to some envious girls, about whom I will tell you a story.
Not quite the light hearted romantic fable about a girl who finds her prince charming. In Basile’s version there is the expected abuse but Cenerentola (Cat Cinderella) also known as Zezolla who cleverly outwits her wicked stepmother and sisters and finds her way to the royal ball because she is lucky enough to have a fairy ally, the Dove of the Fairies from the Island of Sardinia. But Cinderella has a darker side in this fairy tale. There are murders of two wicked stepmothers after Zezolla gets tired of their abuse and her resentfulness over her father’s second marriage results in her repeatedly poking him with a pin. Zezello’s magical alliances lead to Basile’s fatalistic moral at the story’s end “You must be mad to oppose the stars” and the once “graceless simpleton” sitting in the cinders by the hearth is now seated under a royal canopy living happily ever after.
Basile also wrote earlier versions of other classic fairy tales such as Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. While Basile’s work was largely forgotten, it was found and admired by the Grimm brothers, who then translated it into German as the now familiar story of Cinderella, one of the most popular fairy tales ever known.
Cositutti 
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