Giuseppe Pitrè

Giuseppe Pitrè[a] (22 December 1841[2] – 10 April 1916) was an Italian folklorist, medical doctor, professor, and senator for Sicily.As a folklorist he is credited with extending the concept of folklore to include all manifestations of popular life.He founded the study of "folk psychology", in Sicily, teaching at the University of Palermo.Pitrè's Fiabe, novelle e racconti popolari siciliani ("Sicilian Fairy Tales, Stories, and Folktales"), 1875, documenting Sicily's rich folkloric heritage derived from both European and Middle Eastern traditions, is the culmination of the great European folklore scholarship that began earlier in the 19th century.Against the cultural grain of his times, Pitrè championed the common people of Sicily and their customs, and his scholarship of oral narrative tradition is arguably as significant as that of the Brothers Grimm.