Giuseppe Pitrè
Giuseppe Pitrè (
December 21,
1841 –
April 10,
1916) was an
Italian folklorist credited with extending the realm of folklore to include all the manifestations of popular life. He was also a forerunner in the field of medical history.
He was born in
Palermo. After serving as a volunteer in
1860 under
Garibaldi, and graduating in medicine in
1866, he threw himself into the study of literature, and wrote the first scientific studies on Italian popular culture pioneering Italian ethnographic study. He founded the study of "folk psychology", in
Sicily, teaching at the
University of Palermo.
Between
1871 and
1913, he compiled the
Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane ("Library of Sicilian popular traditions"), a collection of Sicialian oral culture in twenty-five volumes.
In
1882 he founded the "Archives for the Study of the Popular Traditions, and in
1894 he published a basic bibliography of the Italian popular traditions. Palermo's
Museo Antropologico Etnografico Siciliano was founded in his memory.
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Brief biography (Italian)
