Giraldi, Giovanni Battista

Giraldi, Giovanni Battista

(jōvän`nē bät-tēs`tä jēräl`dē), 1504–73, Italian author, known also as Cinthio, Cintio, Cinzio, or Cyntius. He wrote tragedies, lyric verse, and tales. Some of the stories in his Ecatommiti [one hundred tales] (1565) were translated by Whetstone and other 16th-century English writers. Shakespeare derived from them the plots of Othello and Measure for Measure.