Born in Naples into a middle-class family, Basile was a soldier and courtier to various Italian princes, including the doge of Venice.

Later he returned to Naples to serve as a courtier under the patronage of Don Marino II Caracciolo, prince of Avellino, to whom he dedicated his idyll L'Aretusa (1618).

[3] Basile's earliest known literary production is from 1604 in the form of a preface to the Vaiasseide of his friend the Neapolitan writer Giulio Cesare Cortese.

The following year his villanella Smorza crudel amore was set to music and in 1608 he published his poem Il Pianto della Vergine.

Although neglected for some time, the work received a great deal of attention after the Brothers Grimm praised it highly as the first national collection of fairy tales.