Pintosmalto

Pintosmalto or Pinto Smauto is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.

[3] It is Aarne-Thompson type 425, the search for the lost bridegroom, in an unusual variation, involving motifs similar to Pygmalion and Galatea.

[4] Nancy Canepa translated the tale as Splendid Shine[5] and as Pretty as a Picture, although she stated that the literal meaning of the title is "painted enamel".

She asked for large amounts of sugar and sweet almonds, scented water, musk and amber, various jewels, gold thread, and above all a trough and a silver trowel.

Pintosmalto roused at her account of her sufferings and how she had made him; he took everything the queen had taken from Betta, and some jewels and money in recompense for her injuries, and they fled to her father's home.

Philologist Gianfranco D'Aronco [it] classified the tale as Italian type 425, Lo sposo scomparso ("The Lost Husband").

[8] Renato Aprile, editor of the Italian Catalogue of Tales of Magic, classifies the tale as part of the "Amor e Psiche" cycle (type 425), but as subtype 425A*, a specific subtype involving an artificial husband made by the heroine and the heroine's rescue of her husband by bribing the false bride for three nights.

[13] Author Giuseppe Bonaviri [it] published a tale titled L'innamorato di miele,[14] translated as The Lover Made of Honey.

The queen, suspecting something, orders a lady-in-waiting named Mafalda to give an opium drink to Sion, so that he cannot react to Granata's pleas.

Betta creates the perfect man with raw materials. Illustration from Stories from the Pentamerone (1911, Macmillan).