San Pantaleone

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

"San Pantaleone" by Gabriele D'Annunzio is a collection of novellas published in 1886. Set in nineteenth-century Abruzzo, these seventeen stories explore the fierce, passionate world of rural Italian villagers and shepherds. D'Annunzio portrays their violent confrontations, religious fanaticism, and superstitions through a veristic lens. The tales depict brutal conflicts between religious confraternities, miraculous visions, and the harsh realities of peasant life, capturing the savage and animalistic nature of lower-class Abruzzese society during festivals, tragedies, and natural disasters.