Luigi Capuana has experienced in his literary reputation what the philosopher-father of Pirandello's Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore experienced in his moral reputation: just as the Pirandellian character became “fixed” in the mind of his step-daughter as a highly immoral man because of one unfortunate contretemps, so Capuana has become “fixed” in the minds of most students of Italian literature as a verista because of a few years of ardent enthusiasm for Zola and his materialistic methods. In Italy, verismo (naturalism) appeared first in Sicilian dress in the works of Giovanni Verga and Capuana. This new type of local literature dealing with the peasant classes, and well-named campanilismo, then spread to many other Italian provinces and was developed by a large group of authors. It is true that Capuana was indeed the banditore del verismo, loudly proclaiming the excellence of Zola's theories and the brilliance of their exemplification in Verga's Nedda (1874) and succeeding stories. But what is too often forgotten is that Capuana is of equal importance in other literary movements, and that he himself rebelled at being too narrowly thought of as a verista.