Il Novellino

{{Short description|Anonymous medieval collection of Italian short stories}}

{{for|the 15th-century work called Il Novellino|Masuccio Salernitano}}

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File:Palatino 566, Novella XXII.jpg

Il Novellino, also known as Le cento novelle antiche ("One Hundred Ancient Tales"), is an anonymous medieval collection of short stories written in the Tuscan vernacular between 1280 and 1300.{{Cite book|last=Monteverdi|first=Angelo|title=Studi e saggi sulla letteratura italiana dei primi secoli|publisher=Ricciardi|year=1954|pages=125–65|chapter=Che cos'è il Novellino?}} It was first published in 1525 by {{ill|Carlo Gualteruzzi|it}}, a friend of Pietro Bembo.{{Cite book|title=The Novellino or One Hundred Ancient Tales: An Edition and Translation based on the 1525 Gualteruzzi editio princepts|publisher=Routledge|year=1997|translator-last=Consoli|translator-first=Joseph P.}}

The author of the collection is unknown; several details from the stories included in the collection suggest that he was a layperson from Florence and likely belonged to the Ghibelline faction.{{Cite journal|last=Hall|first=Joan|date=1989|title='Bel parlare' and Authorial Narration of the Novellino|journal=Italian Studies|volume=44|pages=1–18|doi=10.1179/007516389790509146}}

Many of the stories contained in the work were used as inspiration for those found in Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron.{{Cite web |title=Decameron Web {{!}} Literature |url=https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/literature/narratology/novella.php |access-date=2025-06-27 |website=www.brown.edu}}