Intermediate stories
Original Italian stories written for this level, with comprehension questions.
Short stories
40 original stories written for this level, each with a comprehension check.
La chiave del nonno
In Bologna, Giulia inherits an old key from her grandfather, and nobody in the family knows what it opens.
Giovannino senza paura
A retelling of an old Italian folk tale about a boy who is afraid of nothing, not even a haunted palace.
Il caffè sospeso
A young barista in Naples tries to discover who is the mysterious customer paying for strangers' coffees every morning.
Il colloquio
In Turin, Matteo is late for the most important job interview of his life because he stops to help a stranger.
Colapesce
A retelling of the Sicilian legend of Cola, the boy who swam like a fish and discovered what holds up the island.
I biglietti sul frigo
In a student flat in Padua, Sara and her flatmate communicate only through notes on the fridge, until one note changes everything.
Il lupo di Gubbio
A retelling of the medieval legend of the friar who made peace between a frightened town in Umbria and a hungry wolf.
Il treno delle 7:12
Every morning on the commuter train from Bergamo to Milan, the same four strangers sit together without ever speaking, until the day one of them is missing.
Le avventure di Giufà
Two retold Sicilian folk tales about Giufà, the foolish boy who sometimes turns out to be the wisest person in the room.
L'orto sul tetto
In a Milan apartment block where neighbours only meet to argue, a retired teacher proposes turning the flat roof into a vegetable garden.
La Befana
A retelling of the old legend of the Befana, the old woman who said no to the Three Kings and has been searching for a child ever since.
Il ritorno a Matera
After forty years in Germany, Vito comes back to Matera and hardly recognises the town he left as a young man.
La lezione di guida
In Cagliari, a nervous father insists on teaching his daughter to drive, and the lessons don't go as he planned.
Re Laurino e il giardino di rose
A retelling of the Dolomite legend that explains why the mountains turn pink at sunset.
Lo sciopero
A train strike in Rome forces two strangers with very different lives to share a taxi, and then a car, all the way to Florence.
Il lago dell'arcobaleno
A retelling of the legend of Lake Carezza in the Dolomites, where a wizard tried to catch a water nymph with a rainbow.
Il cane di nessuno
In the old town of Lecce, a stray dog has many names and many homes, until the council threatens to take him away.
Lo scambio di case
A family from Udine and a family from Lampedusa swap homes for August, and each discovers a very different Italy.
Il ponte del diavolo
A retelling of the Tuscan legend of the strange humpbacked bridge near Lucca, built in one night with the devil's help.
L'esame orale
In Pavia, a shy law student has to face the most feared professor of the faculty in an oral exam, in front of everyone.
Le tre melarance
A retelling of an old Neapolitan fairy tale about a prince who searches for a bride hidden inside a fruit.
La pasticceria di via Etnea
In Catania, a young pastry chef back from London wants to modernise her grandfather's historic shop, and the regular customers are not happy.
Il giorno della bora
A student from Sicily who has just moved to Trieste meets the city's famous wind, and the old neighbour who teaches her how to live with it.
Bertoldo e l'albero
A retelling of an episode from the old Italian tales of Bertoldo, the clever peasant who outwitted a king.
Il matrimonio di mia sorella
A young man from Puglia tells how his sister's wedding nearly turned into a disaster, and why it became the best day of the family's life.
Il munaciello
A couple moves into an old flat in Naples, where things keep disappearing and reappearing, and the neighbours have only one explanation.
La casa a un euro
A couple from Turin buys a ruined house for one euro in a nearly empty village in Irpinia, and discovers the real price of the deal.
Prezzemolina
A retelling of the Italian folk tale of the girl named after parsley, held prisoner by the fairies and set impossible tasks.
La gara del tiramisù
In Treviso, a shy accountant enters a tiramisù competition with her late grandmother's recipe and finds herself up against a famous chef.
La sirena Partenope
A retelling of the ancient legend about the siren whose body, carried by the sea, gave Naples its first name.
L'ultima transumanza
In Abruzzo, a young engineer decides to walk with her father and his sheep on what he says will be his last seasonal migration.
La grotta della Sibilla
A retelling of the legend of the Sibyl's cave in the mountains of the Marche, where a knight spent a year in an enchanted kingdom.
Il quaderno delle ricette
In Modena, two sisters who haven't spoken in years must share their late mother's recipe notebook.
Costantino Fortunato
A retelling of an old Italian tale, written down in sixteenth-century Venice, about a poor boy, a clever cat and a king's daughter.
La contrada
A woman from Milan marries a man from Siena and discovers that, during the Palio, she has married his whole neighbourhood too.
Il pan di Toni
A retelling of one of the Milanese legends about the birth of the panettone, the famous Christmas cake.
L'estate dei bergamotti
A teenager from Bologna is sent to spend the summer on his uncle's farm near Reggio Calabria, and expects the worst holiday of his life.
L'anello del pescatore
A retelling of an old Venetian legend about a stormy night, three mysterious passengers and a ring given to the Doge.
La prima neve ad Aosta
A nurse from Palermo transferred to a hospital in the Aosta Valley sees snow for the first time, and learns that mountains can be warm too.
Le janas
A retelling of a Sardinian legend about the tiny fairies who lived in tombs carved in the rock and wove with threads of gold.