Giovanni Verga is considered the greatest exponent of the literary movement of "verismo" (meaning "realism", from Italian "vero", meaning "true"), not only for his famous novels "I Malavoglia" and "Mastro Don Gesualdo", but especially for his novels, including the "Cavalleria Rusticana" that was then developed into theatrical form by Verga himself and became an opera by Pietro Mascagni.