Italian Folktales (
Fiabe italiane) is a collection of 200 Italian
folktales published in
1956 by
Italo Calvino. Calvino began the project in 1954, influenced by
Vladimir Propp's
Morphology of the Folktale; his intention was to emulate the
Straparola in producing a popular collection of Italian fairy tales for the general reader. He did not compile tales from listeners, but made extensive use of the existing work of folklorists; he noted the source of each individual tale, but warned that was merely the version he used.