In 1922, Pirandello began an ambitious project for the publisher Bemporad, titled Novelle per un anno. The project was launched with two books: Scialle nero (Black Shawl) and La vita nuda (The Naked Life). The collection Scialle nero includes stories spanning a wide chronological range, from 1894's Se... to 1920's Il Pipistrello and Rimedio: la Geografia, with a strong early 20th-century core and another dating from between 1909 and 1912. Pirandello's great theme of the multiple potentialities underlying our existence is at the heart of Scialle nero, beyond the different settings of the short stories, which range from the Sicilian provincial microcosm to the urban and national scenario of Rome, the capital.