The study proposes the results of the research focused on the roots of Italian literary modernism, with an emphasis on humour, as one of the characteristic features of Italian modernist fiction, which is not based on tradiction or mainstream domestic production, but on exceptions and marginal figures. The main interest is focused on the work of the yet underestimated writer Alberto Cantoni, which greatly influenced the literary production of Luigi Pirandello, one of the most important protagonists od Italian modernism.