Maria Melato (16 October 1885 – 24 August 1950) was an Italian actress of the stage, screen, and radio.

In the 1930s she worked with the National Institute of Ancient Drama on staging Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides and Women of Trachis by Sophocles, at Syracuse.

During World War II she lost a hundred trunks of costumes, props, and personal possessions when a warehouse was destroyed by bombs.

She died in 1950 at Forte dei Marmi, from injuries sustained in a fall from a train, aged 64 years.

From 1951 to 1965, there was a Maria Melato Festival in Reggio Emilia, and a prize for amateur dramatic clubs in the comune.