Only 40 minutes long and with cast of two singers, Zanetto was originally described by its composer as a scena lirica (lyric scene) rather than an opera.

It is set in the countryside near Florence during the Renaissance and tells the story of an encounter between a beautiful courtesan, Silvia, and a young wandering minstrel, Zanetto.

The libretto was adapted from an Italian translation by Emilio Praga of François Coppée's play Le passant (The passer-by) in which the young Sarah Bernhardt had won fame in the en travesti role of Zanetto.

The Renaissance setting of Zanetto was notably different from the gritty contemporary story he used for Cavalleria rusticana, the work that made him famous.

By 1893, Mascagni was simultaneously working on three operas: Vistilia, based on a novel by Rocco de Zerbi [it] set in ancient Rome;[1] Guglielmo Ratcliff, which he had first started composing in 1882;[2] and Zanetto, which his publisher, Edoardo Sonzogno, envisioned being performed in future double bills with Cavalleria.

Edoardo Pompei, a music critic and early biographer of Mascagni, ascribed this to the slightness of the work which was magnified in large theatre such as La Scala accustomed to grandiose productions: It would be as if one presented a miniature from a fourth-floor window and then expected the public to appreciate it from the street.

The New York Times critic pronounced the music as "sonorous, mellifluous, and melodious" and praised the performances of Bianchini-Cappelli and Mantelli, but concluded that "outside of Italy, Zanetto can never become more than a mild curtain-raiser".

[13] Setting: the Tuscan countryside during the Renaissance The following synopsis was published in the souvenir libretto printed for the New York premiere of Zanetto in 1902:[15] Silvia is the rich and beautiful hostess of a country hotel, who has been besieged by lovers of almost every description, she repulses them all, because although they may be well-to-do and even wealthy and powerful, they have not pleased her fancy or awakened her heart.

Still, she remembers a youth she once saw, and believes that he lives near by, in Florence, toward which city she idly looks out in the summer evening from the veranda of her hotel, placed on the side of a steep mountain.