What is "romanetto"

Romanetto (romaneto in Czech) is a literary genre typical for the Czech writer Jakub Arbes. The first one to name the genre was Jan Neruda, who used an italic diminutive system to change the word román - Czech for novel. Works in this genre are usually shorter than a novel and their stories include something seemingly paranormal, which is explained afterwards with the use of scientific facts. Although this genre came before, it resembles sci-fi. The most famous romanetto by Arbes is called Svatý Xaverius (The Saint Xaverius). The story tells about searching of treasure by picture of painter Xaver Balko.