Carlo Collodi is the pen-name of
Carlo Lorenzini (1826-90).
Collodi is the name of the
little village in Tuscany where his mother was born. He was born in Florence, the son of a cook and
a servant, and spent his chilhood as much in the rough and tumble of the streets of his native
Florence as in the classroom. No doubt this stood him in good stead in his two periods as a soldier -
once in 1848 when Tuscany rose in revolt against its Habsburg rulers, and again in the war between
Italy and Austria in1859.
Collodi starded his writing career as a newspaperman: he wrote for other papers, and also started his
own satirical paper Il Lampione (The Lanter) - but the government closed it down. Later he became
a government official himself, working as a civil servant for the education department and trying to
push through much-needed educational reforms.
In the 1850s,
he began to have a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books published. Once, he
translated some French fairy-tales so well that he was asked whether he would like to write some of
his own. The result was his fist major success, Giannettino, which is a kind of educational fairly-
tale. He now devoted himself to writing for children" becouse adults are too hard to please"!
In 1881, he sent to a friend, who edited a newspaper in Rome, a short episode in the life of a
wooden puppet, wondering whether the editor would be interested in publishing this "bit of
foolishness" in his children's section. The editor did, and the children loved it.
The adventures of
Pinocchio were serialized in the paper in 1881-2, and then published in 1883 with huge success. The
fist English-language version was just as successful on its publication in 1892. The 1940 Walt
Disney cartoon has ensured that the character of
Pinocchio remains familiar: but the book is far
richer in the details of the adventures of the naughty puppet in search of boyhood.
