![]() I fell in love with this piece of wood and every time I see a tree, I feel the irresistible urge to hug it!” The last person to work with this “piece of wood” is the Florentine actor and director Roberto Benigni who in an interview declared: “Pinocchio is life, death, joy, a smile, suffering, deceit, friendship, freedom, forgiveness, evil …a unique text, like the Bible. And the cinema has since never stopped considering this “fairy tale for young and old”. From this moment on, the wooden Marionette’s iconography will be forever tied to Disney’s Pinocchio. The most important event that brought the story worldwide fame and fortune was Walt Disney’s adaptation in 1940 of Collodi’s text to turn it into an animated film. Just to have an idea of the book’s value on the antiques market, the first edition by Paggi, practically impossible to find nowadays, is quoted at around 7,500 Euro, while the famous edition illustrated by Attilio Mussino for Bemporad in 1910 has a value of about 700 Euro.īUT NOT ONLY THE WORLD OF GRAPHICS HAS DEDICATED ATTENTION TO PINOCCHIO. So much so that, in the “Historical Archives of the Giunti Publishing House” in Florence, is a hall completely dedicated to the iconography of Pinocchio – a totally complete picture of the book’s history from the XIX century to today.įinding and collecting the most beautiful editions of Pinocchio is not easy, considering the fact that, before arriving into the hands of connoisseurs, most of the books published have passed through the hands of little readers – curious, impatient, exploring hands that were often tinted with the colors of chocolate or various ice cream flavors. The book’s fortune has led to the creation of a veritable “history of illustrations”. So, if “told” graphically, even a world-famous work like Pinocchio stirs up new and unexpected sensations in the reader. In the world of children’s literature, images have to succeed in transmitting the story and its emotions all on their own. Three weeks following the conclusive episode of the magazine story, Pinocchio becomes a book published by the Florentine editor Felice Paggi, complete with illustrations by Enrico Mazzanti.įrom that moment on, new editions follow one another at a swift pace, and each one is illustrated by the best artists of the period. In January of 1883, the story’s definitive ending sees the Marionette transformed into a real live boy. This brusque ending unleashes the disappointment of the magazine’s young readers and – following the numerous letters of protest sent to the editors – the story resumes in November of that same year, this time with the title “The Adventures of Pinocchio”. The piece is called “The Story of a Marionette” and ends after just 15 episodes with Pinocchio being hung on a branch of an oak tree. IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1881: COLLODI PUBLISHES THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF A STORY THAT WILL APPEAR IN WEEKLY EPISODES on the new children’s magazine called the “Giornale per i Bambini”. And from this pseudonym stems the tie that binds this land with the figure of Pinocchio. This small country town became the writer’s adoptive home, and this is strongly manifested in the pseudonym that he took on at the beginning of his journalistic career: his articles, published in the magazine “Il Lampione” were signed Carlo Collodi. Florentine by birth, the author spent his childhood years in Collodi, where his mother worked as a cook at the Villa Garzoni mansion. Pinocchio was born in Collodi, a small town between the cities of Lucca and Pescia in the region of Tuscany, through the pen of the writer Carlo Lorenzini. Over 200 different translations of the book exist and an incalculable number of editions and re-prints have been published since 1883. The story of the wooden marionette is still today the most diffused title after the Bible and the Koran. This is the starting paragraph of one of the most well-known and beloved children’s books: The adventures of Pinocchio. I do not know how this really happened, yet the fact remains that one fine day this piece of wood found itself in the shop of an old carpenter…” Just a common block of firewood, one of those thick, solid logs that are put on the fire in winter to make cold rooms cozy and warm. Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |