Fairy-tales classic and new

THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO

This is the story of a marionette who talks, walks and behaves like a child with a peculiarity: for each lie he tells, his nose becomes longer.

One day the woodcarver Geppetto, since he was feeling alone, decided to build a wooden marionette with an unusual piece of wood given to him by his friend carpenter. The wood was special because it was magically animated. Geppetto decided to name it Pinocchio and after carving his head making hairs, eyes, mouth and nose as well as hands, legs and feet he started teaching him to walk and treating him as a real child. Pinocchio soon reveals itself to be a very naughty child. After squashing the Talking Cricket for his advices, Pinocchio sells his ABC book, which Geppetto bought after by selling his coat, in order to go to the marionette theatre. Here he meets the puppeteer Fire Eater. Due to the confusion created at the theatre, he at first threats to eat him but then, moved to pity for his story, decides to give him five gold pieces for Geppetto. On his way home, Pinocchio meets a Cat and a Fox who trick and convince him that if he plants the gold pieces in a blessed field called the Field of Wonders, these will double. The Cat and the Fox rob him and even hang him to the branch of a tree. It will be the Fairy with Turquoise Hair who will come and save him. 

However, Pinocchio’s misadventures continue. He will end up in prison, almost fried in a pan by a fisherman and run away to the Land of Toys with his friend Lamp-Wick, where after 5 months he becomes a donkey. Pinocchio is then bought by the owner of a Circus but after spraining his leg he is sold to a man who wants to do a drum with his skin. The man therefore tries to drown him into the sea but eaten by fishes Pinocchio changes back to a marionette and tries to swim away. While swimming he is swallowed by a Shark. Luckily, in his belly Pinocchio meets Geppetto, who, set out to look for him, was wrecked and in turn swallowed up long time before. The two manage to escape from the gaping mouth of the shark and be safe. Trained by his experience, Pinocchio finally develops sound judgement. He starts studying and working in order to help Geppetto. Behaving well, Pinocchio wakes up one morning and discovers that he became a real child.

Italy have also well-known authors such as Calvino, Pirandello and Pasolini who wrote about Christmas.

Pinocchio was set in Tuscany, places in the original tale it is not specified. There is a park in the town of Collodi (Tuscany and place from where the writer took is pen-name) that is precisely based on the book "The Adventures of Pinocchio", "Le avventure di Pinocchio: storia di un burattino" of Carlo Collodi.