Before Pinocchio, the writer had narrated the adventures of another child: Giannettino. For its bicentenary, a re-edition of this book is being released which tells of a now forgotten Italy.
Before Pinocchio, there was Giannettino. And if we go back to read his explorations as a little tourist, in Italy recently united after the Risorgimento wars, the credit goes to the author’s bicentenary Carlo Lorenzinibetter known as Carlo Collodiborn in Florence on 24 November 1826. To celebrate him, the Ministry of Culture he has established a national committee and the initiatives will continue in 2027. His city has dedicated exhibitions, meetings and the Florence Children’s edition to him; in the autumn the Vieusseux Scientific Literary Cabinet will reconstruct Collodi as a journalist, satirist and children’s writer. International conferences are scheduled in Paris, Hungary and Algeria, while a traveling exhibition will take the author to various cities around the world. The State Mint has minted a two euro coin with Pinocchio and the Jiminy Cricket.
But the most interesting meaning of the bicentenary lies in the attempt to free Collodi from the immense fame of his puppet. In this logic, Giannettino’s trip to Italy – meritoriously reported to the bookstore by Minerva editions – occupies a non-secondary place. But what is it about? It is a guide of over seven hundred pages to the discovery of the country, written by Collodi between 1880 and 1886. An Italy traveled by train, by carriage, by steamship by a curious, restless, sort of Pinocchio (but in the flesh) ante litteram. Giannettino is twelve years old, with light blue eyes, red hair and little inclination for studying. Collodi had understood an elementary fact: perfect children are unbearable, especially to children. Doctor Boccadoro intervenes to straighten out Giannettino, a tutor who is “clean in clothes and person”, with the virtue of speaking clearly. So the boy, put in line, passes the exams and receives as a reward a trip through Italy, in the company of the teacher. It’s the beginning of a Grand Tour no longer reserved for the scions of the European aristocracy, but intended for the promising pupils of the new Kingdom.
The democratic Grand Tour along the tracks of the new Kingdom
We start from Florence, continue to Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Parma, Turin, Milan, the Lombardy lakes, Veneto, Venice, Friuli, Genoa and La Spezia. On the second trip Pisa, Lucca, Livorno, Rome – recently the capital -, Siena and central Italy arrive. The third itinerary descends towards Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii, the coast, Calabria, Sicily, and finally Sardinia. We travel mostly on new ones railways. From the window pass landscapes, bell towers, cultivated countryside, cities that are taking on a modern appearance. Collodi, a precise narrator, relied on the famous Baedeker guides, jokingly called the “Holy Father Baedeker” in one letter.
Between the Holy Father Baedeker and parmesan cheese
But he used personal memories, local correspondents, historical and artistic texts. Giannettino measures, compares, judges. It is a fire of questions: he wants to know how many inhabitants a city has, which are the most beautiful streets, how much it costs to stay there, what they eat there, how the inhabitants speak. Italy reveals itself to him through great works of art and small annoyances. There are the Milan Cathedral, San Pietro, the Roman Forum, Pompeii. The overbearing heat of Turin, the mosquitoes, the indiscreet chauffeurs, the inns where one feels bad and the travelers who protest because cooking is cooked with lard and elsewhere it is seasoned with butter are evoked.
Combining differences to invent Italians
The book is patriotic, but Collodian patriotism passes through differences. The aim was (even today it would be useful) to teach young people not to consider themselves only Tuscan, Piedmontese, Lombard, Venetian, Roman, Neapolitan, but rather Italian. Naturally, the Italy crossed by Giannettino is not ours. The landscape is mainly rural. The Pontine marshes are infested with malaria, in Sassari the water is brought to homes with barrels loaded on donkeys, the port of Terracina is almost filled with sand. But Turin has more than one hundred and sixty cafés, a figure that seems prodigious to Giannettino.
The living voice of the reporter behind the scenes of the puppet
The Minerva edition preserves the Tuscanisms, obsolete expressions and irregularities of Collodi’s prose, while entrusting the correction of errors and outdated information to the notes. Collodi – and this is an advantage – writes as if he were speaking: he opens parentheses, addresses the reader, stages questions and answers, moves from Michelangelo to parmesan cheese without any embarrassment. Inside the manual, between the lines of the practical guide, one perceives the journalist, the chronicler, the humorist.
The author of Pinocchio can already be seen at work: in the rapid language, in the talking names, in the poorly concealed sympathy for the rascals. With Giannettino, Collodi discovered that Italy was not a geographical formula, nor a lesson to be memorized. It was already then the beautiful, and sometimes exasperating, world that we have not yet finished knowing.
