#collodi

Metti giudizio per l’avvenire, e sarai felice.

C. Collodi [Carlo Lorenzini], Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino [1881]. Online su LiberLiber.

some incunabula and editio princeps I saw in the flesh (and got absurdly excited over) last week:

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, allegedly by Francesco Colonna (Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1499)

Il principe by Niccolò Machiavelli (Antonio Blado, Rome, 1532)

Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Le Terze rime by Dante Alighieri (Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1502)

Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo by Galileo Galilei (Giovan Batista Landini, Florence, 1832)

I promessi sposi by Alessandro Manzoni (Guglielmini e Redaelli, Milan, 1840)

Canti by Giacomo Leopardi (Guglielmo Piatti, Florence, 1831)

Jean-Marie Apostolidès wrote an article published in 1989, in the 73rd issue of the “Littérature” review/journal. The theme of this issue was “Mutations of images”, and the article in question covered Pinocchio. Its title being in French, “Pinocchio, ou l’éducation au masculin” – Pinocchio, a masculine education.

Here is a rough translation of the article: (I added the images myself, the original article is not illustrated)

The adventures of Pinocchio first appeared in the July 1881 issue of the “Giornale per i bambini”: it was then a series of monthly tales called “Story of a dummy/Tale of a puppet”. This set of adventures continued up until the end of October, the same year – it ended with what is now the 15th chapter of Collodi’s final novel: captured by thieves who wants his gold, Pinocchio is hanged to an oak tree, and in his last words the reader hears an echo of the words of a dying Christ… However, Carlo Collodi decided to continue the story beyond the death of the puppet – part because of his desire to go further into his invented world, part due to the insistence of the team of the “Giornale”. The death of Pinocchio becomes just one of many trials, an added obstacle, a rite of passage towards adulthood. On the 16th of February 1882, the monthly story appears again under a new title: The Adventures of Pinocchio. It would then go on until the 36th chapter, which sees Pinocchio finally being transformed into a real little boy. Less than a month after this final episode, in February 1883, The Adventures of Pinocchio are finally published as a single novel, and become an immediate bestseller.

Pinocchio is a child-puppet of an unclear age and whose body, like those of teenagers, needs to evolve and mutate before reaching adulthood. This transformation is not a natural one – it is a social recognition, that partially relies on the dummy’s willingness to behave like a “real little boy”. But the behavior asked and expected of him is a fluctuant and moving thing, that depends on the social context. For example, between the Pinocchio of Collodi, and the Pinocchio of Walt Disney (the latter having mostly replaced the original character in many countries, except Italy), many differences can be observed. Not only do they depend on their respective political contexts, but they also both express two differing definitions of masculinity. To become a man in the Tuscany of the 1880s is not the same thing as becoming a man in the United-States of the 1940s. The character of Pinocchio is especially prone to variations, since he is not fixed: he belongs to both myth and History, to the reality and to the imagination. As with a myth, every retelling takes a new direction, and Collodi was the first to show how these variations could work by resurrecting his dummy. The comparison of Collodi’s and Walt Disney’s versions will allow to understand how masculine education evolved, and how the roles tied to childhood evolved.

there's particular instances of dismemberment in the original book:

pinocchio getting both his feet burned off

pinocchio biting off the robber's hand

the fox selling off his tail

and in lies of P, though P is a puppet, it's as if he has an "prosthetic arm"

in the earlier trailers, the joint is way more noticeable, it looks more as though it's been actually amputated rather than just joined together than in later versions