Take a Walk with Pinocchio in Collodi, Italy

The home of the classic children’s tale appeals to all

The world’s most famous puppet was born in Collodi, Tuscany, Italy.

It was in this little terracotta village that the author of Pinocchio, Carlo Lorenzini, lived as a child and returned to again and again as an adult. Carlo began writing Pinocchio in the kitchen of Collodi’s grand Villa Garzoni where his uncle was chef. He chose the pseudynom of Collodi when the story was first published in 1883.

The village of Collodi, which is 60 kms north-west of Florence, is in two halves. Spilling down a wooded hill - a waterfall of cottages - is Old Collodi, bordered either side by olive trees.

The ‘main street’ of this mediaeval village is a narrow alley of rough and uneven cobblestones, edged by stone cottages with terracotta roofs jumbling into each other at crazy angles. Roofs are decorated with old chimney pots and a sprinkling of TV aerials while scarlet geraniums light up the stone walls in pots or hanging baskets. Halfway up is a little square with several ancient stone communal wash tubs. Some washing was airing on a dryer nearby. At the very top are the remains of an old fortress and the 13th century Church of St Batholomew and St Sebastian. Firmly locked when I was there midweek, it’s said to house a 17th Century crucifix that was a thanksgiving for protecting the villagers from the plague.

At the base of Old Collodi is the 17th century Villa Garzoni, its exterior looking decidedly the worse for wear (it’s closed now for restoration). Open though, at L10,000 a head, is the villa’s famous baroque garden.

One of six historic gardens in Italy to win restoration funds in the 90s from the European Community, it was originally laid out in the 17th century in a baroque style of squares, zigzags and circles. It is rich in statues, grottoes and fountains with a giant cascade at its topmost point. Swirls of box hedges line the amoeba-shaped ‘beds’ of colored sand below a bank of balustraded stairs terraced in geometric patterns.

New Collodi spreads out below the villa and its gardens at the bottom of the hill. Passing shops crammed with Pinocchio paraphernalia such as marionettes, glove puppets, books, soft toys and stationery, I made for Pinocchio Park, rather expecting a Disney-type experience. Not a bit of it. The design-conscious Italians, invited artists and craftspeople to interpret Pinocchio for the proposed park to be situated in a wood on the banks of the Pescia River. A competition was run for sculptures and artworks and 84 sculptors and craftspeople responded. The outcome was a tie between sculptor Emilio Greco and Venturino Venturi a craftsman in mosaics.

The first sculpture you meet is by Greco. It’s bronze, 5-metres high, and depicts Pinocchio changing from a marionette into a boy. Soon you’re in a square with walls that have been decorated in mosaics (Venturi’s work) which describe episodes in the story of the puppet. At intervals along this wooded trail, you meet more bronze statues of the characters that Pinocchio encountered - the talking cricket; the policeman with the big moustache; the cat and the fox; the wood of the assassins; the fairy and her house with the snail doorkeeper; the golden-sequins tree; the four rabbits carrying a coffin and the donkey that Pinocchio turns into at one stage.

Some of the statues use water - the gigantic shark which swallows Geppetto the carpenter is set in water and I watch some children jumping on his giant ‘teeth’. The crab that Pinocchio meets in the story spouts water.

Each of the features in the park has a relevant quotation beside it and I heard parents reading them out to the children - it’s obviously a place of pilgrimage for Italian parents.

This classic children’s story, highly moralistic in tone to modern ears, has, after all, been translated into most languages. Walt Disney’s film spread the tale even further.

But the Disney film version misses the second layer of meaning which shows life among the provincial poor in Italy with a warning that the values upheld by the peasantry are vulnerable to the greater guile of city folk. The trail ends in the library-museum where many of the different editions of the book are displayed. Exhibitions of children’s book illustrations are held here and displays of art works inspired by children’s literature.

*If you’re holidaying in Tuscany with family, be sure and schedule a visit to Collodi but make sure the children know the story of Pinocchio - there’s a short guide in English but no English translations on the trail itself.

Fact File about Pinocchio Park

Opening times: Pinocchio’s Park is open every day from 8.30 to sunset. How to get there: 60 kms from Florence. By car: take Motorway 11 and branch off at the Pinocchio Park sign. Without transport, catch a bus at Lucca for Pescia, get off at the crossroads and walk 1km to Collodi.

Author: Judith Doyle