Biography of Carlo Collodi

The imagination to power

24 November 1826
26 October 1890
Carlo Collodi (whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini), was born in Florence on 24 November 1826. His mother, Angelina Orzali, although she graduated as a primary school teacher, she's a waitress for the illustrious Tuscan family of Garzoni Venturi-whose estate in Collodi will remain one of fondest memories of little Charles-and later at the rich Ginori family of Florence. His father Domenico Lorenzini, more humble origins, weak of character and fragile health, works as a cook for the same the Marquis Ginori. The eldest son of a numerous and hapless family (of ten children, six die in infancy), Charles attended primary school in Collodi, entrusted to an aunt. Despite the lively, restless and prone to insubordination, starts to ecclesiastical studies at the seminary in Val d'Elsa and then by Piarist fathers of Florence. When his brother Paul Lorenzini becomes leader in Ginori Manufactory, the family buys finally some peace and comfort, and Carlo can start your career as a clerk and as a journalist.
Embracing the Risorgimental riots of 1848 Mazzini, join ideas-49. In the 1950s, in his role of journalist, describe reality Tuscany taking sides witty and bizarre, made of intrigue and stories from coffee by means of linguistic inventions fulminating. All of the material that will be included in his masterpiece, the timeless Pinocchio. Stimulated by experiences as a journalist, began writing intensely, exercising his ability to give life, through his poetic, at news of contemporary life.
They are evidences his early novels "a novel in steam" and "from Florence to Livorno", published around 1856 and in which he was among the first to highlight the technological innovations made. Ingenuity versatile, creative, humorous, Larry founded the periodical "the lamp" that was intended to "bring light to those still in darkness"; After the (temporary) restoration granducale "Streetlight" had to close (open 11 years after) and Larry went to work on the newspaper "Skirmish" (especially of theatre criticism) collaborating with other periodicals including "Fanfulla".
But his true path finds her when, already getting on in years, he devoted himself to literature. As an official in the service of the unitary State just formed, beginning with the translation of Perrault's fairy tales, then worked at various pedagogical books for school. For this activity shall take the name of Collodi which is nothing more than the name of the village originates in the mother (then in the province of Lucca, while from 1927 is located in the province of Pistoia). After "Giannettino" (1875) and "Crumb" (1877) he wrote his masterpiece "the adventures of Pinocchio", first appeared on the children's Newspaper "in 1881 under the title" the story of a puppet "causing them to finish with the fifteenth chapter.
After a few months the book's narrative with the new Collodi resumed his title to complete it in 1883 when it collected in volume by the Publisher Happy P in Florence. Originally the adventures of Pinocchio ended in episode of hanging, with the death of the puppet. The protests of the young readers of the "Journal of children" led the author to continue the story, which ended definitively, with the transformation of the puppet in the child. A few years after his appearance in volume, "the adventures of Pinocchio" became a bestselling text, a classic that undoubtedly goes beyond the bounds of mere children's literature. The work was published in 187 editions and translated into 260 languages or dialects. Before that it enjoyed the deserved success, Carlo Collodi dies suddenly on 26 October 1890 in Florence. His papers, donated by the family, are kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.