ABSTRACT
The purpose of this Chapter is to show the complex artistic, cultural and political relationships which prevailed in Florence when Carlo Collodi was preparing to write The Adventures of Pinocchio, and to point out the bonds that linked the author of one of the world masterpieces in children’s literature to two of the most eminent writers and moral ‘guides’ of the period. Our aim is to provide a few additional hints at what still remains ‘Pinocchio’s secret’, grounded in Carlo Collodi’s political vision of life. Special interest will be granted to the influence of the French caricaturists on the Florentine (and Italian?) conception of human personality. But our main concern will be to underline one feature which has been left out by critics at large: Collodi’s transposition of the moral issues implied by the social relationships of the labour world into the field of children’s literature.
