05/27/2024
The Pinocchio Atlas, published by the Treccani Italian Encyclopedia Institute and presented today in Rome, is a critical and historiographical undertaking capable of recounting a book born in Italy but which has penetrated – like no other literary text – into every corner of the planet.
Divided into ninety-six chapters and embellished with six rich iconographic paths, the Atlas recounts the long journey of the Adventures of Pinocchio, the book by Carlo Lorenzini, now known as Collodi *, which never ceases to speak to readers of cultures, languages, religions and different traditions.
«This volume – as Massimo Bray, General Director of Treccani, recalls – is first of all a journey, a journey that proceeds happily in two directions because from the book The Adventures of Pinocchio it sets off towards the world and from the world it inevitably returns to the extraordinary one’ childishness’, as the Author himself defined it, which is Carlo Collodi’s masterpiece, an excellence of Italian literature capable of going beyond the borders of our country to very soon become universal heritage”.
From the European to the Asian Pinocchio, from the ‘black’ puppet of many translations into African languages to the character who moves between North America, Latin America and Oceania, the Atlas traces the history and geography of a literary text that has not known (and still does not know) boundaries, between translations faithful to the original, adapted versions, actual rewritings, reductions.
The Pinocchio Atlas ideally combines two important anniversaries: the 140 years since the first volume edition of Pinocchio, celebrated in 2023, and the 200 years since the birth of Carlo Collodi, which will be celebrated in 2026.
The project conceived and directed by Giovanni Capecchi, supervised by a scientific committee composed of Veronica Bonanni, Alberto Casadei and Mario Casari and promoted by important institutions such as the University for Foreigners of Perugia, the Caript Foundation, the Uniser Foundation of Pistoia, the Carlo Collodi National Foundation , is supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and has the approach and ambition of being a real Atlas capable of crossing and uniting distant territories, through 96 essays and the work of over 140 authors.
«The three years needed for this research were characterized by the desire to get everywhere – said the scientific director of the work, Giovanni Capecchi -. Pinocchio, in fact, translated into almost all the languages of the world, has also reached the most remote corners, or which appear so in our Italocentric and Eurocentric vision, and has arrived as a story to tell and as a character who has some unmistakable iconic traits, to starting from the nose that gets longer telling lies.”
For Lorenzo Zogheri, President of the Caript Foundation, «Carlo Lorenzini chose to use as a pseudonym the name of the town in the municipality of Pescia, in the province of Pistoia, from which his mother’s family originated and where he himself stayed, especially during the ‘childhood. In addition to the obvious scientific importance of the work, this close link with the territory is the reason why the Caript Foundation and the Uniser Foundation shared its intentions and supported its creation.”
This work, as underlined by Valerio De Cesaris, Rector of the University for Foreigners of Perugia, «also represents a formidable tool for the promotion of the Italian language and culture in the world, precisely because it deals with the most international book of our cultural tradition».
And it is precisely to this dimension that Pier Francesco Bernacchi, President of the Carlo Collodi National Foundation refers, which «has carried out, and carries out, multiple cultural activities dedicated to Pinocchio at an international level, often in collaboration with Italian Cultural Institutes, Universities, Museums, institutions public and private.”
The attention of the volume is concentrated on the complete translations of Collodi’s book, but there are numerous reflections on the presence of Pinocchio in the collective imagination and in the social and cultural life of peoples, with references also to the television and cinematographic versions, to the illustrations that have accompanied the various editions and theatrical reductions.
After the presentation at the headquarters of the Treccani Italian Encyclopedia institute, a conference will be dedicated to the Pinocchio Atlas at the University for Foreigners of Perugia on Tuesday 28 May (hall of Palazzo Gallenga, 3 pm) with the participation of many international authors of the book , and a round table in Pistoia with the writer Antonia Arslan, the director Marco Baliani and the writer Ermanno Cavazzoni on Wednesday 29 May at 5pm. On the same evening at the Bolognini theater in Pistoia the show Occhiacci di legno, aka Pinocchio, will be staged directed by Giovanni Fochi.
Simone Gai
