Florence

Carlo Collodi was born, lived the majority of its life and died in Florence. All these personal papers were bequeathed to the National library of the city.
Florence is a city, at the time of Collodi, where the proverbial love of the discussion rather succeeds in making obstacle, to turn in derision that to really deepen, where a sincere vocation with pedagogy is moderated by the aspiration of the florentins to becoming a little all of the " crickets parlants" , and one finds obviously this frame of mind and this concept of " culture parlée" in Pinocchio.
Florence is the fatherland of the language of Italian great writers to which belonged obviously Carlo Collodi and that are Dante especially but also Pétrarque and Boccace.

The village of Collodi

The postulate which Collodi seems to have posed is not it finally that a whole country (Italy), and makes all the Universe, holds of them linguistically in a village and this is not there the answer to the interrogation on the universality of Pinocchio and an anticipation of the concept of " village-monde" born one century to later translate the contracting of our planet consequence of the globalistion and instantaneity?

Road which of Pescia leads to Lucca one arrives at Collodi by a deviation of 1 km. The borough is on the commune of Pescia in Valdinievole in the Province of Pistoia in Toscane (with 130 kilometers in the North-West of Florence). It is a famous village to have given, as native land of his/her mother Angelina Orzali, her pseudonym with Carlo Lorenzini, the author of the " Adventures of Pinocchio". The borough of Collodi has three centers of interest: the old borough says Collodi Castello, the Garzoni Villa (1633-1652) and its gardens baroques, entrusted to the imagination of the architect Ottaviano Diodati and the Park of Pinocchio. Three different and independent routes which however in common have a harmonious insertion in the landscape Tuscan. The imagination of the visitor is thus directed towards unusual, romantic or fairy-like fields. The villa of the powerful family of Garzoni where organized nature wants to be the reflection of the Tuscan culture of the XVIIe century does not visit. Conceived in terraces and on an axis consisted a staircase, the raised plans, decorated dancing waters, statues and caves are answered by forming a mosaic.

The old borough says Collodi Castello, whose name is mentioned on documents as of the end of the 12th century has an origin probably similar to that many other medieval boroughs or castle. Especially military mobiles push the population which resides in the valley to build fortifications on the hill overhanging this valley. This hill is known as Colline of Odo or Odolo. It is this name of Germanic origin which gave rise to the toponym of Collodi. Profiting from an excellent strategic position, Collodi has then the bad luck to be on the border between the territory of Lucca and that of Florence which dispute its possession during more than one century: from 1329 to 1442. After many seats and confusions Collodi becomes a strengthened outpost of the Republic of Lucca with an economy based on the culture of the olive-tree and the exploitation of the hydraulic force of water of Pescia Mineure, or Pescia de Collodi, by means of many water mills, of grinding stones with oil, spinning mills of silk and paper mills.

This borough has a really original architecture, nowadays still, one can traverse it only with foot. It is a cascade of small houses fixed on the side of a escarpée hill. In top it there with the antique rock: the " Rocca" , bellow majestic the " Garzoni" villa;. Along the narrow and paved streets, the houses preserve their medieval establishment. One finds remainders of moyenâgeuses fortifications and at the top of the village the parish church of " San Bartolomeo" 13th century. Inside important works of Article are preserved a table of the 16th century representing " The virgin on the trône" allotted by some to the school of Raffaello. And three works of the 15th century, two wood sculptures: the " Virgin in Enfant" and " San Bartolomeo" , the latter of the school of Jacopo della Quercia and finally a terra cotta of the school of Matteo Civitali representing " Santa Lucia".

Collodi, village of medium mountains of the " Appennino pistoiese" , altitude 125 meters, is one of the hamlets of Pescia (place chief of communes, altitude 62 meters) which also includes/understands the other following hamlets which are located at an altitude varying from 60 to 750 meters: Aramo, Castellare, Castelvecchio, Fibbialla, Medicina, Pietrabuona, Pontito, San Quirico, Sorana, Stiappa, Vellano, Veneri.

The Garzoni Villa (does not visit itself)

The Garzoni Villa of style baroque, bars almost the access to the old borough which seems gathered behind it, it was built between 1633 and 1652 on the remainders of the castle of Garzoni. It is a powerful building whose parts are characterized by the color different from their tapestries. The Red Room where it is said that Napoleon Bonaparte placed and the Great kitchen deserve a particular mention. Y worked the grandparents of Carlo Lorenzini and itself passed there most of its childhood. The park carried out at times of the construction of the villa and nouveau riche successively of statues and dancing waters revêt a very great interest. Immediately, two splendid rises with double slopes introduce with the higher terraces. There, a long cascade is concluded with a statue from Famous which blows in a conch of which spouts out very high a water jet. Curiosities of various kinds animate the side courses. As well cover an private interest the Small Theater as the Labyrinth, one of rare among those of age baroque to being parvenu to us. The Baths, normally separate according to the sex of the bathers, were equipped with a common environment musical animated by the presence of musicians willing in order not to be able to see what occurred there. Beyond the porch and court, one sees the odd one and delicious Pavillon of summer, works of second half of the XVIIIe century that some allot to Ottavio Diodati, to the required curvilinear forms contrasting with the linearity of the Villa itself. The family Garzoni, owner until the Twenties, had been, since the 14th century, mistress of the country and the surrounding territories.

The garden of the Villa (paying visit)

The European fame of the Villa is however especially related to its splendid garden baroque, one of rare in Europe which one can still appreciate in his forms and his structures of origin. Started at the 17th century, with the reorganization of the Villa, and finished at the end of XVIIIe according to plans of Ottaviano Diodati, it quickly became very known for its extraordinary visual impact. It indeed learnedly exploits the slope of the hill to propose large staircases, dancing waters, allegorical groups of sculptures and thousand secondary courses, enriched by caves, small buildings, statues out of terra cotta etc

Pescia and Valdinievole

Valdinievole
A voyage in the history, the culture and the traditions of the places gives a small sample of what one finds in Valdinievole. Antiquement called “Vallis Nebulae”: valley of the fog or the clouds, since the ground was mainly marshy. After cleansing wanted expressly by Pierre Léopold of Lorraine, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemian, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany, it becomes one laughing valley tenderly intertwined by the hills which ramify from the Apennines. Old medieval boroughs crown it by dominating it since the hills. In the valley one finds villages characteristic, villas, parks, famous thermal spas and protected areas. The local typical products are of quality and among those one finds some exclusivenesses in the région.

Pescia
Pescia, on the territory of which thus Collodi is the capital of Valdinièvole and links the monuments of value of its medieval past to an intense productive activity, concentrated especially on the floriculture. It shows the characteristics of a medieval city born on two banks of the Pescia torrent, with its historical center built around the parish church and of the market.
Among the most significant monuments of Pescia deserve a visit the beautiful Dome baroque flanked of a bell-tower of the 14th century and the capitulary Library where is preserved a beautiful small statue of the school of Della Robbia. To also see the Oratory of Sant' Antonio Abate, going back to the XII century and altered at the next century, and the church of San Francesco, rebuilt with XVIIe according to its original style gotic. Inside one can admire a retable of Bonaventura Berlinghieri representative San Francesco and the accounts of his life. On Right Bank of the Pescia torrent the long Mazzini place is, taken between Palazzo dei Vicari of XIVe and Chiesa beyond Madonna di Pie' di Piazza, with its frontage in the style of Brunelleschi. By traversing the quiet lanes upstream this place, one joined place Santo Stefano where Museo Civico Carlo Magnani is, sheltered in a beautiful palate of XVIIIe. One preserves at it tapestries, sculptures and paintings of Tuscan school of XIVe at the 17th century. Also deserve a visit Gipsoteca of the sculptor Libero Andreotti, presented in the buildings of Palazzo del Podestà.
Its modern hospital is dedicated to Saints " Cosma E Damieno". It takes its origins in the medieval tradition of hospilaliés to which belonged the Church Saint Antoine of the 14th century. It was used to consolidate the pilgrims along the way " Francigena" whose two North-South branches cross Apennin while precisely following the valleys of the two torrents: that of Pescia and that of Collodi. Along this way, many hamlets preserved their old aspect of strengthened boroughs and also of religious centers, as testify the Parish church to it to " San Bartalomeo" has Collodi and that Romance of Castelvecchio. Very interesting routes from the cultural point of view, intersected with pause culinary tasty such as for example famous beans of Sorana ⁽¹⁾ , produced typical of a small village of the mountain of the surroundings of Pescia. One passes thus from the center town to the territory of the commune. One can also appreciate a testimony of the most recent history of the surroundings of Pescia: old industrial plants, along the natural or channeled rivers. This sound of the paper mills (to this activity a museum is dedicated to Pietrabuona), spinning mills, tanneries, all structures given in values and studied only recently. Since after Second world war Pescia is, on the other hand, one of the principal Italian centers of the floriculture (flowers on foot) which has its window every two years with the " Biennial of Fleurs".

⁽¹⁾ At the end of chapter I of the " Adventures of Pinocchio" , one includes/understands better why Maître Antoine thinks of the piece of wood which will become Pinocchio: " This piece of wood, here it is: it is a vulgar log good to throw to fire to make boil a bean pot… "

The Park of Pinocchio with Collodi

the Park of Pinocchio could be born only in Collodi. The old village remained that of one century ago, characteristic with its cascade of the houses which of in top of the hill goes down to the Garzoni Villa and its scenographic Garden the XVIIIe century. Here was born the mother from Carlo Lorenzini. The writer passed there his childhood meadows of his large Orzali parents. One includes/understands the reasons which pushed the journalist and the brilliance writer to adopt the pseudonym of Collodi. The imaginary one of the Adventures of Pinocchio finds its origins there and acquires there this force which made of it a chief of unbounded work neither of space nor of time. Collodi at the same time preserves in oneself the character of a fairy-like and concrete place, in which the history forces our imaginary.
Realized over one thirty years period, between 1956 and 1987, it is not a question of a traditional park of entertainment, but rather of a fantastic place of a rare suggestiveness, of an invaluable example of collective creation artists of great personality. The feeling is that to traverse an alive fable, in a spontaneous and natural diverting environment, and while enjoying the quiet beauty of art and the nature.
The idea to celebrate in Collodi the famous puppet with a monumental complex was, in 1951, that of the mayor of Pescia of the time, professor Rolando Anzilotti which constituted the Committee for the monument with Pinocchio and wanted to call upon the most famous artists of the moment to evoke Pinocchio on its ground of origine.
Eighty four sculptors answered by presenting their projects to open national competition for the realization of the monument.
The victory went equal to Emilio Greco for Pinocchio and the Fairy and in Venturino Venturi for the Placette of the mosaics .
Thus, in 1956 the large one was inaugurated and now celebrates group of sculptures out of bronze, high of five meters, which symbolically represent the passage of Pinocchio of the puppet to the little boy and symbolizes the human course of the puppet, whereas the mosaics of the Small square tell with originality the principal episodes of Aventures.
This first part of the Park was carried out by the architects Renato Baldi and Lionello De Luigi. With the years the Park is always enriches by new achievements. In 1963 was inaugurated the Inn of red crayfish , with the restaurant of the same name, works of the architect Giovanni Michelucci, whose red spans point out the grips of a écrevisse.
In the south of the Park was high in 1972 the Pays of toys , course fantastic through more than one hectare of Mediterranean maquis, imagined by Pietro Porcinai constellated with 21 bronze sculptures of Pietro Consagra and constructions of the architect Marco Zanuso.
A small gallery leads to the Village of Pinocchio , from where share a stone path populated of the figures of the novel: the Police officer man with a moustache which bar the road by forcing the children to pass to him between the legs, and still the Grillon speaking , the Grand Theater of the puppets , the Chat and the Fox , the Bois of the assassins , the Fée child and his White Maisonnette , with the Escargot caretaker and the Chambre where Pinocchio received the visit of the three docteurs.
In the close Champs of the Miracles shines the Arbre of the gold sequins. A little further here is the green Snake . And still Four rabbits which carry a coffin to convince Pinocchio to swallow its drugs. Then the Fée with the open large arms appears. The Crab which sprinkles you water. The Nets and the Frying pan of the Green Fisherman . And then Pinocchio, transformed into Donkey in the Country of toys , constrained with exhiber in a circus. Finally the Large Shark , in the mouth of which one can enter to go to see Geppetto. Top of the large monster, on which one can go up, one sees the Chevrette and the Pantin which greets .
At this point the novel is finished, but the fantastic route continuous with the Labyrinthe , the Grotte of the Pirates , the Bateau corsair , the sound Roues actuated by water. Lastly, the last go for the visitors, the Laboratoire of the Words and the images , invented by Giovanni Michelucci and carried out in 1986 on the project of Carlo Anzilotti: a space where exposures of illustrations for the literature of childhood are accommodated regularly, of works of artists of the whole world, the exposures and laboratories didactic of which is devoted to splendid horse-gears of time, drawings and achievements of the children and schools for the “Birthday of Pinocchio”. With multiannual programs with topic, a Center of exposure has near the visitor a prospective action of redécouverte of the images and artistic and teaching values too often négligées.
The literary course of the Park is marked by an original marriage between vegetable art and environment. The progression is tortuous and the bulky vegetation makes that each stage is surprising and unexpected. Through more than one hectare the plants are the typical plants of the Mediterranean maquis. Except at the places where it is a question of accompanying the most extraordinary episodes, in this case the vegetation also assumes a more extravagant and original appearance.
Works which compose the Park of Pinocchio are high level artistic and of a language accessible to all. The book of Pinocchio has the same metaphorical and magic value indeed that a fable even if it always has didactic contents and symbolic system. Consequently it has the quality of any chief of work which is that to be readable at any time. Today, the significance and the symbolic system of the book cannot be separate contemporary world. Out one short period of time, an easy academic realization or a pictorial reproduction of the characters would have offered neither simplicity of reading nor impact on the public. This solution of facility to translate in a critical and figurative way the character of philosopher's stone of the book was thus not that selected.
The Park, among other important cultural activities, is one of the achievements of the National Foundation “Carlo Collodi”, non-profit making company and cultural institution.

The National Foundation Carlo Collodi

The National Foundation Carlo Collodi is a non-profit making company. Its mission is to develop and to diffuse the knowledge of the life and the work of Carlo Lorenzini says Collodi, the author of the adventures of Pinocchio. To this end, it created and manages in Collodi (Province of Pistoia) the monumental Park of Pinocchio, the Library collodienne and the Center of study on the reading and the literature of youth (dedicated to the heroes most representative of the books for children in Europe) and the European Friends of Pinocchio. Thanks to these permanent structures, the Foundation organizes cultural events all the year:

• in the Park of Pinocchio and the Museum-library “Laboratory of the words and the images” each one can appreciate works of the sculptors and architects who made the history of the contemporary Italian art, the representations of the best marionnettists, the didactic laboratories on the art of the puppets and of the puppets, the exposures of illustrators, painters, sculptors or “insane” collectors of Pinocchio and literature of childhood,
• in the Library collodienne the specialists can make research (after acceptance on written request) among the very rare works of the Library collodienne, a true mine of information on the translations, illustrations, free adaptations of works of Carlo Collodi,
• the schools of Italy and those their twin cities in Europe can take part in a contest entitled “has Pinocchio and his/her European friends”, the victories celebrate themselves in spring, during the Birthday of Pinocchio organized in the Park,
• the work of those which is devoted to the literature for youth in the world is developed thanks to the International prize “Rolando Anzilotti” rewarding the historico-critical monographs on this subject,
• publications, roundtables, presentations of cultural products, meetings and festivals are accessible to whoever wants to deepen thanks to Carlo Collodi itself, all the related topics with culture for youth,
• the European Friends of Pinocchio meets not only in the Library of the center of studies thanks to the texts of the very young winners of the contests, but also in the Park of Pinocchio which continues and amplifies the exercise which consists in “telling stories”,

The Foundation, prestigious cultural institution, carries on its activity mainly in the sectors teaching and literary. It also manages and manages the park. Its seat is the Arcangeli villa of the 19th century.
For its activities, she collaborates intensely with local, national and international organizations implied in the same fields of work as it his and among those, Italian Association for the dyslexia, the Italian Institutes of culture abroad, etc

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