A Boy for All Seasons: Nation and ideology in images from Pinocchio

Abstract

The stroke of genius which is the book's extraordinary universality is also its Achilles heel: through adaptation, imitation and illustration Pinocchio is capable of being all things to all men. For this reason a study of the visual representations of the story is a study also of the social, political and economic history of post-Risorgimento Italy, a history as chequered, dangerous – and aspiring – as the adventures of the puppet.