Poor Pinocchio

This essays intends to propose an interpretation of Le Avventure di Pinocchio based on 19rh century socio-economic theories and related ethical political models, taking as a variable the presence and absence of money, in its various manifestations: poverty, charity, paid labour, etc. The essay is divided in three parts. The first part summarises the debate on pauperism in Florence, and more generally, in a European context. The second part reconstructs the panorama of the discussions on these topics within two of the principal newspapers to which Collodi was contributing, "11 Lampione" of Florence and "11 Fanfulla" of Rome. In the third part, these findings are orientated towards an interpretation of the Collodian masterpiece as a staging of the contemporary tensions between Christian ethic and the principles of laissez- cure, between an archaic peasant society and the emerging industrial world.