Exhibition "Pinocchio, Truths and Lies"

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📚 Pinocchio is not about a puppet who wants to become a boy, but about something more uncomfortable: a boy who has to learn to deserve to be treated as a human being through suffering. It is, at heart, a novel about childhood and education, but also about poverty and survival. Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, published in Italy between 1881 and 1883, was a dark and cruel serialized novel, full of punishments, hunger, deceit, and violence. It was a reflection of that Italy and of the ideas of the journalist and writer himself, who dreamed of building a country free of corruption and capable of overcoming the enormous social inequalities that, for example, led to one of the largest waves of migration in the 19th century. The Andersen Collective is bringing the exhibition “Pinocchio, Truths and Lies” to Santa Brígida, taking advantage of the fact that 2026 marks the bicentennial of the birth of the Italian writer. The exhibition, which will open on October 2 and remain open to the public until the 30th of the same month at the Santa Brígida Library, traces the trajectory of one of the great names in contemporary Italian literature. The idea is “to make known that Pinocchio that almost no one has read and that has been overshadowed by later versions,” says Luz Caballero, president of the Andersen Collective. A Pinocchio that “is a reflection of this Italy of the Risorgimento and of Collodi’s liberal and progressive ideas,” she adds. In this exhibition, visitors will be able to discover such curious aspects as the connection between the story of Pinocchio and Freemasonry, or the dark and esoteric meanings of many of the passages in the work. “Numerous experts have identified Pinocchio’s successive ‘deaths and resurrections’ as an allegory of the initiatory path,” explains the president of Andersen. Not to mention that the tale originally ends with Pinocchio hanging from a branch, practically dead, but 19th‑century readers protested and asked for it to continue. There will be a small bibliographic display related to the most famous marionette in world literature and a collection of Pinocchios lent by collector José Jaén.