The Geography of Carlo Collodi’s Viaggio per l’Italia di Giannettino as a tool for the Italian nation-building process

Abstract

In this contribute we discuss the political and social issues of Carlo Collodi’s Viaggio per l’Italia di Giannettino published between 1880 and 1886. In Italy the XIX Century has been a crucial phase both for the nation-builing process and for the political and social achievement of the Bourgeois class, in particular through the role played by writers and philosophers. Carlo Collodi, known mainly as the author of Le avventure di Pinocchio, gave his contribute to these processes by publishing Viaggio per l’Italia di Giannettino, a novel that tells a young boy’s journey across Italy. Collodi, by emphasizing the beauties of the Italian cultural heritage, aimed at inspiring the future generations’ patriotism. Despite not being an official textbook, many teachers used this novel as a recommended reading within their classes and this success shows how important children's literature has been both for the development of the nationalist discourse and for the achievement of the bourgeois values during the XIX Century.