Carlo Lorenzini was born in Florence in 1826, the eldest son of a cook and a servant, and was brought up in the hillside village of Collodi. He began his writing career as a journalist, writing under the pseudonym Carlo Collodi. In 1875 he began writing for children, adapting traditional tales and creating his own stories. When the first chapter of Pinocchio appeared in an Italian newspaper in July 1881 it was an immediate success. Carlo Collodi died in Florence in 1890.
