The fairy-tale hero Pinocchio had a real-life prototype, as emerged from a letter by the author, Carlo Collodi, who reported that he wished to immortalise the story of a man he had seen in childhood, one Pinocco Sanchez, with wooden prosthetic legs and a

The fairy-tale hero Pinocchio had a real-life prototype, as emerged from a letter by the author, Carlo Collodi, who reported that he wished to immortalise the story of a man he had seen in childhood, one Pinocco Sanchez, with wooden prosthetic legs and a wooden patch in place of a nose, who had once been an army drummer and, after his mutilation, entertained people in street performances. At first Collodi did not plan to write a children's tale: what was conceived was a grown-up story with a tragic ending, for in real life Pinocco was killed in a fall during a performance. But in the end a text for children came out after all. In its first version Collodi's tale ended with the death of its main character, as a warning to disobedient children about the consequences of their behaviour, but at the request of readers the author resurrected Pinocchio with the help of a magic bitter medicine