PCOLLODI
in the press · chapter 1 · italian

Pinocchio

A piece of firewood starts talking before it's even carved — and the puppet it becomes is a liar, a runaway, and one of the most alive characters in any language.

Press this book. Your gift commissions the Great Library’s word-by-word interlinear Pinocchio — and the day it is made, it is free for everyone, forever. You are not buying a copy; you are paying for it to exist.

Press this book

$0 pressedgoal $30 · Chapter 1

Give what you like — a few dollars helps, or fund the whole of Chapter 1 and become its Founder. Every contribution presses it closer to real.

$25
❦ Press this book — $25
Prefer to give monthly? Become a Patron ›
A taste — every book reads word beneath word
τὰ
the
μέγιστα
mégista
greatest
τῶν
tôn
of the
ἀγαθῶν
agathôn
goods
ἡμῖν
hēmîn
for us
“The greatest of goods come to be for us through madness.” — a line of the finished Phaedrus

This is how every Great Library book reads, word beneath word. Pinocchio’s own first lines appear here the day its pilot is pressed.

Core vocabulary

The words that carry the book. Learn these and most of the text opens up; each links, in the reader, to its full entry. Counts are how often the word appears.

  1. fare to make, to do29×
  2. legno wood22×
  3. dire to say, to tell17×
  4. mano hands15×
  5. pezzo a piece, a bit13×
  6. burattino a puppet, a marionette12×
  7. parrucca a wig11×
  8. ridere to laugh10×
  9. naso a nose
  10. vedere to see
  11. volere to want, to mean to
  12. sentire to hear
  13. vocina a thin little voice
  14. occhio eyes
  15. gamba legs
  16. povero poor (pitiable)
  17. falegname a carpenter
  18. chiamare to call, to name
  19. prendere to take, to pick up
  20. dire2 to say, to speak
  21. guardare to look, to watch, to stare
  22. finire to finish, to end, to leave off
  23. casa a house, a home
  24. sapere to know
  25. cominciare to begin, to start
  26. rimanere to remain, to stay
  27. nessuno no one, nobody
  28. bocca a mouth
  29. buono good
  30. volta a time, an occasion
  31. ragazzo boys
  32. fuoco fire
  33. andare to go
  34. nome a name
  35. maestro master (a master craftsman)
  36. dare to give
  37. strada a street, a road
  38. tirare to pull, to draw
  39. parere to seem, to look like
  40. diventare to become, to grow, to turn
Read from our finished collection ›

Why this book

Collodi's original is wilder than the fairy tale you know: Pinocchio squashes the talking cricket in chapter four, gets hanged by assassins, buried, swindled, swallowed — and earns his boyhood the hard way. It is fast, dark, and very funny.

It is also Italy's favorite book and a perfect learner's text: short chapters, spoken-rhythm Italian, and a story that pulls. Read the real Pinocchio, word by word.

Why pressing it matters

Making an interlinear Pinocchio is real work — freezing a scholarly source text, aligning every word to its dictionary form, glossing what resists translation, and proofing it all to a hard quality bar. Pressing a book is how that work gets funded. When enough readers press it, Chapter 1 gets made — and then it is free to read forever, for you and for everyone who comes after.

This isn’t a purchase. It’s a commission. You’re not buying a copy — you’re paying for the thing to exist, and putting your name (if you like) on the first true Pinocchio that anyone can read for free.

You press the book with a contribution of any size.
When it’s funded, Chapter 1 is made, word by word.
It opens on the shelf — free to read forever.

Not ready to give? Follow it.

Leave your email and we’ll write to you the day the Pinocchio opens — no other mail, ever.

Read our finished collection · the library · The Great Library Project
Reading is always free. Patrons and founders are the ones who keep it that way.