A metamorphosis character, Pinocchio recalls, starting from his name, a possible lineage – if not a filiation – with the protagonist of the first novella of Decameron, Ser Cepparello. This paper analyses the dense tangle of textual and more widely semiotic correspondences between the two figures, designating a complex web of literary and cultural references, from the classical sources (first and foremost Ovid and Apuleius) to the variations of the theme proposed by contemporary narrative and cinema (Asimov, Aldiss, Burgess, Spielberg). The puppet metamorphosis towards the human is therefore framed inside a new plurality of perspectives.