Count Franz Pocci

Who was Count Franz Pocci?

Count Franz Graf von Pocci was a significant official in the court of King Ludwig the First of Bavaria. However, he is best known as the founding Director of the Munich Marionette Theatre, shadow puppeteer and author of countless puppet plays and children's stories.

Pocci, in collaboration with Josef Schmid, founded the Munich Marionette Theatre in Munich, Bavaria, Germany in 1855. He hired the premises, drew stage curtains and designs, and wrote pieces for the hero of Schmid´s shows, “Kasperl Larifari”, a descendant of Hans Wurst and all the classical comic figures in traditional European puppetry. This collaboration was highly influential and is credited with inspiring the formation of other theaters, most notably the Salzburg Marionettes under Anton Aicher in 1913 in Salzburg, Bavaria and the Toelz Marionette Theater.