# Signor Cavalletto — Little Dorrit character guide

> Signor Cavalletto in Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Cavalletto, John Baptist Cavalletto, John Baptist

**First appearance:** 0004-ii-fellow-travellers

## Snapshot

A talkative, good-humored Italian fugitive who turns up in Marseilles and, against the odds, becomes one of Arthur Clennam's most dependable friends.

## Who they are

Cavalletto arrives in the novel as a stranger in a strange country, cheerful, voluble, and entirely without the English instinct for keeping one's business to oneself. His loyalty to Arthur is offered freely and repaid in kind, and his foreignness makes him both a comic presence and a moral one. He matters because he shows the story's warmth is not reserved for the respectable.

## In the story

### [Sun and Shadow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/i-sun-and-shadow)

A fellow prisoner, he is a small, contented Italian man who accepts his confinement with equanimity, eating bread and smoking cigarettes. He listens to Rigaud's story with skepticism.

### [XI: Let Loose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xi-let-loose)

A fellow traveler sharing Rigaud's room; he listens to Rigaud's threats and later flees at dawn to escape his dangerous companion.

### [Appearance and Disappearance](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/ix-appearance-and-disappearance)

Offered by Arthur to accompany the Meagles, but Mr. Meagles declines.

### [The Progress of an Epidemic](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xiii-the-progress-of-an-epidemic)

Cavalletto is agitated and fearful after glimpsing a bad man from his past, whom he hopes did not see him.

### [Who Passes by This Road So Late?](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xxii-who-passes-by-this-road-so-late)

Recognizes the man from the handbill as an assassin he knew in Marseilles; agrees to help Arthur find him.

### [Mistress Affery Makes a Conditional Promise, Respecting Her Dreams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xxiii-mistress-affery-makes-a-conditional-promise-respecting-her-dreams)

His disclosure about Blandois's criminal past is the catalyst for Arthur's actions in this chapter.

### [An Appearance in the Marshalsea](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xxviii-an-appearance-in-the-marshalsea)

Helps track down Rigaud and guards the door during the confrontation.

### [XXIX: A Plea in the Marshalsea](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/chapters/xxix-a-plea-in-the-marshalsea)

Mentioned as being away with Pancks.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/characters/signor_cavalletto
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/little_dorrit_se/characters