Page 135 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 1.

Nine mewlers

Four months prior to the sudden appearance of the grotesque book, that is to say

December 1580

Alessandro Allori sighed. Oh, he was tired. Weary to the bone. Alessandro Allori was
growing old. Too old to spend entire days lying on his back, painting. He was 46 already. But
could he stop? No. He had nine children to feed. Nine! All depending upon him; if he did not
paint, they did not eat. The firstborn children were not yet old enough to apprentice somewhere
and begin to learn a trade, not even close.

Nine children!? How had that happened? Alas, Alessandro had had a barren marriage
for twenty years. He had clung to the notion of children, growing so more and more desperate
that he and his wife, Donata, had sought some remedies from Leonardo Fioravanti, a well-
reputed alchemist from Sicily who had recommended some syrup made from the root of the
tormentil, and that winter, Alessandro Allori and his wife Donata had had three children born all
at once in the same hour on the hottest day of the year 1578. Three girls, bah!, mewling for
milk, all at once. Then exactly nine months later, his wife let slip yet another set of three
infants -- again, all girls. And then, Jupiter Ruminus! if there weren’t yet three more infants born
the ninth month after that. At least two of the final trio had had the decency to turn out as sons.
After that, Donata stopped consuming the tormentil syrup and there were no more children. Still,
the damage had been done. He and his wife were forevermore outnumbered nine-to-two. Nine
children, where eighteen months ago there had been none. Nine children; three sets of three. So,
yes, he was tired. He was irritable. What he wanted, more than anything, was a good night’s
sleep.

Although...Sleep! That’s only half my trouble, he confessed to himself. Ever since I was
a younger man, lying on my back all day long, every day but Sunday, it had taken a toll. Now at
46 years old, poor me, Alessandro Allori, I doubt I have many years left in my body. I must
push it now, as hard as I can, before it gives out, leaving all nine grotesque children without a
father to their name.

He was grateful for the work. Duke Francesco de’ Medici had first come to Allori two
years ago, towards the end of 1579, offering him the commission of the ceilings in the new
Offices. Francesco had decided to make the upper loggia of the Uffizi into a museum to
showcase the collections made by his family over the years. The collections had grown -- an
understatement -- and now needed a permanent location. Francesco’s vision was to have rooms
devoted to antiquities, prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, jewelry, vases, furniture, trinkets,
bronzes, manuscripts, and of course dozens and dozens of portraits of the Medici family.
Francesco also envisioned overwhelming the visitor with vast, impressive and mysterious

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