Page 143 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 3.

One was unfortunate

Aha! Brilliant, Alessandro. Yes. I shall hire three apprentices: young, or unfortunate,
or stupid. Jupiter Opportunità!

The second painter Allori hired -- the “unfortunate” -- was Aurelio DeSolo. Aurelio was
brilliant at painting mythological figures, creatures and grotesques. Allori had spotted Aurelio
sketching in the piazza and through a protracted series of written notes on Aurelio’s sketchpad,
they had come to a financial arrangement. Sadly for Aurelio, Allori correctly assumed the fellow
hadn’t been hired recently by anyone and would be grateful for any work at any price.

Aurelio DeSolo had been born deaf. His family was plenty wealthy: his great-great
grandfather had branched out from being a tanner to owning tanneries; Grandfather DeSolo had
bought the land under the tanneries; and Father DeSolo had bought, then sold, more tanneries in
Piedmont. Father DeSolo had been lucky; he’d sold at just the right time between civil uprisings
and bought them back again just after the uprisings were squelched when no one had working
capital but the DeSolo clan (et cetera; look up history of “pre-Risorgimento economics” if you
want to follow the waves of fortune which Father DeSolo rode so magnificently, as though he
were a very fiscal Helios astride his great sun chariot). It was assumed that first-born Aurelio
would inherit all the vast holdings and influence which had been accumulating for generations
for the sole purpose of coalescing them all into a single all-powerful DeSolo Male Heir.

Oh, but he was deaf.

This was disaster for five generations of Aurelio's family members. Why was deafness a
disaster, you ask? Because, back in those days, and in fact, back much further, even into early
medieval times, in order for the eldest son to inherit the family fortune, he must show up in court
in front of a magistrate and “stipulate” on his own behalf that yes, please, he would like to inherit
all his family's wealth, thank you very much. But, unfortunately for Aurelio, “stipulate” meant
“stipulate out loud.” That is, to speak. The law was weird but clear on this account. The heir
could not gesture his assent. He could not write it. He must speak it. Actually, to be really
clear, because some key points of this story hang on this legal ruling, Aurelio could gesture all he
wanted, he could write gigantic tracts and pleas and essays and sonnets, he could illustrate his
assent in an illuminated manuscript, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day of his twenty-
first birthday (which had come and gone five years ago on August 8, 1576) he must also have the
ability to speak out loud his “stipulation” on his own behalf. And this he did not have, for he
was deaf. It was tragic timing for Aurelio DeSolo, because very soon after his twenty-first
birthday, there began to appear a few very clever and patient linguistically-inclined doctors and
medically-inclined linguists who began developing techniques and trainings for the deaf. But in
Aurelio's day, it was unheard of to teach the deaf to speak, if not entirely unthought-of.

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