The Art of Dying: A short story

Note:  Some years back, I began a series of mysteries set in Medieval Florence and featuring a real historical character, Lapo Gianni, a notary and poet. Although an agent picked up the first novel, it never, unfortunately, made it into print. Here is a short story I wrote to go alongside the full-length novels, featuring Lapo´s friend, the artist Andrea Tufi. It was fun for me to pull this out and revisit old friends, I hope you enjoy it as well. Feel free to let me know!

The Art of Dying

Florence, October 1293

Andrea smoothed out the plaster over the nose of Donato, his apprentice, who lay across a trestle table in the workshop.

“Keep your face relaxed so we get a good cast.  Don’t move unless you’re really sure you’re suffocating, and maybe hang on a bit even then.”

Donato made a rude gesture with his free hand while he kept tight hold of his brass breathing tubes with the other.

Andrea pulled a wisp of blond hair back from Donato’s face.  “It shouldn’t take long for the plaster to harden properly.  It’s a good day for it, warm but not moist.  I’ll stay right here – I can’t afford to lose another apprentice.”

Donato could not see the grimace that flashed across Andrea’s face.  Neither one could yet bring themselves to talk much of Andrea’s other apprentice who was murdered last month in San Giovanni’s Baptistery.  The boys were the closest thing Andrea had to sons in his middle age; now he had only Donato.

Andrea scraped the remaining plaster out of the bowl before it could harden.  He had cast only a few life masks in his time; still, Donato was enough of an artist in the making to cheerfully submit to the process.  Not to mention sufficiently vain, another good artistic attribute, to wish to see his face immortalized in the bronze reliefs on a church door.

As Andrea bent to dip his hands into the bucket of water beside the table, someone rapped at his half open door.  He hastily rinsed his hands and grabbed a rag.  “Come in.”

He was surprised to see Donnessa, petite, yet well-rounded in all the places a man could desire, hasten into his workshop.

“Andrea—” she caught sight of Donato.  “What on earth are you doing?”

“I’m casting a mask.”

Donnessa crossed the room for a closer look at Donato’s face, framed in a bandage stiffened with an iron hoop, and filled with plaster.  She shuddered.  “I’m glad you never asked this of me.”

She’d been happy enough to pose nude for him.  Andrea grinned at the memory.  But that was what he appreciated about Donnessa, and why he’d been her steady client right until she left the profession.  Cheerfully honest about the fact her body was her living, but selective enough in her clients that he didn’t have to worry too much about any unpleasant consequences of sharing her favors.

“Do you have time for a drink?”  Andrea drew the cloth off the top of a wine jug nestled among jars of brushes and powdered pigments.

Donnessa hitched her skirts above her ankles and plonked herself down onto a stool.  “I need one.”  She accepted the proffered wooden cup.  “I’ll cut to the heart of the matter, Andrea.  I need your help to prove a murder.”

Andrea coughed on a mouthful of wine.  “I thought you said ‘murder’ and ‘your help’ in the same breath.”

Donnessa nodded.  “I heard how you helped solve the murder of your apprentice.”

Andrea wiped his beard, flecked with the white of middle age and plaster.  “It was more Lapo Gianni’s doing than mine.”

“Well, I can’t go asking a strange notary for help, but I hoped you still considered me an old friend.”

On the table, Donato twitched as if curious.

Andrea ignored him and took another draught of wine.  “Tell me the story.”

“I expect you heard that my master, Signor Busini, disappeared a little over a year ago, and was declared murdered.  The Gonfalonier called it a random act of robbery, but I’ve always suspected that it might be something else.  Now Signora Busini and Pietro Teutonico are getting married, and I don’t want to see them get away with it.”

Andrea lifted a hand in the air.  “Hang on.  You’ve jumped several paces ahead of me.  I’d heard that Teutonico was marrying some rich tradesman’s widow, but I didn’t connect it with your master—your late master.”

 “It wasnʼt much surprise to me.  He’s been her lover since before her husband’s death.  They did a pretty good job of keeping it secret, but I know a whore when I see one.”

“You think one or both of them killed the husband so they could marry?”

“I can’t go to the authorities because I don’t have any evidence.  Besides, I’m not the best of witnesses, am I?  But you must know Pietro Teutonico, and you know how artists work.  I can’t stand to see them profit from Signor Busini’s money.  He could be stingy, but he was an upright man at heart.  He knew my past when he employed me, but he said he believed in clean starts.  Not everyone would have put that sort of trust in a reformed whore.”

Donnessa ran her finger round the rim of her cup.  “There’s something else.  Teutonico was my client a few times, when I needed the extra money.  Not a regular, because I didn’t care too much for him.  He treated me like he’d paid to own me, not my services.  He still gives me looks I don’t like.  I’m afraid he’s going to force me into giving my old services for free when he’s the new master.  He could make it difficult for me to find employment elsewhere in Florence.”

Andrea scratched his beard.  “Do you have anything to go on beside your knowledge they were lovers at the time of Signor Busini’s death?”

“Teutonico was one of the last men to see Busini alive.  My master visited the studio to model for him, and disappeared on the way home.”

The bells sounded out for midday prayers from the nearby cathedral of Santa Reparata.  Donnessa slipped down from the stool.  “Talking of home, I’d better get back.  I said I was only going out for some alum to lighten Signora Busini’s hair for the wedding.”  She handed Andrea her cup with a peck on the cheek.

She paused at the door.  “I’ll find you here or at the Baptistery in a few days, unless I hear from you before.  Thank you, Andrea.”

Andrea stared at the empty doorway until a scuffle behind him made him jump.

“Donato!”  He’d almost forgotten his apprentice.  He whirled round to see Donato perched on the table, hands to his bandaged and plastered face, like some corpse arisen from a death bed.  “Stay there.”

Andrea rummaged in a tray of knives and blades for a suitable scalpel.  First, he cut around the edge of the bandage with care and pulled it away from the mask.  Then he drew the breathing tubes from Donato’s nostrils.

“Lean forward gently, and put your hands in front of your face.”  Slowly, Andrea worked his fingers around the edge of Donato’s face, easing the mask away from his oiled skin until it slipped off into his apprentice’s cupped hands.

Donato’s pink face bulged with curiosity.  “Who was that woman?”

“An old friend.  Never you mind.”  He handed Donato a cloth dipped in rosewater.

“Ah.  That sort of friend.”

* * * * *

That sort of friend, as Donato had put it, was nevertheless one to whom Andrea felt he owed at least a little help.  After all, he’d benefitted from the very ‘skills’ that made her position so precarious now.  And Andrea was no hypocrite; as he saw it, both of them got paid to do what others wanted.  Besides, her assessment of Teutonico was shared by others, even in the artists’ community.  The man was never slow to boast the superiority of northern artistry, hardly a diplomatic claim in a city that attracted so many artists from Tuscany and the south.

Andrea decided the first thing he should do was sound out Teutonico, see how guilty he acted.  And by luck, he had the very excuse in his hands right now: Donato’s life mask.  Teutonico was known for his skills in casting metal work, so a request for advice was not out of the ordinary.

Teutonico’s studio was only a couple of streets away.  Outside, he found an apprentice piling rubbish onto a hand cart:  some old canvases, a frame or two, various lengths of wood. 

He poked around in the pile.  “Is Teutonico throwing all this out?”

“Come begging, Andrea Tufi?  Did they sack you from your job at San Giovanni?”

Andrea turned to see Teutonico lounging in the doorway, clad for work in an old, paint-stained tunic and breeches.  He was a man of just above medium height, spare of frame, but with large, strong hands that made him good at the heavy work of sculpting, though less apt at the type of detailed work that made Andrea such a good mosaist.

“I’m still gainfully employed, but I never turn up my nose at free supplies.  Are you moving?”

Teutonico crossed his arms.  “Soon, I hope.  I plan to open a studio nearer the cathedral.”

Andrea raised his eyebrows in silent envy.  The location alone, with its aura of prestige, would increase Teutonico’s commissions.  Almost worth marrying for.

“Yes, I hear you’re taking a wife.  Signora Busini, isn’t it?  My congratulations.”

Teutonico smirked.  “I suppose you didn’t come here with a wedding gift if you’re sifting through my rubbish.”

Andrea passed the mask to him.  “I need to make a bronze relief for a door, but I’m not sure what formula of plaster to use for the cast.  I figured you’d have a recommendation.”

“A little brick helps.  And I’d accentuate the eyebrow here.”  Teutonico tapped the inside of the mask.

Andrea pulled out a piece of charcoal to mark the suggestions on the back of his hand.  “Grazie.  Didn’t Signora Busini’s first husband disappear?  She’s lucky he was declared dead, or she could have been stuck in marital limbo for the rest of her life.”

Teutonico handed back the mask.  “They found his purse stuck on a nail at the Ponte Vecchio, and concluded his body had been dumped in the Arno.  The river was swollen, so the body must have been carried well away from Florence.”

“I remember the gossip now.  Hadn’t he visited you that night?”

Teutonico shrugged.  “There were several witnesses who saw him leave my premises.  I lost a day’s work clearing my name, but it’s better than prison.  Are you interested in renting this studio?”

He’d better pretend he was.  “How’s the light?”

Teutonico stood back from the door to let Andrea step inside.  Several long windows, devoid of glass, lined the walls, their oilskin shutters removed to let in the warmth of unexpected autumnal sunshine.  A wide, double door opened at the back, useful for lighting a large canvas.  But Andrea was a man of habit, he was not about to leave his rooms on Borgo San Lorenzo.

“Don’t overlook the floor—it’s good flagstone.”

Andrea glanced down.  Good, scrubbable stone, newly laid in patches, given the tone of the mortar.  “I’ll think about it.   I’d better get back to my own apprentice.  Thank you for the advice, and good luck with the marriage.”

“I make my luck,” Teutonico retorted.

“And you do it pretty well,” Andrea murmured as he retreated up the street.  Donnessa was correct, Teutonico was arrogant about his good fortune, and dismissive of the husband’s murder.  But that alone didn’t prove him the perpetrator.

* * * * *

The Busini town house, modern and narrow, looked like it had been squeezed with difficulty between the older houses on this crowded street.  Andrea waited by the semi-private well at the crossroads of several equally narrow lanes.  The façade appeared newly cleaned, a strip of bricks above the first floor plastered in preparation for embellishment.

Donnessa hurried out.  “You have news already?”

Andrea shook his head.  “I’ve asked Lapo Gianni to search for the official record of the crime, but I’d like to know more about the Businis.”

Donnessa thought for a moment.  “Come in.  If we get caught, I’ll say I chipped the fresco in the dining room and asked you to repair it before my mistress or Teutonico found out.”

Andrea followed Donnessa upstairs to a well-furnished room, with glassed windows, tapestries on two sides of the walls, and, as she had mentioned, a large fresco on the other.

She took a fruit knife from a side table and chipped off a piece of skirt from a figure of a kneeling woman.

The artist in Andrea was aghast.  “You didn’t have to do that.” 

She smiled.  “I consider it payback.”

 Andrea furrowed his brow.  “I thought you said Signor Busini was miserly.  That fresco alone must have cost a pretty penny.  Teutonico doesn’t come cheap.”

“My master only spent money where it showed.  The private rooms are austere, and cold, too.  He didn’t let the servants have a fire in their rooms in the winter, not even a brazier.  But he was just.  That’s why I want justice done.  That’s him on the wall.” 

Andrea followed the direction of her finger to the figure of a middle aged man who sat on a throne above the woman.  One hand was upheld in judgment against a ruffian in the arms of a guard behind her, while the other pointed down to drop a morsel to a little dog curled under the throne on a stone floor.

“A scene of justice,” Andrea noted.

“I wonder Teutonico had the gall to finish the painting after my master died.”

“You can’t leave a work half done,” Andrea protested.

Donnessa sniffed.  “At least he delayed work on the frieze outside.  He asked me for a body mold for that.  I told him he could go stick his member in plaster and see how he liked it.”

“Did you catch your mistress or Teutonico having any suspicious conversations before Busini’s disappearance?  Did she meet with anyone unfamiliar?”

“Not that I know of.  She’s smart, and sly, too.”

Andrea sighed.  “You’re not giving me much to go on, Donnessa.”

“I know Teutonico is involved.  When you’re on the game, it’s a matter of self-preservation to be able to read people.  I can tell he’s dangerous.”

Andrea picked up the chip of plaster.  “Do you have some good wax?  I’ll stick this back before I go.”

* * * * *

Time to catch up with Lapo Gianni, friend, notary, and poet—friend, first and foremost—whose combination of logic and intuition made him the perfect source for solving a puzzle.

Lapo sat at his usual table in Anna’s tavern off Via Calimala, copying a document from notes spread at his elbow, an untamable mass of auburn curls falling around his face.  Andrea slid onto the bench beside him.  Friends since Lapo was a boy and Andrea a youthful apprentice, they needed no formal greetings.

“I found the recorded verdict on Signor Busini’s death,” Lapo said.  He pulled a notebook from a pocket in his surcoat and opened a page marked by a thin strip of leather.  “Let me read it; I had to copy it quickly so I used a shorthand.”

He glanced down the page.  “The night Signor Busini disappeared, he went after business hours to the studio of Teutonico to model for a fresco.”

“I saw that today.  But why the evening?  Teutonico has good light in his studio, but still, it’s not ideal.”

Lapo nodded.  “Someone thought of that question.  Teutonico and Signora Busini confirmed that Signor Busini did not wish to waste the hours of business on trivia, and he had suggested the time himself.”

That fitted with what Donnessa had told Andrea of him.

“He left the studio shortly after Compline.  Among the people who saw him leave, or go through town, were a neighbor of Teutonicoʼs, and a grain merchant.  But he never returned home.  Apparently his wife raised the alarm when she woke in the middle of the night and he was not in bed.  The next day, his purse was found caught on a nail by the Ponte Vecchio.  The assumption was he had been robbed and murdered, though there was no body.”

“And now one of the last men to see him alive, his wife’s lover at the time, is about to marry his widow.”

“But not the last man,” Lapo pointed out.  “Of course, that doesn’t preclude the possibility he or Signora Busini hired someone to do the killing.”

Andrea sighed.  “Teutonico will be long married to Signora Busini by the time I ferret out information on their acquaintances.  But he’s such an arrogant bastard.  I can see why Donnessa feels he was the murderer.  It was almost as though he was daring me to try to convict him.”

Lapo snapped the notebook shut.  “I may not work in court very often, but I’ve heard plenty of tales where the murderer, or whatever he is, gets caught by boasting of the deed or dropping clues to what he has done.  I don’t know whether it’s arrogance, the euphoria of escaping the noose, or divine justice.  If Teutonico is as conceited as you say, maybe it won’t be so hard to find a clue, or trip him up.”

Andrea stood.  “Then maybe what I need is a trap.  I’ll think about it.”

Lapo picked up his pen.  “Let me know if you need help.”

* * * * *

Andrea wove back through the streets to his studio, throwing out absentminded greetings to a few passing acquaintances. Could he make something out of a mere suspicion?  He daren’t act unless sure.  Defamation was serious, and defamation of a fellow artist was professional death.

“Watch out,” Donato called as Andrea stepped in the door.  “I spilled some wet plaster of Paris.  I thought I could scrape it up when it hardens.”

Andrea glanced down at the floor, where plaster was setting in patches on the uneven bricks.  It wouldn’t be so much trouble on a good, solid studio floor like Teutonico’s.

“Blessed Virgin!” he breathed.

“It’s not that bad,” Donato protested.

“No, I think I’ve figured it out.  I don’t need a trap; Teutonico made his own.  Signor Busini wasn’t pointing at the dog in that fresco, he was pointing at his grave.”

Donato gave him a blank look.

“Run to Anna’s.  Tell Lapo to call out some of his friends at the Gonfalonier’s office and meet me at Teutonico’s studio.  Quickly!”

Donato dropped his brush and darted out.  Andrea followed.  It might be more sensible to wait for official help, but a vestige of professional courtesy compelled him to face Teutonico artist to artist.

At Teutonico’s, only the apprentice was present, filling in the background to a panel of a diptych.  He bowed his head respectfully at Andrea.  “Signor Teutonico will be back soon.  He went to order gloves for his wedding.”

“I can wait.  But I have a question for you.  Were you here the night Signor Busini  visited to model, and so unfortunately disappeared?  I didn’t see your testimony at the inquest.”

The apprentice dabbed at a panel.  “Teutonico gave me leave to go visit my brother.  He lives just outside the city walls, up in the colli.”

So of course, he’d have to stay the night in the hills after the city gates were shut.  Andrea seized a long mixing stick and began to tap across the flagstones.  The apprentice gave him a curious look.  “I’m wondering whether to rent the place.  I want to test the soundness of the floor.  After all, I don’t know what’s underneath.”

The stone thudded dully beneath the wooden pole as Andrea moved across the floor.  But what about that area that appeared newly set?  Andrea bounced the pole off the stone.  Was the sound marginally different, or was that just wishful thinking?

“What are you doing?”  Teutonico stood in the doorway, gloves in hand.  He nodded to the apprentice.  “Go buy lunch.  I need to talk to Andrea.”

He tossed a coin at the boy as he passed.

Andrea grasped the stick tighter.  “I was checking the floor you recommended to me.”

Teutonico lay his gloves on a stool.  “You barely give me the time of day, and then all of a sudden you’re over here, asking advice, checking out the studio, and sticking your nose into the past of the woman I’m to marry.”

Andrea shrugged.  “I was only making conversation.  Who wouldn’t want to get a little gossip about a murder?”

Teutonico advanced.  “You’re lying.”

“So are you.  And I’ve a notion that if this floor was dug up, it would tell the truth.”

“People saw Signor Busini leave my studio.”

“No, they saw someone in his clothes.  No one spoke to him.  I think the fresco in his widow’s house tells me where he ended up, and it wasn’t in the Arno.  It was a master’s touch.  Does his widow know she’s looking at the story of her husband’s murder every day?”

Teutonico laughed.  “She’s never asked.  I’ve a master’s touch at other things she cares more about.”

Andrea thought.  The puny stick in his hand wasn’t going to delay an attack, but flattery might.  “Your neighbor saw him—you—leave, but he didn’t hear the commotion of a murder.  I think you asked him to model for the frieze and suffocated him.  You turned his life mask into a death mask.”

“Trust an artist to think of that.  Yes, when I had him down on the table, I poured extra plaster into the mold and whipped out the breathing tubes.  Before he could scrape it off, I’d strangled him.  I sealed the body in plaster so it wouldn’t smell, and buried him under the floor.  So, what do you want?  Free rent of this place?  Some of my commissions?”

“I think he wants justice,” said Lapo from behind.

Teutonico swung round, disbelief on his face as he saw Lapo and two guards.  Had he really assumed Andrea wouldn’t betray a fellow artist, or was he so self-centered it didn’t occur to him his actions were despicable?

By the time the apprentice returned, the plastered corpse of Signor Busini lay on the floor, a rumpled parody of a tombstone effigy.  He dropped the meat pies, eyes wide.

“He wasn’t here the night of the murder,” Andrea warned the guard who grabbed the boy.

“But he’ll need to come with us now.  He’ll be safe if he tells the truth.”

“Speaking of truth,” said Lapo, “I’ll write down mine and Signor Tufi’s reports and deliver them to the Gonfalonier later today.”

Andrea and Lapo scurried out back door to escape the gathering crowd.  “A drink?” asked Lapo.

“You need to ask?  We should have one for Signora Busini.  She’ll be a widow again before she’s been remarried.”

“She’s going to have to work hard at acting the victim if she wants to come out of this with any honor, or further marriage prospects.”

Andrea scratched his beard.  “On the subject of victims, if Signora Busini gets word of Donnessa’s hand in this, she’ll be out of a job.  Maybe she won’t want to stay in any case.”

Lapo gave him a sideways look.  “She can’t lodge with bachelors.”

“I know she doesn’t want to enter the House of Magdalenes.  She’s no nun.”

Lapo thought.  “I’ll go see Lagnini.  He might be able to shelter her for a while, even if he doesn’t have a post for her.”

That was what Andrea hoped for.  Lagnini, Lapo’s former family servant turned merchant, was a fair man, and not miserly.  “Be sure to tell Lagnini’s wife Donnessa is an excellent hairdresser.”

They continued along the street.  Suddenly, Andrea let out a laugh.

 “What is it?” Lapo asked.

“I was thinking Teutonico might like his death mask taken.  He used his art for death; death can use him for art.”

The hint of a smile curved Lapo’s mouth.  “Poets and artists, we all secretly hope for earthly immortality.  Thankfully, you and I have Anna’s superlatively bad wine for penance.”

“Well, I’d better pace my penance today: I need to get back to casting that mask of Donato.”  He had high hopes for the formula.  Murderer or not, Teutonico was an excellent metallist, and it would be a shame to let his knowledge die with him.  It would be Andrea’s apology and funeral gift.

 He had an ironic feeling that even Teutonico would appreciate that.

Historical Note

Lapo Gianni was a poet and notary of Medieval Florence, once part of the group of poets who included Dante until it seems that they had an unspecified falling out. Andrea Tufi takes his name from one of the actual mosaists who worked on the Baptistery of San Giovanni during this period.  With Pietro Teutonico, I have taken the liberty of conflating a couple of the possible names for the person(s) who worked on the bronze doors of the Baptistery at a slightly later date.  At the present time, the original doors are undergoing a lengthy conservation process, but you may still see magnificent copies in place.  The House of Magdalenes that I mention at the end was also a real convent in Florence, a haven, as its name suggests, for reformed prostitutes.