Tarabotti, Alessandro

Alessandro Tarabotti
Art by Pete Venters
Alias and Nicknames	Sandy (Dandy the Italian) -
Species	Preternatural

Alessandro Tarabotti is the deceased preternatural father of Alexia Tarabotti Maccon and grandfather of Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama and Rodrigo Tarabotti. He is often referenced throughout the Parasol Protectorate Series and is the protagonist of The Curious Case, a short story.

Appearance

He was "a man of lean build, and patrician nose, tall, wearing a cleverly cut coat and trousers too tight." The tightness of the trousers was to distract from the smoothness of the leg movements. Alessandro dressed and spoke as an Englishman, but he didn't actually look like one "boasting a long line of ancestors who had invested heavily in being dark, hook-nosed and brooding". He was also quite a dandy, and his nickname from public school was 'Sandy Dandy the Italian', which he personally hated. He frequently included detailed descriptions of his latest fashion purchases in his journals.

He used a monocle to look scornfully at people. He wore a top hat and a jacket 'tailored to perfection flaring with just under enough fullness so as not to be thought dandified. It had three sets of invisible pockets in the lining, each housing a collection of sharp little sticks: silver, wood, and peppermint.' He also carried a miniature antikythera device for extra security (it apparently gave exact measurements of the moons phases).

His dandified dress was part preference and mostly to disguise his weapons and make him seem something different from what he was: a cold killer.

Personality

Alessandro is clouded in mystery; little was revealed about him personally in Alexia's series, until The Werewolf That Wasn't, The Mummy That Was, And The Cat In The Jar was released.

Based on his journals, Alexia considers him quite practical, like most preternaturals. However, she concludes that he “had not been a very nice person” – an assessment shared by Professor Lyall – lacking the strong ethical foundation she had cultivated. She speculates that it may be because he was male, not female like herself. However, since he was raised by Templars as “devil spawn” "born to sin and damnation," they would have had a strong influence on his moral character. Alessandro considered himself "better at hunting…than loving," supporting this view.

He kept an odd collection of books on a wide variety of topics, including the classics, the supernatural, and sex. He kept personal journals of his life starting during his time at Oxford, most of which he left to Alexia. The last few, dating from 1845 to 1850, were left to Professor Lyall, who was once his lover.  

When it came to his sexual preferences, Alessandro was interested in both males and females, as shown by his past relationships with Mrs. Loontwill, Professor Lyall, and, possibly, Madame Lefoux's father. Based on his journals, Alexia considered him "opportunistic" considering sex. 

Alessandro also liked peppermint.

History

Alessandro Tarabotti was one of the last preternaturals bred by the Templars before they discontinued the breeding program. He was born in 1805 and was sent off at age 5 (1810) for training by the Templars, who taught him to utilize his power as a preternatural and hunt the supernatural. Floote served as his valet, butler, and possibly bodyguard, remaining loyal to Alessandro even after his death, revealing none of his secrets to his daughter. The preternatural worked a long time to free himself from the Templars.

In 1822 he began his studies at Oxford where he was a pace bowler for New College cricket team. His teammate and brief lover at the time was Eustace Phinkerlington, whom he called Pink. He would later marry Eustace's younger sister, Leticia.

He visited Egypt three times total starting in 1836.

One of these visits was at the behest of his aunt Archangelica, who sent him to get her pet mummified. He fails at this and uses an ancient mummified cat to placate her.

Alessandro discovered the source of the God-Breaker Plague on one of these visits, at a location along the Nile near Luxor. He worked with Matakara, who had started the plague, to collect preternatural bodies to expand the plague's reach. After his death, it was further expanded on his orders, carried out by his loyal followers and Floote.

On his second visit in 1841 he met Leticia, who was accompanying her brother Baronet Percival Phinkerlington, younger brother of Alessandro's school mate 'Old Pink' from his Oxford days and possible former lover of Alessandro's. The reader learns that Old Pink has thrown over the title to become a claviger to a loner, allowing Percival to inherit the title. Percival's death leaves Leticia in Alessandro's hands at the end of the e-story: The Curious Case . This consanguinity presumably leads to their marriage. This trip is also the beginning of Alessandro's expansion of the God-Breaker Plague.

It's likely that he met Genevieve Lefoux in Winter of 1845 on a visit to Paris (she would have been 5 at the time.)

However, Alessandro left his wife soon after her pregnancy began (somewhere around 1846 or 1847); preternaturals almost always breed true, and cannot share the same air, so he could not keep a close proximity to his own child.

In Heartless, it is revealed that soon after leaving his wife, he pursued a romantic relationship with Professor Lyall. Following months of personal observation, he figured out about the abuse that Lyall's Alpha, Lord Woolsey, had inflicted on Lyall, and decided to kill the mad Alpha. However, Alessandro chose to go after Woolsey on the night of the full moon in June 1850, when werewolves are at their strongest, and died in the fight. This caused Lyall much grief and led to his plot to remove Woolsey as Alpha and replace him with Lord Maccon.  

Fighting Style

When fighting he used fists and feet, drawing on skills he'd learned in the Orient. His technique was most ungentlemanly. He always enjoyed fighting from a boy.

Weapons

Alessandro used a large array of weapons. Among them are: wood and silver pins, a garrotte, vials of poison, Germany's best phosphorous matches, a flask of turpentine, several guns and cigars. He carried at least one gun in a quick release wrist holster. He had a small analogue aetheromechanical transducer which tested for remnants of aetheromagnetism.

He passes along two guns to Floote: 2 tiny guns, one pearl handled. Alexia incorrectly refers to them as derringers, they are too old to have been made by Henry Deringer (who started gun production in 1852) but are essentially a single shot gun of that style. Alessandro uses them in his Egyptian adventure 1841. They have been adapted to take sundowner style bullets, but are not the most accurate gun.

In the Books

The Curious Case of the Werewolf that Wasn't, the Mummy that Was, and the Cat in the Jar

In 1841, Alessandro and Floote are in Egypt on a mission. They are interrupted while questioning a young boy by Baronet Percival Phinkerlington and his sister Leticia. Alessandro sends Floot is sent off to chase the boy while he continues his conversation. Upon finishing, he discovers Floot being attacked by three men, but Alessandro is able to quickly defeat the attackers. That evening, Alessandro has dinner with Percival and Leticia before heading out to meet his contact, an archeologist. Mr. Caviglia had discovered the body of a werejackal in Anubis form. A werewolf and Percival interrupt Alessandro, who then kills Mr. Caviglia, the werewolf and Percival to prevent rumors of the mummified body from spreading. As Percival lay dying, he requests that Alessandro escort Leticia home, assuring him that she knows nothing of his mission. Alessandro agrees.

Trivia

• Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama, the biological daughter of Lord and Lady Maccon, gets her middle name from Alessandro, who would be her grandfather on her mother's side. 
• Alessandro Tarabotti was offered the position of Muhjah by the queen, but Queen Victoria states that he rejected it. According to Lachlan, the werewolves, the vampires, and a few ghosts filibustered on his approval, making it a moot point. 

Links

• Pinterest Character Board for Alessandro Tarabotti.

Quotes

• "Floote, who was himself an Englishman, did not point out that Alessanro Tarabotti, of a similiary unfortunate over-education as the man approaching, dressed and spoke like an Englishman. He didn't actually look like one, of course, boasting a long line of ancestors who had invested heavily in being dark, hook-nosed, and brooding." (The Curious Case)
• "Alessandro was not burdened with Floote's sentimental British predilection towards proper violent comportment. When Mr. Tarabotti fought, he used both his fists and his feet, drawing on a spate of skills he'd learned in the Orient." (The Curious Case)
• "Mr. Tarabotti had always been fond of the occasional pugilistic endeavour, ever since he was a boy - reveling in that delicious slap and crush of flesh against flesh." (The Curious Case)
• "Alessandro knew what he saw, a man of lean build and patrician nose, tall, wearing a cleverly cut coat and trousers a little too tight. In short - a dandy. He would not see that the coat was cut to hide musculature, rather than exaggerate it, and that the tightness of the trousers was to distract from the smooth movements of the legs that wore them." (The Curious Case)
• "Alessandro Tarabotti had clearly felt a strong inclination toward literature concerning the supernatural, so Alexia had a tolerably clear concept of what occurred in a vampire hive." (Soulless, Chapter Two)
• "Alessandro Tarabotti had engaged in quite an adventurous life before marriage and collected books from all around the Empire, some of them with very fascinating pictures, indeed. He had an apparent passion for explanatory studies on primitive peoples, which resulted in the kind of documentation that might encourage even Evylin to enter a library - had she been made aware of their existence." (Soulless, Chapter Two)
• "Floote had been Alessandro Tarabotti's valet before Alexia was even a twinkle in that outrageous gentleman's eye." (Soulless, Chapter Four)
• "Prone to willful and problematic lives, the Tarabottis." (Soulless, Chapter Nine)
• "Everything that has happened, up to a point, probably has something to do with Alessandro Tarabotti." (Blameless, Chapter Three)
• "[T]here's no such thing as fate-there's just werewolves, and there's no such thing as coincidence-there's just vampires. Everything else is open to interpretation." (Blameless, Chapter Four)
• "My father was an inventor?' That surprised Alexia. She had never heard that about Alessandro Tarabotti. All his journal entries indicated he was more a destroyer than a creator. Besides, by all accounts, preternaturals couldn't really invent anything. They lacked the necessary imagination and soul." (Blameless, Chapter Six)
• "He was good, your father, very good. He'd been trained by the Templars for one purpose and one purpose only - to hunt down and kill supernatural creatures. But even he couldn't take on an Alpha ." (Heartless , Chapter Ten)
• "That sounds like my father. He wasn't particularly loyal to any organization." (Timeless, Chapter Thirteen)
• “Very tidy about death was Mr. Tarabotti. Not to mention good at doling it out. A curious man. He had his own set of morals although they did not always commensurate with that of society.” (Imprudence, Chapter Twelve)

Words to Live By

No record and no witnesses. He will go to any length to make this so.