Mauro is a keen artisan from Umbria who helped Dan and me a number of times with our palazzo restoration in Todi. His father and grandfather were carpenters and they passed on to him the tricks of the trade and their pride in a good job. A chimera in our globalised world.
Mauro has two passions: riding his Harley-Davidson and fitting boats. When you master the art of building wooden interiors in a tricky environment such as a small yacht, you are ready for anything. Indeed this ability gave Mauro an eye for detail as well as a mind for the unexpected fix to a fiddly situation.
The carpentry world is not necessarily all about measurements and mathematics. Wood is a living material; it expands and contracts. Especially when you handle old fixtures – like a door or ancient paneling – it’s pretty much like dealing with a temperamental elderly person. If you want it to continue to work you have to comply with its twists and turns. “When you are fixing an old door, Mauro says, you first find the plumb line and then you forget about it.”
Mauro mumbles and curses as he fixes a 19th century lock or makes a new frame for a beautifully warped antique door. He just can’t help himself. He has to pick a fight with what he loves and deeply respects. “It takes a lot more time and patience,” he says. And once the work finished, he beams and points at the old fixture matching seamlessly his own piece of work. “They knew how to make things back then! Nobody knows how to work like this today. Everything is machine made and when broken, it’s damn done for.”
I like to watch Mauro while he performs. It’s a pleasure for me, and a necessity for him. He needs an audience to accompany his verbose labor. He tells me about an eccentric assignment he carried out recently: building an entire tree house complete with picture window, its own furniture, and a twisting stairway. “It took a pal and me a week from start to finish,” he says smiling at the memory of the fun they had. “We didn’t like the idea of a straight way up and figured out a staircase that winds up through the branches for a dramatic effect. We built it entirely on the spot, without a plan or a design.”
When I suggest Mauro that I might kidnap him and steal him away to Dordogne to work at La Placette Haute he says “why not?” He’s already done an extensive renovation work in a Mayfair townhouse in London. He muses at the idea of France, thinking out loud and enumerating all the inconveniences: he would have to transport his traveling kit (a dozen heavy boxes containing tools and nails) and wouldn’t be able to resort to his well-equipped Todi workshop. And, can he find good smooth lumber on the spot?
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