Handel's favorite castrato

[JesusA (imported)]

I have been doing some file cleaning the past few days -- basically trying to organize materials so that I can find them, but also discarding a great deal of material that I will never find a use for. Along the way, I ran into some notes that I had about Senesino, who sang for Handel in London, who created 17 leading roles for him.

Senesino was born Francesco Bernardi on 31 October 1686 in Siena (the source of his stage name Senesino). His first recorded payment as a singer came at the age of 9, when he began receiving 3 lire per month to sing in the choir of the Duomo in Siena. On 17 November 1699, the rector of the cathedral reimbursed his father 50 lire for Senesino's castration at age 12 by the surgeon Giovanni Domenico Tolensani. After his castration, Senesino's salary was raised from 3 lire per month to 8 lire per month and then to 11 lire the following year.

Since several scholars of opera have written that the castration of the castrati was illegal and was done clandestinely, I checked a few sources that I have at hand to see what I could quickly find....

Senesino's older brother, who sang under the name Bernardi was born 11 April 1682. He had been castrated by the same surgeon on 22 November 1696, at the age of 14. The surgeon was paid by the rector of the cathedral. He continued to sing in the Siena Duomo until his death in 1740 at the age of 57.

Andreini was born Andrea Martini on 30 November 1760 in Siena. On 11 October 1775, his father signed a contract with the cathedral that called for reimbursement for the 50 lire that he had paid to the surgeon Giuseppe Moschini for the castration of his 14 year-old son.

Pane began singing as a boy soprano at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome at the age of 9. In December of 1645, at the age of 12, Cardinal Rinaldo d'Este of Rome became his patron. The Cardinal paid for his castration in Rome on 4 May 1646, when he was 13. [On a side note, Santa Maria Maggiore is built on the site of the temple where the testicles of the priests of Cybele were buried after their self-castrations. The site of the main Roman temple to Cybele is under the Vatican.]

Those were the most detailed notes that I could quickly find, however I did find two additional records of interest:

Gordiani was received already castrated by the orphanage Pia Casa degli Orfani in Rome on 28 August 1819 at the age of 10. Poli was received by the same orphanage on 28 February 1820, also already castrated at the age of 10. Both received singing lessons at the Vatican and both were later admitted to the cappella pontificia.

This is more information than I have been able to find about most of the castrati. For most, I have been able to find nothing beyond that they were castrated and when they began their career as castrati. For a few, there is a bit more, but still very little of substance.

For example, for Tenducci, we have his wife's written statement that he was castrated at the age of 9. We also have testimony from a court case against him (as quoted by Helen Berry 2011, pp. 287-88). Tomasso Massi, the son of the surgeon who assisted his father in the surgery testified:

"I do recollect very well when my said Father in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty Eight Castrated the said Mr Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci who resided in the Village of Monti St. Savino...and I do clearly recollect that the said Operation of Castrating was performed by Order of the said Tenducci's Father who was then Servant of the Commissary of the said Village and that such Operation was made at a House in the said Village when the said Tenducci resided.... I do clearly recollect that my Father Castrated the said Tenducci of both parts by making the usual Incisions in the Groin and of having Executed and cut out his Two Testicles and the Spermatick Ducts...."

Roger Freitas' excellent and very detailed biography of the castrato Atto Melani contains even less information. Atto Melani was the second of seven brothers born to a bourgeois family in the Tuscan town of Pistoia, northwest of Florence. He was the first of his brothers to be castrated. At least four, and probably five, of the seven were castrated. The best that Freitas could do was to note that Atto had probably already been castrated before he joined the cathedral choir in 1636, at the age of 10.

Freitas does note that, "The procedure itself was considered rather mild for the period, requiring around two weeks of recuperation. Indeed...castration was a common surgery (involving only the testicles), used more often to treat diseases -- everything from hernia to gout to epilepsy -- than to preserve voices."

I will continue to look for more detailed descriptions, but this is what I have found so far.

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Berry, Helen. (2011). The Castrato and His Wife. Oxford University Press, xiv,312 pp.

Freitas, Roger. (2009). Portrait of a Castrato: Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 431 pp.

[Ernie of Maine (imported)]

It is good to know

[sparkey49 (imported)]

This is very interesting thanks for sharing!

[Peter47-NL (imported)]

Thank you Jesus for this very interesting information.It means a lot to me and I'll look forward for the further detailed desscriptions.

[tjstill (imported)]

Very interesting, I was a little surprised about the castrations at 14 as this would have been considered quite late in those times. Thinking of it, I try to imagine my own situation at 14, it was a lot different to my outlook at 10! I was much more aware of the sex and would have found the loss of sexual appetite very disturbing.

[nutless1 (imported)]

I too found this very interesting. I would have welcomed my parents paying for the gift to be a eunuch at age 10, and more so by age 14! It would have removed (pun intended) the dislike of my testicles! And perhaps I may have had a deeper interest in the school and cathedral choir.

Very interesting, I was a little surprised about the castrations at 14 as this would have been considered quite late in those times. Thinking of it, I try to imagine my own situation at 14, it was a lot different to my outlook at 10! I was much more aware of the sex and would have found the loss of sexual appetite very disturbing.

[JesusA (imported)]

Very interesting, I was a little surprised about the castrations at 14 as this would have been considered quite late in those times.....

We know that the age of puberty has been declining in the modern world. However, we do not know why. While there is little in the medical record dating the onset of male puberty, there is a significant body of data on the age of menarche (first menstruation) of girls. There is a long-term decline in age over the entire recorded set of data.

The established age for determining "precocious puberty," meaning that medical intervention might be needed to discover the cause if puberty begins earlier was originally set at age 8 for girls and age 9 for boys. There is now discussion of lowering the recommendation to age SIX for girls and seven for boys. About half of American girls now have their first menstruation by age 12. Symptoms of precocious puberty in girls include breast development and their first period. In boys they include enlarged testicles and penis, a deepening voice, and the beginning of facial hair. The cause of precocious puberty is often a tumor: brain, ovary, or testicle. Sometimes it is the result of serious early infection. Sometimes no cause can be found.

Data on the start of sexual maturation for boys is much more sketchy than that for girls, though it is clearly lower than in earlier years. In some of the boychoirs in the first half of the last century, boys' voices often didn't break until about age 18. Today thirteen is considered average. For example, in 1748, a 14-year- old choirboy in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna was scheduled for castration to preserve his boyish treble. His father intervened at the last minute, and the young Joseph Haydn changed his musical career to composition (Landon 1981).

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Landon HCR. Haydn: A documentary study. New York: Rizzoli; 1981:244pp.

[Paolo]

Having gone through five boys, and had "the talk" with them and many of their friends as well (with signed consent forms), I can attest from conversation that the age of the first appearance of secondary male sexual characteristics is indeed dropping. Both of my nephews were getting their first pubic hairs, and testicles development, around age 10.5. The nephews I know of, because it seems that overnight, #2 "had balls!" all of a sudden and called me thinking that something was wrong.

Back in the good old late 70's and early 80's, it was not considered unusual to see boys as old as 14 in the showers at camp with little to no visible evidence of puberty 'getting hold of them'.

[Peter47-NL (imported)]

I heard that at the time of J.S. Bach some boys had their voice breaking at the age of 17, much later then now.

From my own experience:

At the school summer week 1961 near a lake, one of my peers (13) was able to masturbate and to ejaculate sperm. He was the exception in the group. I remember a mixture of feelings in the group. The boy was not very manly, rather feminime and now suddenly envied as a man, while some more manly and sportive boys lost some of their manly image, they were still closer to being a manly child. I still prefered the immature manly boys. The mysterious process by which sticky sperm came from the boy's penis feared me.

My first very few tiny little hair (1cm) appeared at the base of my penis at the age of 15, and I hated them.