"The Worst Jobs in History"

[colin (imported)]

I recently got a book with the above title out of the local library. It was written to accompany a series on CH4 (British TV), which I believe was screened last year - as I don't watch TV I obviously didn't see it.

However, the presenter listed a series of Jobs from Roman to Victorian times which he felt might qualify and, of course, there was the obligatory chapter on Castrati.

To accompany the text there were three images. The first was described as "Clippers for severing the sperm duct". There is no date given and I wonder if this is actually a burdizzo. Another is a picture of Alessandro Moreschi and the third is a drawing by William Hogarth of a crowd at the opera. What is of interest is that there is a 'banner' hanging from one buildings which portrays a cartoon version of a stage scene featuring Senesino, Handel's favourite castrato - described as the combined Pavarotti/Charlotte Church of his day.

The text which accompanies these is as follows (I hope) :-

Castrato

The Georgian equivalent of Robbie Williams or, perhaps more accurately, Charlotte Church, was the star of the new craze at

the opera: the Castrato.

Strictly speaking, you could call this a non-British job because the Castrati were almost exclusively 'done' in Italy. But they sang

all over Europe. The practice started out as a way of supplying voices for female roles, but the unearthly quality of the Castrate's

voice was so popular that the main men's roles went to Castrati too. So in Monteverdi's Coronation of Popped, the famous love

duet at the end between Nero and Poppea was performed by two men, both castrati. Likewise the part of Julius Caesar in Handel's

smash hit Giulio Cesare was sung by a eunuch.

The nearest we can get to the sound today is the refined falsetto of the counter-tenor. But this is very different from

the timbre of the Castrato, which sounded almost like a strong woman's voice but with the strange, pure, sexless quality of the

boy treble.

The young boys who were chosen for the operation had little choice in the matter. Mostly they came from very poor families who hoped it would lift them

out of poverty. The practice of castration had actually been banned by the Vatican as barbaric but, despite the prohibition of both canon and civil law, a

blind eye continued to be turned for centuries. To use contemporary parlance, the families of the victims often went 'into denial', alleging that their son had

been castrated on account of illness, had suffered a riding accident or hadbeen gored by a wild boar.

In adolescence the male vocal cords grow and thicken, and the voice deepens. Castration prevents the necessary flow of hormones, so growth of the

vocal cords is arrested and the voice is prevented from breaking. The Castrato would have had the high voice of a boy soprano, but with the lung power of a

full-grown man.

The operation was performed on boys between the ages of eight and ten. If you are a male reader you may wish to skip the next paragraph.

The boy was placed in a very hot bath until he lost consciousness. Some were also drugged with opium. Under this intense heat the testes were manipulated

by hand and crushed until their structure began to break down. Then the sperm ducts leading from the testes were severed. The operation wasn't always

successful and some boys died.

At the height of the Castrato craze an estimated 4,000 Italian boys were operated on. Unfortunately some were castrated in the mistaken belief that it

would create a beautiful singing voice. But of course it only worked on boys who were good singers in the first place.

Even when it was successful, there was often more bad news on the way. Your family put you through this brutal operation for fame and fortune.

But the facts of stage life were the same in the eighteenth century as they are today. Very few of those castrated made it to the top of theirprofession.

Only about one per cent of the 4,000 could expect to be succssful. For the vast majority there was, at best, a life occasional employment with no hope of a

normal family life.

Worse than that, there were significant side-effects to the operation. Castrati were left with an infantile penis and an

underdeveloped prostate. They may have looked tall and imposing on stage but their arms and legs were unusually long

compared to their torso, and they were prone to excess fat on the hips, buttocks, breasts and eyelids. Quite apart from the

physiological impact, the operation was said to affect their emotional state. Castrati were characterized as fat, volatile

and conceited [in fairness these accusations are also applied to opera divas today). The composer Handel's notorious

shouting matches with his Castrato Senesino were well known throughout England.

The heyday of the Castrato was between 1650 and 1750. But, despite being directly contrary to Catholic law, the practice continued until the end of the

nineteenth century. There is actually a recording of the last Castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, who died in 1922. It was made when he was past his

prime, but gives a clear idea of the voice behind a job which, thankfully, is now a mere historical footnote.

[John W. (imported)]

Colin's account is mostly correct, except that I am sure that most of the boys who became castrati in the 17th-19th centuries (the last ones may have been two boys were were born around 1880 in Rome) were old enough to have shown some vocal prowess or aptitude, and so in fact wanted the operation as a means to further their careers. 4,000 per annum in Italy alone for over a century is far too many for it have been done involuntarily, without much sterner measures having been taken to prevent it. Those that were not "good enough" for opera (the main form of entertainment of the day) remained in church choirs. Some boys were also made castrati in Bavaria (e.g. Gaetano Berenstadt), Austria (composer Joseph Haydn very nearly became one there in 1749 at age 17, when still a boy soprano in St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna), Portugal, Spain, and (using hernias as an excuse) France.

And then there were (e.g. John Abell from England, c.1660-1736), and still are today, the "natural" castrati, either born without testicles, or with only vestigial testicles which never functioned. (In the latter case, possibly the result of Klinefelter's syndrome). I am one myself, and I have recently been in private internet contact, on mostly musical matters, with two teenaged ones in England and Wales, another in Norway, and an intending one in France.

The operation appears to have been done in Italy using what is now called the Burdizzo device used now for veterinary purposes, which crushes the cords in two places each without requiring scrotal incisions, resulting in necrosis and eventual reabsorption of the testicles, instead of the popular conception of using knives or scalpels. Burdizzo may have been an 18th-century Italian surgeon who was largely employed doing the operation with this device.

[colin (imported)]

Colin's account is mostly correct

Please note that I did not write the article. In the picture credits there is one for the burdizzo like device which is attributed to "Dr. Peter Giles, Castrato expert and consultant to The Worst Jobs in History televison series", so I suspect that he is the one responsible.

If you read the text carefully, it does not say that 4000 boys were castrated annually, but "At the height of the Castrato craze 4000 Italian boys were operated on". My guess is that initally there were just a few castrato until one or two gained obvious financial success at which point the numbers of boys castrated mushroomed and it would be quite possible that boys were castrated without regard to any vocal ability at this time. When the draw backs became obvious, it would only have been the boys with promise that got castrated. Given the way that these things develop it was probably around 1660 - 1670 that large numbers were produced and there may have been less that 100 per year for the rest of the time.

On a slightly different tack I recall reading that in Naples they annually castrated about 40 Orphans who were then trained to become civil administrators. The raison d'etre behind this was that as the boys had no family ties they would not be tempted to indulge in nepotism or favouritism.

I always thought that this would have produced far more than required, but, on reflection, once you allow for those that died (not necessarily from the operation) and those who proved unsuitable the numbers become much more likely. The boys were apparently under no obligation to the city and free to take positions with Noble families and Merchants as well. If this is true then it is possible that many of the castrati may have been drawn from Orphanages as well.

LOL

[JesusA (imported)]

An alternate view of the number of boys castrated in Italy during the height of the castrato boom can be found in a well argued post by Eunuchist on the thread Castrating Minors (http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/showthr ... ge=2&pp=15). The relevant post is #28 on the thread.

The real answer as to numbers and voluntary vs. involuntary can probably never be known. The surviving documents simply don't give the necessary information. We can only get hints, both as to numbers and as to the boys' role in the decision process.

I am currently conducting research toward a book on the history of human castration - Sumer to the present. Most of the work so far has been on the early period, but I read materials as I discover them. Below is a long quotation from a letter that I wrote to Paolo after one of my discoveries:

I ran into the site www.senesino.com. It is a simple chronological listing of clearly dated events in the lives of clearly identifiable castrati. So far the site is quite limited in scope, both in number of individuals and in number of events. Most of the “events” are hirings by various patrons or choirs. Some are particular concerts or meetings with important people. Few have any information before the castrato was 20 years old, or more. Only a very few have to do with the castration event itself, but those are quite interesting.

One interesting pair is for the brothers Giovanni Carlo Bernardi (born April 11, 1682) and his brother Santi Francesco (born October 31, 1686). Their first documented professional singing was in December, 1695 when the both of them (ages 9 and 13 at the time) were paid 3 lira each for singing in the choir of the cathedral in Siena.

On August 31, 1696, their father, Giuseppe Bernardi signed a contract with the rector of the the Opera Metropolitana di Siena stipulating that his son Giovanni Carlo was to serve for 6 years in the chorus and that the father was to be reimbursed for the cost to have him castrated. He was castrated by the surgeon Giovanni Domenico Tolensani on November 23, at the age of 14.

Three years later, on November 17, 1699, the father signed another contract with the Opera Metropolitana di Siena, committing his 12 year old son Francesco to a 6 year contract. The son was castrated by the same surgeon as his brother on December 2, and the surgeon was paid.

The Opera Metropolitana di Siena shows up two more times. On July 21, 1679, Anton Maria Bigelli, a shoemaker, signs a 6 year contract for his son Girolano Bigelli and is compensated for the fee he has already paid for his 15 year old son to be castrated.

Again, almost a hundred years later, on October 11, 1775, Antonio Martini signs a 6 year contract for his son Andrea Bartolomeo Martini, which also compensates him for what he has already paid to have his 14 year old son castrated.

In both of these cases, the date of the castration, and the age of the boy at the time of surgery, is unstated.

The Pia Casa degli Orfani (an orphanage in Rome) also shows up four times. Four boys who were placed in the orphanage - Francesco Gordiani on August 24, 1819 at age 10, Giovanni Poli on February 28, 1820 at age 10, Giuseppe Ritarossi on March 23, 1852 at age 11, and Giovanni Cesari on April 20, 1852 at age 8 - have as their next entry that they were admitted to some choir at age 17 or 18 as a castrato.

Domenico del Pane first appears in the record as a 9 year old boy soprano in a church in Rome in 1641. By May 4, 1646, at age 13, he appears as a castrato in the entourage of Cardinal Rinaldo d'Este. The cardinal had paid for his board and musical training at the German College in Rome. It can be assumed that the cardinal arranged for his castration as well.

The only other possibly dated castration is for Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci, born in Siena in 1735. He actually managed to marry an Irish Protestant woman in London in 1766 when he was 31 years old. His wife later had two children whom he claimed as his own. In 1775 he was cited in an adultery case. His marriage was annulled at the insistence of his in-laws in that same year. His wife later wrote a book about him in which she claimed that he had been castrated at age 9. He is also famous for having worked directly with both Mozart and Handel and for having his portrait painted by Gainsborough.

What I find most interesting about this group is that all were from northern Italy and were castrated in either Rome or Siena. The standard information is that most castrati were from the south and that Naples was the castration center, if they hadn't been castrated in their village of origin.

Clearly I have more research ahead of me on the Italians.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

One bad job might be the "Groom of the Stool"

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsi ... dor.html#4

[colin (imported)]

One bad job might be the "Groom of the Stool"

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsi ... dor.html#4

Mac,

In case you hadn't noticed, that website is the same series from which the book was a spin-off. The main difference is that the book goes into a lot more detail.

LOL