Farinelli's body disinterred to find secrets of castrati
Researchers including David Howard, of the University of York, and Nicholas Clapton, of the Royal Academy of Music, want to know what anatomical effects castration had on the legion of young boys who underwent the process in order to become opera stars.
"This is the only skeleton of them we have,'' said Mr Clapton. "We want to know if they were like the cartoons at the time depicted them, tall and gangly, or with women's breasts and large buttocks, or like the grand gentleman in Farinelli's official portraits.'' Engravings of Farinelli, together with a fellow castrato, Senesino, show the pair with tiny heads and stretched bodies towering over their fellow singers.
Castrati were wildly popular as the soprano leads in baroque opera from the 17th century to the end of the 18th century. Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi in 1705, was the most famous of them all.
His voice was considered so magical that he was hired in 1737 to cure the depression of Philip V of Spain.
The researchers, who are being led and co-financed by Alberto Bruschi, a historian from Florence, said they would "obtain all the necessary information in order to reconstruct the biological profile of the famous singer''. They aim to use bio-molecular screening to gather data and to find out why he was so tall, an anomaly for the era.
Carlo Vitale, of the Centre for Farinelli Studies, said the remains were in "a middling state of preservation'', but that "the scientists say there is something to work on''.
The team also wants to find out from Farinelli's vocal cords what it was that gave castrati such a vocal range. Mr Clapton said removing the boys' testicles kept their vocal cords small while the hormonal changes meant their bodies kept growing well into adulthood. "That gave them huge lung capacity but with a very sweet voice.''
Historians are still unable to explain why there was such an outbreak of church-sanctioned castration. Some have suggested that the Church barred female singers because of the eroticism of women's voices, others believe that St Paul's command to "Let the women learn in silence'' (1 Timothy 2:11) was invoked to keep them out of choirs.
The last surviving castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, lived long enough to make recordings in 1902 and 1904, but the dated records convey only a high-pitched squeal.
Farinelli was born in Puglia and lived to be 77. His remains were only recently discovered in the Certosa cemetery in Bologna, to where they were moved in 1810 after the destruction of his original resting place, the church of the Holy Cross at a Cappuchin monastery.