It was not the warm summer sun streaming through the narrow window of the barren room where Paolo lay that woke him from his fitful sleep. Nor the melodic chiming of the chapel bell calling the monks and boys who had once been his peers to morning prayer. Rather, it was the sudden slamming of a door somewhere beyond the locked door imprisoning him that startled the boy, throwing him back into the waking nightmare from which there was no escape. Wide-eyed and shaking, he watched and waited, listening for the sound of a key being inserted into the lock of the room’s door, a door that both confined him and protected him, for as long as it was closed and he was alone, he was safe.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Paolo was able to tamp down his fear when the sound of footfalls echoing off the barren walls of the long corridor beyond the door began to fade. This relief was brief, not more than a few heartbeats, for it was quickly replaced by a return of the unbearable agony emanating from an unhealed wound that would do more than leave an indelible scare. No one needed to tell him the removal of his genitals, whole and complete, would make him unfit to take his place at the side of great and influential men. Men like his former patron did not take boys who had been butchered as he had been in their service. Those who would be interested in him would have little need of his knowledge. To them he would be nothing more than a rare song bird, a thing to be used to entertain his new master’s guests with a voice that would never mature, or as a convenient vessel he could use for his personal pleasure when his wife or mistress was otherwise indisposed. All that was certain, all Paolo could count on, was that the death of his patron and Brother Dominic’s ambitions had done more than rob him of his manhood. His life, such as it was, would be one of servitude, degradation, and pain, pain made all the more terrible by an appreciation he had no hope of ever escaping it.

With clenched teeth, eyes screwed shut, and a death grip on the rough hewn sides of the bed he had been confined to for countless days, Paolo struggled to fight his way through the agony that robbed him of breath and paralyzed every conscious thought save one; pain.

Slowly, ever so slowly the burning pain would subsided, but never completely. It would be enough, however, for Paolo to turn his mind to other thoughts, thoughts that no longer included why. He already knew that. The thesis penned by Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Paolo had read had been quite clear that in order for a man in a position of authority to achieve his goals he had to be ruthless and, if need be, commit acts that went against the teachings of Christ and violated the very laws of God himself. What Paolo could not understand, what he found himself often dwelling on as he lay there alone in a monk’s cell, was why that God allowed such behavior. It made no sense to the boy who embraced the teachings of some of the greatest thinkers of his time. How, Paolo wondered, could there be a natural order to the universe over seen by a merciful and all powerful God when that same God allowed men to behave in ways that contravened good sense and the laws of God Himself? Chaos and a barbarism that border on being animalistic, and not order, science, nor a dedication to the Lord God Jesus were the governing principle that determined the fate of God’s creatures. If that was so, Paolo reasoned, what use was it to pray to God, a God who did nothing to stop that pain despite his pleas, or who did nothing to punish the men who had been the cause of it. In time, both the ever present pain and the appearance of Brother Dominic at his bedside led Paolo to appreciate the God he had been taught to love and celebrate with prayer and song was not listening to him.

With deliverance from the hands of his tormentor no longer possible, and divine retribution increasingly unlikely, the boy who could no longer think of himself as such decided it was up to him to punish those who had, for their own selfish reasons, taken away more than his dreams. For unlike the mythical figure who had unleashed all the ills the Greek gods commanded onto the world, Brother Dominic and the very church he represented had allowed even hope to slip away. For that, Paolo resolved, they would pay, all of them. How and when he would visit retribution upon them for the horrors and suffering they had subjected him to were questions that would have to wait to be answered, for a fresh wave of pain once more gripped Paolo, leaving him unable to do more than claw at the thin coverings draped over his frail, mutilated body.

The Abbot made no effort to mask his anger as he shot Brother Dominic a scathing glare from where he was seated before once more turning his attention to the boy who continued to stand mute before the assembled host of dignitaries the Abbot had invited to the monastery in order to hear what he had proclaimed was the voice of an angle. What they were being treated instead was a strained silence, broken only by an occasion cough of an impatient guest, the sound of fine silk and satin vestments rustling as those guests nervously shifted about in their seats, and the whispered threats Brother Dominic was uttering to in a vain effort to coerce Paolo into singing.

The boy, however, would not. He had no intention of doing so, for this was a very moment he had been waiting for. With a deliciously cunning deviousness that would have brought a smile to Signore Machiavelli’s lips, Paolo had made a great show of openly bending to the will of Brother Dominic, tolerating the taunts and insults leveled at him by the other boys, and behaving in a most exemplarily manner during chapel services and when rehearsing for this, his debut as the monastery’s lead vocalist. Only at night, or when the abbot and all of his supplicants were gathered together in the chapel to pray did Paolo deviate from this act, retrieving whatever book or manuscript Brother Antonio had managed to smuggle into his cell when no one was about and continue his studies of politics, diplomacy, governance, and philosophy. That there was still one monk who took into account his needs and desires did nothing to dissuade him from his single minded quest to extract vengeance upon those who had so brutally crushed his dreams by condemning him to a life he suspected would be spent in a cloistered cell no different than the one he had been taken to after being castrated. That he would be prevented from joining a world he longed to be a part of, a world that lay so tantalizingly close but was, for someone like him, forever out of reach, was to be his lot in life, one he intended to make those who had condemned him to it pay dearly for what they had done.

When he had had enough of this farce, the cardinal who had endured the arduous early winter trek from Rome just to hear a voice the Abbot had raved about came to his feet. “I thank you for your hospitality and ,” he snarled sarcastically. “I must be off early tomorrow if I am to make it back to Rome in time to be present for the gathering of cardinals His Holy Father has called for.” Then, without waiting for the Abbot to reply, the cardinal turned his back on him, Brother Dominic, and a very self-satisfied child of twelve.

“You filthy little cur,” Brother Dominic growled as he dragged Paolo along the corridor leading back to his cell. “Do you know what you have done?” the enraged monk spat as he threw open the door of the cell and shoved the boy onto floor. “Do you?”

Paolo did not answer, at least not verbally. Instead, after gathering himself up, he came to his feet, turned until he was facing the monk, and grinned, a wickedly smug smirk that sent Brother Dominic over the edge.

Having lost the last vestige of self-control, what the monk did next was done with an almost animalistic cruelty driven by a blind rage. Stepping up to Paolo, Brother Dominic lifted the boy off his feet, spun him about, and threw him face down onto the bed. Paolo had expected this. He had all but goaded the monk into whipping him. What the boy had not counted on was what actually happened next.

In a frenzy that left no time for Paolo to do anything to fend the monk off, not that the frail child could have, Brother Dominic grabbed Paolo’s neck with one hand, shoved the boy’s face down onto the straw mattress and, with his free hand, yanked Paolo’s trousers down about his knees. “If you will not give yourself over to the will of God, then you will learn to submit to men,” the monk growled. Without releasing the grip he had on the boy’s neck, the monk proceeded to assault him in a way even a boy who possessed a mind as fertile as Paolo’s had thought was unimaginable.

Thus began a spiral of vengeance and retribution as Paolo’s determination to deny the Abbot the gift he so craved was swiftly punished by abuse at the hands of a monk who sought to humble and denigrate the boy by reminding him in a most brutal manner he was, and never would be, anything more than a vessel to be used by men for their pleasure. It was a vicious, barbaric cycle that came to dominate Paolo’s life, leaving him little opportunity to do anything more than snatch brief snippets of escape by losing him in the books Brother Antonio continued to smuggle into the boy’s cell. It also blinded him to events unfolding outside the walls of the monastery, events that were to upend the serene orderliness of a place that had become more than a prison in a way that was, in Paolo’s mind, little different than the way Brother Dominic dealt with him.

The frantic din of a church bell in the town ringing out at an odd hour of the day, followed by others was the first warning those who called the monastery their home had that the town was under attack.

Rumors of raids carried out on towns and cities along the coast of the Adriatic Sea belonging to the Papal States by the Turk on behalf of their French ally had managed to drift over the walls that separated the monks and their young charges from the cares of the outside world. That those same walls would be enough to protect them from this new threat was one Paolo put no faith in. If anything, the boy knew a monastery such as the one that had become his prison was a magnet to brigands and raiders who fell upon the weak and unprotected like wolves on a hapless lamb. Whether the Abbot and the monks understood this as they rushed madly about the grounds of the monastery, gathering up their students and herding them into the chapel was a question Paolo gave no thought to. Instead, he decided that if he was going to die, it wasn’t going to be among the very men who had made his life a living hell, pleading for deliverance from a God who had turned a deft ear to him in his greatest time of need.

In the ensuing chaos, Paolo decided to seek refuge in the one place where he felt safe, a place where he could lose himself in a world so very different than the monastery that had become, for him, a dungeon of unspeakable depravities and pain. If he was going to die at the hands of the Turk, the boy reasoned, he would die where his spirit and mind had been free to visit places he would never see.

His chance to break free of the painful grasp Brother Dominic had on his arm came when the monk stopped at the door of the chapel, turned, and watched in horror as the courtyard gate finally gave way to the battering ram. Horrified, Brother Dominic found himself unable to do little more than stand on the steps of the chapel, gapping open mouth and wide-eyed at he sight of Turkish soldiers pouring into the courtyard. Paolo didn’t bother to look back to see if the monk had noticed his precious treasure had slipped away. With the same determination and clarity of purpose he applied to his studies, Paolo paid no heed to the wailing and cries that assaulted his ears as he ran toward the library. When he reached it, he flung the door open, scurried inside, and slammed the door behind him, never once thinking that a foe who could smash down the monastery’s heavy wooden gates as easily as the Turks had would have no problem storming the library.

There was but one thought racing through Paolo’s head as he made straight for the shelf where he had left the copy of Francesco Guicciardini’s ‘Ricordi.’ For once, as if the Fates themselves had meant him to find the work, Brother Gregorio had not hidden it. After pausing but a second in order to snatch up the heavy tome, Paolo spun about and hurried over to the ill lit alcove flanked by over burdened shelves he hid in whenever he wished to study a text he was forbidden to read he had happened across that was too big to smuggle out of the library. Once there he turned, flattened his back against the cool stone wall and, ever so slowly eased down onto the floor, tightly clutching the book he had sought to save in his arms as he made himself as small as possible by curling up into a ball. Only then did he stop and wonder what would become of the two of them.

The boy who had had his world turned inside out by men who daily dropped to their knees and loudly professed their love of a merciful God but were deaf to his pleas didn’t have long to wait. With a bang that reverberated off the unadorned walls of the library, Turkish soldiers threw open the unbarred door and rushed in. With the same well-honed discipline the monastery’s monks relied on as they went about their daily chores, the Turks took to prowling the stacks like ravenous wolves seeking fresh prey. For the first time that day Paolo was afraid as he found himself unable to keep from peeking over a pile of loose manuscripts and watch as a gaudily dressed Turk holding a drawn sword dripping with the blood of people Paolo had lived with for as long as he could remember grew nigh. That the Turk with a flaming red beard wasn’t at all what he had been taught to expect came as no surprise to Paolo, for he had read about the Janissaries, elite soldiers recruited from Christian slave boys and trained to serve the Sultan.

Having no wish to see more, Paolo once more pressed his back against the wall and closed his eyes as he prepared to meet his death. No thought was given to uttering a prayer. There was no point in doing so, for the God he had been taught to honor had never answered any of his other prayers. Why should He do so now, the boy reasoned as he tightened his grip on the only thing he found he could trust, a book penned by a man who put his faith in had he saw and heard in a world that lay just beyond the walls of the monastery, a world Paolo knew of, but would never see.

A gruff exclamation, followed by an order barked out in a foreign tongue, caused Paolo to open his eyes. Looking up, he saw the red breaded Turk standing before him. For the longest time the Turk did nothing more than study him as if surprised by what he were seeing. Oddly, the fear that had gripped Paolo was now gone as he gazed up at a face blackened by the smoke of fires and streaked with rivets of blood that had spattered the Turk and his uniform as he had butchered those he had already come across.

This impasse only came to an end when another Turk drew up next to the red bearded one. This Turk, whose stature and placid expression did not impress Paolo as much the first, immediately took to asking him questions. “What are you doing here?”

Not having expected this, Paolo blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “Saving this book,” he replied with a calmness that seemed to surprise both Turks. When the one who spoke Italian translated for the benefit of the red bearded one, the latter let out a loud, belly shaking laugh before asking, in Turkish, what was so important about this particular book that made it worth saving.

In a tone more befitting the way he would respond to a teacher in a classroom than before the man he expected would soon butcher him, Paolo replied. “It is a discourse on political philosophy that builds upon Machiavelli’s earlier works on the subject.”

This time, when the Italian speaker passed on what Paolo had said, the red breaded Turk’s eyes narrowed as his brow became creased with furrows. Then, after a long moment in which nothing but the screams of monks and boys being slaughtered outside the quite confines of the library drifted through the open door, the red bearded Turk reached down with his free hand, griped Paolo by the arm, and pulled him up onto his feet even as he was barking a new order to the Italian speaker. “You are to come,” the Italian speaker passed on without any further explanation.

Whether he was about to meet his end or be taken away were questions Paolo did not bother asking. He was too focused on clutching the book he held against his chest in an effort to keep from losing it. An appreciation that it, and not the God the Abbot and monks who had been the source of so much pain and suffering were devoted to had been his savior was not lost on Paolo. It was a point he told himself he needed to pay heed to as he was dragged across the courtyard, now strewn with the bloody corpses of those who had not been as fortunate as he, through the arched entryway of the monastery, and out into a world so very different than the one he was leaving behind.

The practice of castrating young boys was more widespread then is generally believed and the methods were quite universal. In the middle ages and up until the end of the 1800s it was common to find eunuchs in what was then the Ottoman Empire, China, and other parts of the Orient.

During the Classical era, in which Palo lived, castrated Eunuchs were classified as follows;

Castrati – Clean-cut, with both penis and testicles removed

Spadones – Testicles removed by means of dragging

Thilibiae – Testicles bruised and crushed

Black slaves that were being taken to serve in the Ottoman Empire were castrated while in route by either Egyptian Christians or Jews, for Islam prohibited the practice, (but not the by-product). Since desert sand was considered the most effective balm, newly castrated boys were buried up to their necks until their wound was healed. Boys who survived this, and a great majority did not, became luxury items.

Sir Richard Burton, (no, not the actor), listed two types of castration practices used in the Orient.

Sndali, or clean-cut in which the genitals are swept off by a single incision of a razor. A tube was then inserted into the urethra, the wound cauterized with boiling oil, and the patient planted in a fresh dung-hill and fed a diet of milk.

Eunuch, similar to Thlibiae, rendered sexless by removing the testicles with a stone knife or by bruising, twisting, or searing.

Readers are reminded this was all done without the benefit of anesthesia, pre-operative prep as we know it, modern antibiotics, or tender post-operative care. One practice used to tend to newly castrated boys was to shove a pewter needle into the urethra and have the boy walk around the room held up by two ‘knifers’ for two to three hours, after which the boy was allowed to laydown. The boy was not given anything to drink for three days. At the end of three days, the needle was removed. If the boy then urinated satisfactorily, he was considered to be out of danger, congratulated, and sent on his merry way. If, however, he could not make water, it was deemed his urinary tract had become swollen, which meant certain death after a protracted period of agony.

I guess the moral of this story is, if you hear a newly post-op girl constantly complaining of discomfort, with a straight face you can remind them it could always be worse.

Between 1494 and 1559 eight wars involving the Hapsburg Emperors of Austria, the Valois Kings of France, and most of the Italian city-states brought to an end the Italian Renaissance and heralded the rise of the great European empires that would dominate world events for the next four centuries.

In the Prologue mention was made of the French army. Their presence in Genoa and Northern Italy was part of the First Italian War, or King Charles VIII’s War.

In attack on the monastery described in this chapter is part of the Italian War of 1536-1538. A notable aspect of this war was the alliance between Francis I of France, (1494-1547), and the Ottoman Empire, then ruled by Suleiman I, (1494-1566), known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East as Suleiman the Lawgiver. Since the Papal States, of which Ancona was part, was aligned with the Hapsburg Empire, it was open to raids by the Ottoman Empire.

As an aside, Henry VIII (1491-1547) was the King of England at this time. Ivan IV, known as the Terrible, was six years old and the Grand Prince of Moscow. In China the Imperial Palace in Beijing reached its current splendor under the Ming Dynasty, (1368-1644). St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in what is now the United States, was not founded until 1565 by the Spanish.