‘I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mum and to look after my family.’ –Amy Winehouse
In 2006, archaeologists exhumed the remains of the legendary 18th century castrato, Carlo Maria Broschi, better known as Farinelli.
As a boy, Farinelli showed talent as an opera singer and, when their father died young, his elder brother Riccardo made the decision to have Farinelli castrated, an illegal operation at the time, in order to preserve his voice. Farinelli became quite famous by the 1720s and sang daily until his death at the age of 78.
An analysis of the bones has just been published in the Journal of Anatomy, with the most salient finding being that Farinelli’s castration led to hormonal changes that likely caused him to develop internal frontal hyperostosis (or hyperostosis frontalis interna, depending on what side of the Atlantic you’re from), a thickening of the frontal bone in the cranial vault that is found almost exclusively in postmenopausal women.
