Fiona Maddocks [The Observer, 29 November 2009]

Casanova, in his famously racy memoirs, instances a “foul orgy” in which half-a- dozen abbés and a bevy of pretty girls are joined in their sport by four castrati. These singing eunuchs were mutilated in their thousands before puberty, so that their voices could stay high and childlike within their chubby, gelded bodies. The best of them became rich and famous virtuosi. Many of the rest ended up in prostitution or poverty.