ABSTRACT
Innovative Renaissance surgeon Ambrose Pare described castrates as cold and moist, adding that eunuchs who had been fully ablated required a tube or funnel with which to urinate. Given the multiple lines of concern about castration, Sporus could function as a marker in a variety of conversations about the sexed body in the Renaissance, but he served perhaps most obviously as shorthand for the sexual decadence of ancient Rome. If Sporus can be a figure for gay marriage or perhaps transsexuality in the present, he allowed commentators in the Renaissance to articulate concerns about their own philosophical principles, understandings of gender, social order, sexual comportment, and the body. Even with the positive possibilities, Renaissance writers had their own ambivalent responses to eunuchs. With the use of music in its liturgy, the Catholic Church created the conditions for large-scale castration for musical purposes.
