For my latest novella, The Beast Next Door, I researched hospitals that might have performed the surgery I needed. It had to be offshore, because the hero came home after ten years away. And not all places in Europe that might have accomplished surgeons were available — the return happens in 1814, at the end of the Napoleonic wars.

I started looking at Italy, because surgery was an important branch of medicine in Italy as early as the 16th century, unlike England, where gentleman became physicians who never touched their patients, and surgery had a recent history as a job for barbers.

Northern Italy was out. No English aristocrat would send even an unwonted child into territory controlled by Napoleon. The kingdom of Naples and Sicily, however, did not fall into Napoleon’s hands until 1806.

So my Eric was sent to one of the first and best-known of Italy’s hospitals. Santa Maria del Popolo degli Incurabli, now known as Ospedae degli Incurabili, still stands today as a modern medical facility.

It began in the late 15th century when Charles of France invaded Naples leaving a small gift behind. To this day Neapolitan’s call it the French disease. The French call it the Neapolitan disease. It has various other names but the best known as syphilis.

When it first arose the disease was deadly and many hospitals were opened for the incurable.

The Incurabili in Naples was built in 1521. A Catalonian woman, wife of the Spanish viceroy, was stricken with paralysis and miraculously cured. She founded a church and hospital comprising a group of small monastic communities where she devoted the rest of her life to caring for the sick.

Over the centuries the hospital became a medical school where the breadth of studies far surpassed the English model. Pharmacy, surgery, both medical and palliative care, all were both taught and practised.

An interesting touch for Christmas, the hospital is associated with the Naples tradition of crib scenes. According to historical records, some of the early cribs were built in an oratory at the hospital.

Locating Eric, my hero, in the Kingdom of Naples gave me further ideas for my story. When Napoleon invaded the kingdom of Naples in 1806, he was 14. Trapped behind enemy lines, he and his tutor disguised themselves as Neapolitans and took to the mountains, where they joined a band of insurgents, harassing the troops of of Napoleon’s puppet kings, first as brother and later his brother-in-law.

I love the way that works.

The Beast Next Door is a novella in Valentines from Bath, a Bluestocking Belles collection on preorder, to be published on 9 February.