Edgardo had, in fact, converted. He had converted (according to his captors) on the way to Rome, soon after he had been taken from his parents. The Church, through its various news journals, used this conversion as another reason to keep the child. How could he continue to practice his Christian faith in a Jewish home?

As Edgardo continued to study at San Pietro in Vincoli, with the magnificent sights of Rome all around him, his family never gave up trying to get him released. And the Italians who lived in his former town of Bologna (and all the other towns of the Papal States) never gave up trying to rid their daily lives of Church control.

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