The year is 1595. The Counter Reformation is in full swing. The movement towards stricter enclosure of convents, with outsiders barred, is proceeding with increasing speed but also attracting opposition.
Sister Fiametta, who had never wanted to be a nun in the first place (placing her in a convent was cheaper than a dowry) had escaped from the increasingly regulated Convent of St. Clare. Ordinarily, the escape of nuns was short-lived, as they had no idea how to hide from the forces of church and state looking to return them to their convents for a year on bread and water. This is particularly the case when the escaped nun had stolen one of the convent's most valuable reliquaries, this one enclosing the fingernail of St. Figulus. But Sister Fiametta had a plan, one that if it worked would end her convent days for good.
There it was, the Temple of Divine Manhood. Sister Fiametta made her way hastily through the doors which had silently opened for her. She lay the reliquary (she had left the fingernail itself, figuring a pagan god wouldn't have much interest in it) in front of the god. She hoped that what she would get would be a big and burly male body, one no one would mistake for a girl in disguise. As for leaving womanhood behind, what had womanhood ever done for her?
Fiametta realized that the reliquary had disappeared and the floor was a lot farther away. He took a glance at his new body and realized that he was bigger than most men she had ever met. The new man carelessly strode out of the Temple and encountered a pair of the bishop's guards. "Sir, have you seen an escaped nun?" "She went that way" Fiametta answered, pointing in a random direction.
Fiametta took his first free breath of air. Life was good.