The early life of Amatore is mostly unknown. The name of Michele Amatore was not given when he was born (probably) in the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan.[3] Later he came to be known as Sulayman al-Nubi. Much later in his life, Amatore said that he remembered that his father's name was Bolingia and that his name was Quetto. He recounted that he had been captured when Egyptian slave traders raided their family's village. They killed many old people and took away mostly women and children. Those captured were marched without food to Khartoum where a slave market was still acceptable.[1]
Amatore first came to notice when he was bought as a slave by Luigi Castagnone, the physician employed by Mohammed Ali Pasha, when he was about six years old.[2] In 1836 Castagnone, who had been sentenced for life in native Kingdom of Sardinia for patriotic riots, was eventually pardoned and they left for Italy, when the boy settled with a friend of the doctor, Maurizio Bussa, when Castagnone flew again.[4] There he became a Christian on 10 June 1838, receiving sacraments by the Bishop of Asti Michele Amatore Lobetti,[5] in homage to whom he took his name and the surname.[6]
