Lelio Sozzini - Life

Life

Lelio Sozzini was born at Siena. His family descended from Sozzo, a banker at Percena, whose second son, Mino Sozzi, settled as a notary at Siena in 1304. Mino Sozzi's grandson, Sozzino (d. 1403), was the founder of a line of patrician jurists and canonists, Mariano Sozzini the elder (1397–1467) being the first and the most famous, and traditionally regarded as the first freethinker in the family.

Lelio (who spelled his surname Sozzini, Latinizing it Socinus) was the sixth son of Mariano Sozzini the younger (1482–1556) by his wife Camilla Salvetti, and was educated as a jurist under his father's eye at Bologna. He told Melanchthon that his desire to reach the fontes juris led him to Biblical research, and hence to rejection of "the idolatry of Rome."

Lelio Sozzini gained some knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic (he gave a manuscript of the Qur'an to Bibliander) as well as Greek, but was never a laborious student. His father supplied him with means and, on coming of age, he repaired to Venice, the headquarters of the evangelical movement in Italy. A tradition - first published by Christopher Sandius in 1684 in his book Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum and Andrzej Wiszowaty in 1668 in his book Narratio Compendiosa - and amplified by subsequent writers makes him a leading spirit in alleged theological conferences called the Collegia Vicentina at Vicenza about 1546-1547.

At this period the standpoint of Sozzini was that of evangelical reform; he exhibits a singular union of enthusiastic piety with subtle theological speculation. At Chiavenna in 1547 he came under the influence of Paolo Ricci "Camillo Renato" of Sicily, a gentle mystic whose teaching at many points resembled that of the early Quakers. Pursuing his religious travels, his family name and his personal charm ensured him a welcome in Switzerland, France, England and the Netherlands.