A Family of Lawyers in Siena
Fausto Sozzini, known in Latin as Faustus Socinus, was born at Siena on December 5, 1539, into a distinguished family of lawyers. His father died when he was a small child, and his formal schooling was limited, though he read widely and joined a literary academy in Siena. The decisive influence on his thought was his uncle Lelio Sozzini, a learned Italian who traveled among the Protestant cities of Switzerland and quietly questioned the doctrine of the Trinity.
In the early 1560s, with members of his family under suspicion of heresy, Faustus spent time in Lyon and Geneva. When Lelio died at Zurich in 1562, Faustus received his papers. Around that time he wrote a short work arguing that the beginning in the first verse of John's Gospel means the beginning of the Gospel, not eternity. He then spent about twelve years outwardly conforming to the Roman Catholic Church in the service of the Medici court at Florence.
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