Life
Sozzini was born at Siena, the only son of Alessandro Sozzini and Agnese Petrucci, daughter of Borghese Petrucci b.1490, and granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci.
His father Alessandro Sozzini, oldest of eleven brothers, was born 1509 but died in 1541, in his thirty-second year. Fausto had no regular education, being brought up at home with his sister Fillide, and spent his youth in desultory reading at Borgo Scopeto, the family country-seat. To the able women of his family he owed the strong moral impress which marked him through life; his early intellectual stimulus came from his uncle Celso Sozzini, a nominal Roman Catholic, but an esprit fort, founder of the short-lived Accademia del Sizienti (1554), of which young Fausto was a member.
In 1556 his grandfather Mariano Sozzini the younger's will, left Fausto, as only son of the oldest son, one fourth of the family estates, which made him independent. Next year he entered the Accademia degli Intronati, the centre of intellectual life in Siena. He joined with the name Frastagliato, while Celso had the name Sonnacchioso. About this time the jurist Guido Panzirolo describes him as a young man of fine talent, with promise of a legal career; but he showed little interest for law, preferring to write sonnets.
In 1558–1559 the suspicion of Lutheranism fell on him in common with his uncles Celso and Camillo.
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