Fausto Sozzini

Fausto Paolo Sozzini, also known as Faustus Socinus or Faust Socyn (Polish) (5 December 1539 – 4 March 1604), was an Italian theologian and founder of the school of Christian thought known as Socinianism and the main theologian of Polish Brethren (a Protestant Polish church).

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.