Fortunately for Calvin, the Sozzini family soon afterwards fell under the suspicion of the Inquisition, Lelio was deprived of his funds and falling ill of a fever, he died in Zürich at the age of only thirty-seven.
Whatever joy his untimely demise may have caused in Geneva, it was short-lived.
For Lelio, besides a widow and several trunks of notes, left a nephew, who not only fell heir to his uncle’s unpublished manuscripts but soon gained for himself the reputation of being even more of a Servetus enthusiast than his uncle had been.
During his younger years, Faustus Socinius had traveled almost as extensively as the older Lelio. His grandfather had left him a small estate and as he did not marry until he was nearly fifty, he was able to devote all his time to his favorite subject, theology.
For a short while he seems to have been in business in Lyons.
What sort of a salesman he made, I do not know, but his experience in buying and selling and dealing in concrete commodities rather than spiritual values seems to have strengthened him in his conviction that very little is ever gained by killing a competitor or losing one’s temper if the other man has the better of a deal. And as long as he lived, he showed himself possessed of that sober common sense which is often found in a counting-house but is very rarely part of the curriculum of a religious seminary.
In the year 1563 Faustus returned to Italy. On his way home he visited Geneva. It does not appear that he ever paid his respects to the local patriarch. Besides, Calvin was a very sick man at that time. The visit from a member of the Sozzini family would only have disturbed him.
The next dozen years, young Socinius spent in the service of Isabella de’ Medici. But in the year 1576 this lady, after a few days of matrimonial bliss, was murdered by her husband, Paolo Orsini. Thereupon Socinius resigned, left Italy for good and went to Basel to translate the Psalms into colloquial Italian and write a book on Jesus.
Faustus, so it appeared from his writings, was a careful man. In the first place, he was very deaf and such people are by nature cautious.