Editing Lelio Sozzini (section)

===1548–1554===
Returning to Switzerland at the close of 1548, with commendatory letters to the Swiss Protestant churches from [[Nicolas Meyer]], envoy from [[Wittenberg]] to Italy, we find him at [[Geneva]], [[Basel]] (with [[Sebastian Münster]]), and [[Zürich]] (lodging with [[Konrad Pelikan]]) between the years 1549–1550. He was next at Wittenberg (July 1550–June 1551), first as Melanchthon's guest, then with professor [[Johann Forster]], for the improvement of his knowledge of Hebrew. From Wittenberg he returned to Zürich (end of 1551), after visiting [[Vienna]] in the [[Holy Roman Empire]], then [[Prague]] and [[Kraków]] in the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]].

Political events drew him back to Italy in June 1552; with two visits to Siena. In the Republic of Siena, [[freedom of speech]] was for the moment possible, owing to the siege of Siena (1552–1559) and shaking off of the [[Kingdom of Spain|Spanish yoke]]. This brought him into contact with his young nephew [[Fausto Paolo Sozzini|Fausto]]. Lelio was at [[Padua]] (not Geneva, as is often said) at the date of [[Michael Servetus]]'s execution (27 October 1553), burned at the stake with the accusation of [[Heresy in Christianity|heresy]]. Thence he made his way to Basel (January 1554), Geneva (April), and Zürich (May), where he took up his abode.

[[John Calvin]], like Melanchthon, received Sozzini with open arms. Melanchthon (though a phrase in one of his letters has been strangely misconstrued) never regarded him with theological suspicion. To Calvin's keen glance Sozzini's over-speculative tendency and the genuineness of his religious nature were equally apparent. A passage often quoted (apart from the context) in one of Calvin's letters (1 January 1552) has been viewed as a rapture of amicable intercourse; but, while more than once uneasy apprehensions arose in Calvin's mind, there was no breach of correspondence or of kindliness. Of all the Protestant Reformers, [[Heinrich Bullinger]] was Sozzini's closest intimate, his warmest and wisest friend. Sozzini's theological difficulties turned on the [[Resurrection#Christianity|resurrection of the body]], [[predestination]], the ground of [[Salvation in Christianity|salvation]] (on these points he corresponded with Calvin), the doctrinal basis of the [[The gospel|original gospel]] (his queries to Bullinger), the nature of [[Repentance in Christianity|repentance]] (to [[Rudolph Gualther]]), and the [[sacraments]] (to [[Johann Wolff]]). It was the fate of the Spanish theologian [[Michael Servetus]] that directed his mind to focus on the doctrine of the [[Trinity]].

At Geneva (April 1554) he made, incautious remarks on the common doctrine, emphasized in a subsequent letter to Martinengo, the Italian pastor. Bullinger, at the instance of correspondents (including Calvin), questioned Sozzini as to his faith, and received from him an explicitly orthodox confession (reduced to writing on 15 July 1555), with a frank reservation of the right of further inquiry.

A month before this Sozzini had been sent with [[Martino Muralto]] to Basel, to secure [[Ochino]] as pastor of the Italian church at Zürich; and it is clear that in their subsequent intercourse the minds of Sozzini and Ochino (a thinker of the same type as Camillo, with finer dialectic skill) acted powerfully on each other in the radical discussion of theological problems.