Oliva was descended from a noble family of Genoa, where his grandfather and his uncle had respectively been Doge of the republic. In Oliva the Jesuits found at last a chief according to their hearts. He worshipped a repose interrupted only by political intrigues, and the pleasures of the table.[315] He spent a great part of his time in the delicious villa near Albano, where he occupied himself with the cultivation of the rarest exotics. When in Rome, he retired to the noviciate of St Andrea, where he seldom condescended to give audience. He never went out on foot. He lived in a most sumptuously and elegantly adorned apartment, enjoying the pleasures of a table furnished with the most select delicacies, such as would have tempted the appetite of a Vitellius.[316] He was only studious of enjoying the position he held, and the power he had obtained. Reserving for his particular attention matters of political importance, he left the affairs of the Society to the entire management of subordinate officials; and from that moment it may be said that every individual (we speak of persons of some consequence, for in every society there are simpletons always ready for obedience) became, in a great measure, his own master. Not that the interests of the Society were neglected; on the contrary, they were never so prosperous. The members of every religious community are individually great in proportion to the greatness of the society to which they belong, and the esteem in which it is held by the public. This of itself induces every individual member to seek with all his powers the aggrandisement and the splendour of his order; and if this is true of any other association, it is pre-eminently so of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits of the seventeenth century worshipped the Order with as much idolatry as their predecessors, and, to serve it, were always ready to act the part of hypocrites, deceivers, perjurers, miscreants; but every one served it (except in great general emergencies, in which they all acted in union) according to his own views and his own affections, some of them assuming even an absolute independence; as, for example, Annat, Lachaise, Letellier, &c.