There was much talk just then, both in university and city, of the Reformation and the reformers. Curione had often heard certain priests and their partisans bitterly complaining of the ‘false doctrines’ of those _heretics_, and making use of the harshest language against Luther and Zwingle. He listened to their abuse, but was not convinced. He possessed a nobler soul than the majority of the people around him, and his generous independent spirit was more disposed in favor of the accused than of the accusers. Instead of joining in this almost unanimous censure, Celio said to himself: ‘I will not condemn those doctors before I have read their works.’[808] It would appear that he was already known in the Augustine convent, in which, as in that of Wittemberg, some truly pious men were to be found. The grace of his person, the quickness of his intellect, and his ardent thirst for religious knowledge, interested the monks. Knowing that they possessed some of the writings of the reformers, Curione asked for them, and Father Hieronimo lent him Luther’s _Babylonian Captivity_, translated into Italian under a different title. The young man carried it away eagerly to his study. He read those vigorous pages in which the Saxon doctor speaks of the lively faith with which the Christian ought to cling to the promises of God’s Word; and those in which he asserts that neither bishop nor pope has any right to command despotically the believer who has received Christian liberty from God. But Celio had not yet obtained light enough; he carried the book back to the convent, and asked for another. Melancthon’s _Principles of Theology_ and Zwingle’s _True and False Religion_ were devoured by him in turn. [Sidenote: Curione’s Spiritual Wants.] A work was then going on in his soul. The truths he had read in his Bible grew clearer and sank deeper into his mind; his spirit thrilled with joy when he found his faith confirmed by that of these great doctors, and his heart was filled with love for Luther and Melancthon. ‘When I was still young,’ he said to the latter afterwards, ‘when first I read your writings, I felt such love for you that it seemed hardly capable of increase.’[809] Curione was not satisfied with the writings merely of these men of God: his admiration for them was such that he longed to hear them: an ardent desire to start immediately for Germany was kindled in his heart.[810] He talked about it with his friends, especially with Giovanni and Francesco Guarino, whom the Gospel had also touched, and who declared their readiness to depart with him.