“I went to Noli, in Genoese territory, and stayed there about four
months, teaching small boys grammar, and reading lectures on the sphere
[astronomy] to certain gentlemen; then I went away, first to Savona,
where I tarried about a fortnight, and thence to Turin. Not finding
entertainment there to my taste, I came to Venice by the Po, and lived
a month and a half in the Frezzaria, in the lodging of a man employed
at the Arsenal, whose name I do not know. Whilst I was here, I had
printed this work [_On the Signs of the Times_], to make a little
money for my support; I showed it first to Father Remigio de Fiorenza.
Departing hence, I went to Padua, where I found some Dominican fathers,
acquaintances of mine, who persuaded me to wear the habit again, even
if I should not choose to return to the order; for it seemed to them
more proper to wear that habit than not. With this view I went to
Bergamo, and had made a garment of cheap white cloth, and over it I
put the scapular, which I had kept when I left Rome. Thus attired I
set out for Lyons; and at Chambèry, going to lodge with the order,
and being very decently entertained, and talking about this with an
Italian father who was there, he said to me, ‘Be warned, for you will
not meet with any sort of friendliness in these parts; and you will
find less the farther you go.’ So I set out for Geneva. There I lodged
at the hostelry; and, a little after my arrival, the Marquis de Vico,
a Neapolitan who was in that city, asked me who I was, and whether I
had gone there to settle and to profess the religion of that place. I
replied to him, after giving an account of myself and the reason why
I had left the order, that I did not intend to profess that religion,
because I did not know what it was; and that therefore I wished to
abide there to live in liberty and to be safe, rather than for any
other purpose. Being persuaded to put off that habit in any case, I
took these clothes, and had a pair of hose made, and other things; and
the marquis, with some other Italians, gave me a sword, hat, cloak, and
other necessary articles, and, in order that I might support myself,
they procured proof-reading for me. I kept to that work about two
months, going, however, sometimes to preaching and sermons, whether of
the Italians or of the French who lectured and preached there: among
others, I heard more than once Nicolo Balbani, of Lucca, who read
the Epistles of St. Paul, and preached on the Evangelists. But when
I was told that I could not stay long in that place unless I should
accept its religion, because I would have no employment from them, and
finding, too, that I could not earn enough to live on, I went thence to
Toulouse, where there is a famous university. Having become acquainted
with some intelligent persons, I was asked to lecture on the sphere to
divers students, which I did--with other lectures on philosophy--for
perhaps six months. At this point, the post of ‘ordinary’ lecturer in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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