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Born into a family whose wealth was largely<br />

founded on gun powder production, John Evelyn<br />

was born in Wotton, Surrey, and grew up in the<br />

Sussex town of Lewes. He was educated at Balliol<br />

College, Oxford and at the Middle Temple. While in<br />

London, he witnessed important events such as the<br />

execution of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.<br />

Having briefly joined the Royalist army, he went<br />

abroad to avoid further involvement in the English<br />

Civil War. He travelled in Italy, attending anatomy<br />

lectures in Padua in 1646 and sending the Evelyn<br />

Tables back to London. In 1644, Evelyn visited the<br />

English College at Rome, where Catholic priests<br />

were trained for service in England. In the Veneto<br />

he renewed his acquaintance with the Collector<br />

Earl of Arundel and toured the art collections of<br />

Venice with Arundel's son and heir. He acquired an<br />

ancient Egyptian stela and sent a sketch back to<br />

Rome which was published by Athanasius Kircher<br />

in his Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1650), though to<br />

Evelyn's annoyance, without acknowledgement to<br />

him<br />

E VERE<br />

WOTTON HOUSE

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