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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