Having fled to escape the consequences of this daring practical protest, he committed, in Milan, about 1530, the yet more unpardonable outrage of marrying a wife. Being by this act finally cast adrift upon the world, with increased responsibilities and necessities, he sought to obtain wherewithal to live, by publicly teaching the learned languages and literature. He did this with such success, as to attain not only that, but a very wide–spread reputation also, under circumstances which made obscurity most desirable for his safety. Driven, accordingly, from his occupation by the pursuit of his enemies, and yielding to a strong desire to revisit his native Piedmont, he appears, while travelling in that direction, to have fallen in with Morato at Vercelli, and to have been received by his brother exile and scholar in his temporary dwelling.
They did not part till there had been time for a friendship of the most intimate kind to spring up between them. And though, doubtless, there was plenty of congenial conversation between them on topics of classical lore,—on the disputed authenticity of Cicero's rhetoric, or the right interpretation of a passage of Plato,—we may be very sure, that the talk which most served to bind them to each other was on far more burning questions; on subjects which it was dangerous to touch, but which it had already become impossible for their minds to leave unprobed,—subjects, in speaking of which, either felt in his heart, that each cautious word, that moved a beam of doctrine but a hair's–breadth, might bring down a whole superincumbent fabric of venerated creed–edifice in ruin; subjects, too, in the discussion of which, the man who poured light into his neighbour's mind, was thereby exposing him to danger in life and goods,—a danger proportioned to the temperament of the mind enlightened.
Morato was, it would seem, not formed in the martyr's mould. There is no reason to suspect him of hypocritical compliances or tergiversation. But there are some men, in whom truth so works, that it cannot lie hidden and dormant, who, despite all pains and penalties, must needs testify to it, and publish it. Of such, as has abundantly been seen, was Celio Curione. That Morato shared his convictions is certain. But he lived and died in peace in the city of his adoption.