His parents, though people of some condition, were poor; and this circumstance may perhaps be reckoned the chief reason why Bruno entered the convent of S.Dominic at Naples before he had completed his fifteenth year.

It will be remembered that Sarpi joined the Servites at the age of thirteen, and Campanella the Dominicans at that of fourteen.

In each of these memorable cases it is probable that poverty had something to do with deciding a vocation so premature.

But there were other inducements, which rendered the monastic life not unattractive, to a young man seeking knowledge at a period and in a district where instruction was both costly and difficult to obtain.

Campanella himself informs us that he was drawn to the order of S.Dominic by its reputation for learning and by the great names of S.Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus.