Giordano Bruno spent most of his adult life wandering all throughout western and central Europe, always on the run from the Church, and even the local non-catholic communities who usually didn't tolerate him and his teachings for more than a few years. He still managed to get himself hired as a lecturer at several universities and get himself enough of a positive reputation (for his memory technique, not his heretical ideas about god and aliens) that he could eventually return to Italy to fill a vacancy at the university of Padua. However, shortly after, that job was given to Gallileo (who was much less controversial), and Bruno took a job offer as a private tutor to one of the merchants or nobles of Venice that he'd gotten to know at the Frankfurt book fair and originally refused. When that guy was dissappointed with what he could learn from Bruno, he betrayed him to the Inquisition, and the rest is history.
About the daughter marrying a noble: I don't see it happening. It's less about her social class or bastard status, but simply that no noble family could gain anything from making an alliance with your scholar. He doesn't have political power, and he probably can't supply her with a suitable dowry. Remember that high class marriages where political contracts, not love matches (and no noble youngster would expect to marry for love). With the right eductation, she could move to Rome and become a high class courtesan maybe eventually gain power by becoming some cardinal's mistress. Though that was not a career fathers wanted for their daughters. If he doesn't want to use her to gain the friendship of some family on his own level of the social ladder (a better connected scholar perhaps, who'll then provide him with a more secure lecturing position at the university), he'd probably put her in a convent, where she can spend her time on intellectual pursuits and also has a higher chance of living to old age.
(Also, remember that renaissance Venice, and therefore Padua, was not a feudal state but a republic. The two nobles governing Padua were elected, from the Venetian elite class. Venice had a very stratified class system based on whether your family had been present at the foundation of the city, and whether they'd been rich enough to sit on the council back then. Newer families, no matter how rich, couldn't gain access to government jobs or positions on council in Venice. Though I don't know if you could get into Padua's council as a social climber. At least the old, defeated nobility of Padua seems to have continued to administer local business and law, under the rule of the two Venetian governors.)
About the priest: Where and what kind of priest? Which order? Is he in a monastery? Is he ordained, but actually works as a lecturer for theology or something else at a university? Does he work as a court priest for some noble house in the states that actually had courts? Is he part of the papal administration in Rome? Did he run away from his order to be able to read and teach the more controversial greek texts? (like Giordano Bruno)
About the daughter marrying a noble: I don't see it happening. It's less about her social class or bastard status, but simply that no noble family could gain anything from making an alliance with your scholar. He doesn't have political power, and he probably can't supply her with a suitable dowry. Remember that high class marriages where political contracts, not love matches (and no noble youngster would expect to marry for love). With the right eductation, she could move to Rome and become a high class courtesan maybe eventually gain power by becoming some cardinal's mistress. Though that was not a career fathers wanted for their daughters. If he doesn't want to use her to gain the friendship of some family on his own level of the social ladder (a better connected scholar perhaps, who'll then provide him with a more secure lecturing position at the university), he'd probably put her in a convent, where she can spend her time on intellectual pursuits and also has a higher chance of living to old age.
(Also, remember that renaissance Venice, and therefore Padua, was not a feudal state but a republic. The two nobles governing Padua were elected, from the Venetian elite class. Venice had a very stratified class system based on whether your family had been present at the foundation of the city, and whether they'd been rich enough to sit on the council back then. Newer families, no matter how rich, couldn't gain access to government jobs or positions on council in Venice. Though I don't know if you could get into Padua's council as a social climber. At least the old, defeated nobility of Padua seems to have continued to administer local business and law, under the rule of the two Venetian governors.)
About the priest: Where and what kind of priest? Which order? Is he in a monastery? Is he ordained, but actually works as a lecturer for theology or something else at a university? Does he work as a court priest for some noble house in the states that actually had courts? Is he part of the papal administration in Rome? Did he run away from his order to be able to read and teach the more controversial greek texts? (like Giordano Bruno)
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