After the Council of Trent, Rome was full of fervor and was looking for new forms of approaching the poorest members of cociety. Calasanz renounced the canonry he had sought and was eventually granted, and he exchanged the silk and silver belt buckles of a diocesan priest and a doctor with a future, for that of a rustic religious habit. He embraced supreme poverty, and he left the comfort and splendor of the Colonna Palace to live simply among poor children.