Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/806

 SESTINI

738

SETEBO

the cathedral; Angelo Geraldini (1462), a learned humanist; Galeazzo Florimonte (1552), who played an important part in the affairs of the Holy See under Paul III and Julius III, and published various works; Giovanni Placidi (1566), founder of the semi- nary; Ulisse Gherardini (1624), who restored the cathedral and the episcopal residence; Francesco Gra- nata (1759), who promoted study in the seminary, and ■RTote various historical works. Later bishops were: Pietro de Felice (1797), who was cast into prison by the revolutionists; Ferdinando Girardi (1848), exiled in 1860. The diocese is sufifragan of Capua ; it contains 42 parishes with 56,750 souls and 90 secular clergy.

C.*.PPELLETTi, Le Chiese d' Italia, XX; Diamark, Mcmorie atorico-criiiche della Chiesa di Sessa Aurunca (Naples, 1906).

U. Benigni.

Sestini, Benedict, astronomer, mathematician, b. at Florence, Italy, 20 March, 1816; d. at Frederick, RIaryland, 17 Jan., 1890. He entered the Society of Jesus at Rome on 30 Oct., 1836, and studied at the Roman College where he followed the courses of Father Caraffa, the distinguished profe.ssor of math- ematics; endowed with mathematical ability, supple- mented by keen sight and skill as a draughtsman, he was appointed assistant to Father De Vico, director of the Roman Observatory. He was ordained in 1844, and filled the chair of higher mathematics at the Roman College, when the Revolution of 1848 caused his precipitate flight from Rome; coming to America he lived at Georgetown College, except for a few years, until 1869. He was stationed at Wood- stock, Maryland, at the opening of the scholasticate, and remained there until 1884. On account of faihng health, he was transferred in 1885 to the novitiate, Frederick, Maryland, where paralysis terminated his career. In astronomy, his principal work is his "Catalogue of Star-Colors", pubUshed in his "Mem- oirs of the Roman College", 1845 and 1847. The second memoir includes the first, and forms the entire catalogue, except the twelve celestial charts that ac- companied the first. The Revolution broke out at Rome when the second memoir was in the printer's hands, and prevented the completion of the work. The colour catalogue is important for two reasons: it is the first general review of the heavens for star- colouis, embodying the entire B. A. C. Catalogue, from the North Pole to 30 degrees south of the Equa- tor; then, as the observations are now about seventy years old (having been made from 1844 to 1846), the "Catalogue" will be invaluable for deciding the question whether there are stars variable in colour. For these reasons it has been republished, with notes, at the Vatican Observatory, as No. Ill Publications, 1911. It is remarkable how few are the errors of identification, in view of the then existing difficultiee, and how closely S<-stini's general scale of colours agrees with that of the Potsdam catalogue.

At Georgetown Ob.servatory, in 1850, Sestini made a w;ries of sunspot drawings, which were engraved and published (44 plates) as "Appendix A" of the Naval Observatory volume for 1847, printed in 1853. His last scientific work as an astronomer was the ob- servation of the total eclipse of 29 July, 1878, at Denver, Colorado. A sketch of the corona as it ap- peared to him was published in the "Catholic Quar- terly Review". From his arrival at Georgetown (1848) imtil his retirement from Woodstock (1884) he harl befin almost constantly engaged in teaching mathematics to the Jf^suit scholastics, and he pub- lishr-d a series of textbooks on aigr-hra, geometry and trigonometry, analytical geometry, infinitesimal anal- ysis. These were works of sterling merit, but they never became popular with students or teachers; their severe analytic method was repellent to practical American taste; he harl no sympathy with commercial mathematics, and furthermore the make-up of the

books was not as attractive as the ordinary high- school and college textbooks. He wrote treatises on natural science for tlie use of his pupils; some of these were hthographed and others were privatelj" printed at Woodstock: "Theoretical Mechanics" in 1873; "Animal Physics" in 1874; "Principles of Cosmog- raphy" in 1878. He founded the American "Mes- senger of the Sacred Heart" in 1866, and retained editorial control of it until 1885; during these years he was also head director of the Apostleship of Prayer in the United St ates. He was an indefat igable worker and had many difficulties to contend with in launching and sustaining the "Messenger", and in directing the League of the Sacred Heart, but he was supported in this labour of love by his cheerful disposition and ardent zeal for the glory of God. It was pleasantly said of him that he had two passions — one for pure mathematics, and the other for the pure CathoUc religion.

SoMMERVOGEL, BMiothique de la C. de J., VII, 1159; Woodstock Lei.ter.i, XIX, 259; XXX, 99; Messenger of the Sacred Heart, new series, V (1890), 161, 343, 435, 486.

E. I. Devitt.

Setebo Indians, a considerable tribe of Panoan hnguistic stock formerly centering about the conflu- ence of the Manoa with the Ucayali River, Loreto pro^•ince, north-eastern Peru, and now engaged as boatmen, rubber gatherers, etc., along the whole ex- tent of the latter river to, or below, its junction with the Maranon. They speak the same language as their neighbours the Pano, Conibo, and Sipibo, whom they resembled in their primitive custom and beUef as now in their more civilized condition. The first en- try of the upper Ucayali country was made early in the seventeenth century by gold, hunters from Peru, whose treatment of the wild tribes had the effect of rendering the Indians bitterly hostile towards the Spaniards. In 1657, however, the Franciscan P'ather Alonzo Caballero with two other priests and three lay brothers, passing through the countiy of the can- nibal Cashibo, reached the Setebo on the Ucayali. After a year or more of pati<'nt effort they succeeded in gathering a part of tlie tribe into two mission vil- lages. These had but a brief existence; they were at- tacked and destroyed by the more powerful Sipibo, hereditary enemies of the Setebo, the five religious in charge and many of the neophytes being killed. In 1661 a second attempt was made under Father Lo- renzo Tineo, with several other Franciscans, attended by an escort of soldiers and two hundred Christian Indians from Central Peru. Two missions were es- tablished, but only to meet the fate of the first at the hands of the cannibal tribes, the missionaries retiring to the Huallaga with a pari of their neoj^hyte flock. Other attempts at establishment on the ITcayali within the next forty years were frustrated by hostile attacks and by smallpox epidemics, i)articularly a great smallpox visitation which desolated the whole region in 1670. Within this period eight missionaries were slain in the Setebo country, one of them, Father Jeronimo de los Rios, being devoured by cannibals in 1704. In 1736 the Setebo were still further decimated in a bloody engagement with their inveterate enemies, the Sipibo.

In 1760 another Franciscan mission entry into the S(!t(!bo territory was made by Fathers Francisco de San JosC; and Miguel de Salcedo, accompanied by about one hundred Christian Indians, and, as inter- preter, a young girl of the tribe who had been taken prisoner in a previous exjx'dition and who was bap- tized under the name of .Ana Rosa. Through her good offices they came to a friendly arrangement with the chi(!f of one band, and on his invitation estab- lished a mission chapel in his village under the name of San Francisco de Manoa. They were greatly pleased to find that the Indians still retained a deep reverence for the cross, which they had set up in front