Abstract
The history of Jesuits’ contribution to the natural sciences is a subject that attracts considerable interest. Jesuits are popularly known as religious and ecclesiastics involved in scientific work and literature abounds, especially, about the role played by them in the early days of modern science. Less attention has been focused on the scientific work of Jesuits in modern time, that is, after the restoration of the Jesuit order in 1814 (Jesuits had been suppressed by the Pope in 1773). In the nineteenth century, Jesuits' scientific work changed somewhat from the earlier period, assuming a more apologetic character, aimed at those who attacked the Catholic Church for opposing modern science, and a special presence in so-called mission countries.
Ileana Chinnici’s book offers an extended modern biography of the Italian astronomer Angelo Secchi, director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano, a Jesuit scientist in the second part of the nineteenth century who contributed to astronomy, astrophysics and meteorology. The book sheds light on the question of why members of a religious institution might dedicate their lives to work in the natural sciences. In the mid-nineteenth century, Secchi was one of the first to study of the physical nature of heavenly bodies, thus contributing to the beginning of what is now called astrophysics. At that time astronomy was still mostly limited to celestial mechanics, that is, the study of the positions and motions of stars, planets, and comets. The application of spectroscopic analysis to stars and planets, which was being developed at that time, opened a new field to which Secchi was one of the first to make important contributions. His proposed classification of stellar spectra was an important tool in astrophysics, still used today with some modifications. Secchi’s studies of the Sun, using this new tool, were also very important and path-breaking. In 1856, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society; he and Stephen Perry, director of Stonyhurst Observatory, are the only two modern Jesuit scientists to receive this honor.
As Chinnici explains in the preface, her biography wants to be a sort of “autobiography,” mostly written in Secchi’s own words. She achieves this through many lengthy quotations from Secchi’s various works and letters, which bring us in contact with his thoughts and sentiments and which in the footnotes are rendered in the original Italian. These quotations make this biography very special. The book also contains a large number of illustrations (seventy-seven) of different kinds (portraits, buildings, books, etc.). Secchi’s personality is an important subject explored by Chinnici. She presents him as “an intriguing figure, unusual for being both a Jesuit and a scientist, . . . being forthright and outspoken, given sometimes to a lively polemical style, he easily attracted criticisms and disparagements” (p. 259). Secchi enters in polemics, on one side, with anti-clerics and with neo-Thomists in the other. As a well-known public figure, Secchi was often the target of the anticlerical press which insisted in the incompatibility between science and religion. Yet Secchi’s 1864 book Sull’unità delle forze fisiche (The unity of physical forces), with its unitarian vision of physics, drew fierce criticism from the neo-Thomists who considered it even dangerous for the Catholic faith. Regarding his dealings with fellow astronomers, Chinnici gives special treatment to some long-lasting bad relationships.
This excellent book not only presents Secchi’s scientific contributions and his personality but also situates him in the fascinating mix of science, politics and society of the Italian late nineteenth century. It addresses also the question of the cultivation of science by the Jesuits in modern times, the creation of their first astronomical observatories, and the relation between science and religion.