ANGELO

SECCHI (1818-1878)  , Italian astronomer, was born on the 29th of June 1818 at Reggio in Lombardy, and entered the Society of Jesus at an early age . In 1849 he was appointed director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano, which was rebuilt in 1853; there he devoted himself with great perseverance to researches in physical astronomy and meteorology till his death at Rome on the 26th of February 1878 . The results of Secchi's observations are contained in a great number of papers and memoirs . .From about 1864 he occupied himself almost exclusively with spectrum analysis, both of stars (Catalogo delle stelle di cui si b determinato lo spettro luminoso, Paris, 1867, 8vo; " Sugli spettri prismatici delle stelle fisse," two parts, 1868, in the Atti della Soc . Ital.) and of the sun (Le Soleil, Paris, 187o, 8vo; 2nd ed., 1877) . For a list of his publications see Poggendorff, Biographisch-Literarische; also see Monthly Notices R.A.S., No . 39, and Carlo Bricarelli, " Vita e opere di A . Secchi," Nuovi Linc . Mem . (1888), vol . 4 .