DE VICO, FRANCESCO. - Jesuit and astronomer, b. at Macerata on 19 May 1805. At Siena he had been a pupil of the learned Piarist astronomer Giovanni Inghirami, before entering, on 25 Dec. 1823, the novitiate of S. Andrea in Rome. Having perfected himself in astronomy under Fr. Stefano Dumouchel, director of the observatory of the Roman College, he succeeded him in 1840 and soon acquired worldwide fame for the originality and acuity of his methods of observation and measurement.
The objects of his research and publications were comets, the satellites of Saturn, and the rotation of Venus; from 1839 onward, under his direction, there appeared Memorie intorno a parecchie osservazioni fatte nella specola dell'Università Gregoriana. In 1844 he had discovered a comet and the following year a planetoid.
Driven from Italy by the Revolution of 1848, he received flattering invitations from every quarter. Having decided to take up an appointment at the Jesuit observatory of Georgetown in the United States, he had returned to Europe to procure instruments and personnel when death overtook him in London on 5 Oct. 1848. To his outstanding intellectual gifts he united great musical sensitivity; among his compositions, the Lamentazioni for Holy Week were especially admired.