DE VICO, FRANCESCO. - Jesuit and astronomer, born at Macerata on 19 May 1805. He had been a pupil in Siena of the learned astronomer Giovanni Inghirami before entering, on 25 December 1823, the novitiate of S. Andrea in Rome. He perfected his astronomical studies under Fr. Stefano Dumouchel, director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano, and succeeded him in 1840, soon acquiring worldwide fame for the originality and precision of his methods of observation and measurement.
The subjects of his research and publications were comets, the satellites of Saturn, and the rotation of Venus; from 1839 onwards, under his direction, *Memorie intorno a parecchie osservazioni fatte nella specola dell’Università Gregoriana* appeared. In 1844 he had discovered a comet and the following year an asteroid.
Driven from Italy by the Revolution of 1848, he received flattering invitations everywhere. Having decided to apply himself to the observatory of the Jesuits at Georgetown in the United States, he had returned to Europe to procure instruments and personnel when death overtook him in London on 5 October 1848. To his outstanding intellectual gifts he united a great sensitivity to music; among his compositions, the *Lamentations* for Holy Week were especially admired.