SAN GERMANO, VINCENZO

A student of the Barnabites and later a Barnabite himself at the age of 16, in 1782 he left with Fr. D'Amato (v.) for Burma. For 24 years he directed an educational college in Rangoon. Among his pupils were Andrea Coo and Ignazio de Brito, who later became Barnabites. Meanwhile, he also practiced medicine and collected a great deal of information, which, when organized and accompanied by colored tables, formed his famous Relazione dell'Impero barmano. This work was posthumously published in its original Italian by his fellow Barnabite Fr. Galassi (Rome 1833), the same year in which a first English translation, with a preface by the future Cardinal Wiseman, was issued in Rome by Salviucci; three further English editions followed: in 1885 in Rangoon, edited by the Indian government; in 1893 in Westminster, with an extensive introduction by J. Jardine; and in 1924. Forced by the political upheavals in Europe to return home in 1808, San Germano was in Arpino as superior and prefect of studies at S. Carlo of his Order, and from 1814 to 1818 he served as the first rector and professor of mathematics and philosophy at the Tulliano. Among his manuscripts is also a Topografia fisica di Arpino e suo circondario, dated 1812.