Sangermano, Vincenzo

SANGERMANO, VINCENZO. - Barnabite missionary, b. 22 April 1758 at Arpino and d. there 28 July 1819.

A pupil of the Barnabites and then a Barnabite himself at the age of 16, in 1782 he set out with Fr. D'Amato (v.) for Burma. At Rangoon for 24 years he directed an educational college. He had as pupils Andrea Coo and Ignazio de Brito, who later became Barnabites. Meanwhile he also practiced medicine and collected a great quantity of information, which, arranged and accompanied by colored plates, forms his famous Relazione dell'Impero barmano, which his confrere Fr. Galassi published posthumously in the original Italian (Rome 1833) in the same year that, also in Rome by Salviucci, a first English translation had already appeared, with a preface by the future Cardinal Wiseman, which three others followed: in 1885 at Rangoon, under the direction of the Indian government, in 1893 at Westminster, with an extensive introduction by J. Jardine, and in 1924. Forced by the political upheavals of Europe to return to his homeland, in 1808, S. was at Arpino, superior and prefect of the schools of St. Charles of his Order and, from 1814-18, first rector and professor of mathematics and philosophy at the Tulliano. Among S.'s manuscripts there is also a Topografia fisica di Arpino e suo circondario, of 1812.

Virginio M. Colciago