SICHIROLLO, GIACOMO. - Neo-Thomist philosopher and sociologist, b. at Arquà Polesine (Rovigo) on 17 April 1839, d. at Rovigo on 18 May 1911. He studied at the Seminary of Rovigo, where, after being ordained a priest, he remained for his whole life as professor of philosophy, spiritual director and prefect of studies.
His publications number more than forty. The largest work is the one on I tre libri di M. Tullio Cicerone intorno alle leggi. Testo con la versione e commento (Padua 1878-85). In it, with vast and sure learning, S. demonstrates, following the Arpinate, that the foundation of law is natural and therefore divine. He published at Padua, in 1887, La mia conversione dal Rosmini a s. Tommaso, which was followed by two other publications, with which he defended himself against the attacks of his opponents. On the same line is the work: Lettere critiche sul libro « Scienza e fede » del p. G. Semeria (Treviso 1904). He also wrote: Il nuovo compendio della storia d'Italia nel medioevo (Lendinara 1890), which, scarcely published, was pointed out by Toniolo "to Italians solicitous of the truth and the glory of the fatherland"; Il concetto della storia in Cicerone e una pagina delle « Leggende agiografiche » del p. Delehaye (Rovigo 1906).
S. had a large part in the social activity of Catholics, particularly with his Conferenze sulla Democrazia cristiana (Rovigo 1899). In 1869 he founded the Circolo cattolico S. Francesco d'Assisi, which was the first in the diocese of Adria, and among the first in Italy; at the beginning of March 1883 he founded at Padua the Società cattolica universitaria, which was the first to arise in Italy, and which on 20 June of the same year had the honour of a brief of approval from Leo XIII. This society was a fruitful seed of many others of the kind which, united later in the F.U.C.I., were thus to make the force of Christian thought widely felt in the life of the nation. S. exercised a profound spiritual influence on the clergy and on the laity, who, while he was still living, venerated him as a saint. Giuseppe Toniolo, some years after his death, wrote that he should be honoured as a "national teacher."
Bibliography4 works
Giuseppe Pavani