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 throughout his life as professor of philosophy, spiritual director, and prefect of studies.
His publications number more than forty. The most substantial work is that on I tre libri di M. Tullio Cicerone intorno alle leggi. Testo con la versione e commento (Padua 1878–85). In it, with extensive and secure erudition, 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 in which he defended himself against the attacks of his opponents. Along the same lines 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, immediately after its publication, was commended by Toniolo «agli italiani solleciti della verità e della gloria della patria»; Il concetto della storia in Cicerone e una pagina delle « Leggende agiografiche » del p. Delehaye (Rovigo 1906).
S. played a major role in the social activity of Catholics, particularly through his Conferenze sulla Democrazia cristiana (Rovigo 1899). In 1869 he founded the Catholic Circle S. Francesco d'Assisi, the first in the diocese of Adria and among the first in Italy; at the beginning of March 1883 he founded in Padua the Società cattolica universitaria, the first of its kind established in Italy, which on 20 June of the same year was honored with a brief of approval from Leo XIII. This society was the fruitful seed of many others of its kind which, later united in the F.U.C.I., were to make the strength of Christian thought so widely felt in the life of the nation. S. exercised a profound spiritual influence on the clergy and laity, who, while he was still alive, venerated him as a saint. Giuseppe Toniolo wrote, several years after his death, that he ought to be honored as a «maestro nazionale».