In 1718 he entered the Somaschi Fathers, taught rhetoric for some years in Venice at the Accademia dei Nobili alla Giudecca, and in 1739 obtained the chair of ethics at the University of Padua. The work that brought him fame (De ortu et progressu morum atque opinionum ad mores pertinentium specimen) has as its subject the investigation of the laws for attaining happiness according to nature. As a pedagogue, S. maintained that the task of the educator is to foster the natural desire for the true, the good, and the beautiful, and thus for order, which is nothing other than the harmony of the human will with the divine will.
BIBL.: F. Luzzatto, Contributo agli studi stelliniani, Udine 1898, with bibliography; F. Cicchitti-Suriani, La pedagogia di F. S., in Riv. ital. di filos., 1 (1891), pp. 191-221; anon., L'Ordine dei Chierici reg. somaschi nel IV centen. della sua fondaz., Roma 1928, pp. 190-201; E. de Goetzen, L'opera di F. S., in Arch. di stor. della filos. ital., 3 (1934), pp. 231-54. Silvio Furlani