STELLINI, JACOPO. - Philosopher and educator, b. 27 April 1699 at Cividale del Friuli, d. 17 March 1770 at Padova.
In 1718 he joined the Somaschi Fathers; for some years he taught rhetoric in Venice, at the Accademia dei Nobili on the Giudecca, and in 1739 he obtained the chair of ethics at the University of Padova. The work that won him fame (De ortu et progressu morum atque opinionum ad mores pertinentium specimen) investigates the laws for attaining happiness according to nature. As an educator, S. maintained that the educator’s task was to watch over the development of the natural desire for the true, the good, and the beautiful, and hence for order, which “is nothing other than the harmony of the human will with the divine.”
BIBL.: F. Luzzatto, Contributo agli studi stelliniani, Udine 1898, with bibl.; F. Cicchitti-Suriani, La pedagogia di J. S., in Riv. ital. di filos., 1 (1891), pp. 191-221; anon., L'Ordine dei Chierici reg. somaschi nel IV centen. della sua fondazione, Roma 1928, pp. 199-201; E. de Goetzen, L'opera di J. S., in Arch. di stor. della filos. ital., 3 (1934), pp. 231-54. Silvio Furlani