and Pietro Aretino. One likeness of the last-named sitter is in
Arezzo and another in the Berlin gallery.
See his general histories of art; and, with regard to his designs, Bernhard Berenson, The Drawings of Florentine Painters (1904). The decision as to the authorship of various pictures which may or may not be attributable to Sebastiano del Piombo is necessarily a matter of contemporary connoisseurship, and it need only be noted that Mr Berenson is inclined to give increased importance to this master. (W. M. R.)
SEBENICO (Serbo-Croatian, Šibenik), an episcopal city, and the centre of an administrative district in Dalmatia, Austria; at the end of a branch railway from Knin. Pop. (1900) of city and commune, 24,751. Sebenico is built on a hill overlooking the river Kerka, which here forms a broad basin, connected by a winding channel with the Adriatic Sea, 3 m. S.W. The city is partly walled, and guarded on the seaward side by the 16th-century castle of St Anna and two dismantled forts. Venetian influence is everywhere manifest; the Lion of St Mark is carved over the main gateway and on many public buildings; and among the narrow and steep lanes of the city there are numerous examples of Venetian Gothic or early Renaissance architecture. Sebenico has been the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop since 1298. It has also an orthodox bishop. The Roman Catholics, who constitute the majority of citizens, possess a lofty and beautiful cruciform cathedral, built entirely of stone and metal. Probably no other church of equal size in Europe is similarly constructed. Even the waggon vaults over the nave, choir and transepts are of stone unprotected by lead or tiles. The older part of the cathedral, dating from 1430 to 1441, and including the fine north doorway, is Italian Gothic. Giorgio Orsini of Zara, who had studied architecture in Venice and been strongly influenced by the Italian Renascence, carried on the work of construction until his death in 1475. It was finished early in the 16th century; and thus the cathedral belongs to two distinct periods and represents two distinct styles.
Sebenico is lighted by electric light; the power being supplied by the celebrated falls of the Kerka, near Scardona, on the north. Sebenico is a steamship station, with an excellent harbour. Wine, oil, corn and honey are produced in the neighbourhood; many of the inhabitants are fishermen and seamen. The Latin name of Sicum is adopted in public inscriptions; but the city cannot be identified with the Roman colony of Sicum, which was probably situated farther south. Sebenico first became prominent in the 12th century as a favourite residence of the Croatian kings. From 1358 to 1412 it was ruled by Hungary; it subsequently formed part of the Venetian dominions. In 1647 it was unsuccessfully besieged by the Turks.
SEBORRHOEA, a medical term applied to describe an accumulation
on the skin of the normal sebaceous secretion mixed
with dirt and forming scales or a distinct incrustation. On the
head, where it is commonly seen, it may interfere with the
nutrition of the hair and cause partial baldness, A form of this
disease occurs in young infants. The main treatment consists
in thoroughly cleansing the parts. The crusts may be softened
with oil and the affected skin regularly washed with soft soap
and rectified spirit. The sebum frequently accumulates in the
sebaceous ducts, giving rise to the minute black points often
noticed on the face, back and chest in young adults, to which
the term comedones is applied. A form of this disorder, of larger
size and white appearance, is termed milium. These affections
may to a large extent be prevented by strict attention to ablution
and brisk friction of the skin, which will also often remove them
when they begin to appear. The retained secretion may be
squeezed out or evacuated by incision and the skin treated with
some simple sulphur application.
SECCHI, ANGELO (1818–1878), Italian astronomer, was born
on the 29th of June 1818 at Reggio in Lombardy, and entered
the Society of Jesus at an early age. In 1849 he was appointed
director of the observatory of the Collegio Romano, which was
rebuilt in 1853; there he devoted himself with great perseverance
to researches in physical astronomy and meteorology till his
death at Rome on the 26th of February 1878.
The results of Secchi’s observations are contained in a great number of papers and memoirs. From about 1864 he occupied himself almost exclusively with spectrum analysis, both of stars (Catalogo delle stelle di cui si è determinato lo spettro luminoso, Paris, 1867, 8vo; “Sugli spettri prismatici delle stelle fisse,” two parts, 1868, in the Atti della Soc. Ital.) and of the sun (Le Soleil, Paris, 1870, 8vo; 2nd ed., 1877).
For a list of his publications see Poggendorff, Biographisch-Literarische; also see Monthly Notices R.A.S., No. 39, and Carlo Bricarelli, “Vita e opere di A. Secchi,” Nuovi Linc. Mem. (1888), vol. 4.
SECESSION, a term used in political science to signify the withdrawal of a state from a confederacy or composite state, of which it had previously been a part; and the resumption of all powers formerly delegated by it to the federal government, and of its status as an independent state. To secede is a sovereign right; secession, therefore, is based on the theory that the sovereignty of the individual states forming a confederacy or federal union has not been absorbed into a single new sovereignty. Secession is a right claimed or exercised by weaker states of a union whose rights are threatened by the stronger states, which seldom acknowledge such a principle. War generally follows the secession of a member of a union, and the seceding state, being weaker, is usually conquered and the union more firmly consolidated. The history of Europe furnishes several examples of secession or attempts to secede: in 1309 the Swiss cantons withdrew from the Empire and formed a confederacy from which, in 1843–1847, the Catholic cantons seceded and formed a new confederacy called the Sonderbund, which was crushed in the war that followed; in 1523 Sweden seceded from the Kalmarian Union formed in 1397 of Denmark, Sweden and Norway; and in 1814 Norway seceded and entered into a union with Sweden, from which, in the same year, it attempted to secede but was forcibly prevented; Norway, however, accomplished a peaceful secession from the Union in 1905 and resumed her independent status; in 1848–1849 Hungary attempted to withdraw from the union with Austria but the attempt was defeated; Prussia and other north German states withdrew in 1866–1868 from the German Confederation and formed a new one; a late instance of successful secession is that of Panama, which seceded in 1903 from the Republic of Colombia. But secession in theory and practice is best exhibited in the history of the United States. Most of the original states, and many of the later ones, at some period when rights were in jeopardy proclaimed that their sovereignty might be exercised in secession. The right to secede was based, the secessionists claimed, upon the fact that each state was sovereign, becoming so by successful revolution against England; there had been no political connexion between the colonies; the treaty of 1783 recognized them “as free, sovereign and independent states”; this sovereignty was recognized in the Articles of Confederation, and not surrendered, they asserted, under the Constitution; the Union of 1787 was really formed by a secession from the Union of 1776–1787. New states claimed all the rights of the old ones, having been admitted to equal standing. Assertions of the right and necessity of secession were frequent from the beginning; separatist conspiracies were rife in the West until 1812; various leaders in New England made threats of secession in 1790–1796 and 1800–1815—especially in 1803 on account of the purchase of Louisiana, in 1811 on account of the proposed admission of Louisiana as a state, and during the troubles ending in the War of 1812. Voluntary separation was frequently talked of before 1815. Two early commentators on the Constitution, St George Tucker in 1803 and William Rawle in 1825, declared that the sovereign states might secede at will. In 1832–1833 the “Union” party of South Carolina was composed of those who rejected nullification, holding to secession as the only remedy; and from 1830 to 1860 certain radical abolitionists advocated a division of the Union. But as the North grew stronger and the South in comparison grew weaker, as slavery came to be more and more the dominant political issue, and as the South made demands concerning that “peculiar institution” to which the North was unwilling to accede, less was heard of secession in the North and more in the South. Between 1845
