The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Schiaparelli, Giovanni Virginio

SCHIAPARELLI, skyä-pä-rĕl'lē, Giovanni Virginio, Italian astronomer: b. Savigliano, 5 March 1835; d. Milan, 5 July 1910. He was educated at the University of Turin, and later studied at Berlin, under Encke, and at Pultowa, Russia, under Struve. Returning to Italy in 1859, he became assistant astronomer at the Milan Observatory, and its director in 1862. In 1861 he discovered the asteroid Hesperia. His discoveries of the relations between comets and falling stars were published as ‘Note e riflessioni sulla teoria astronomica dele stelle cadenti’ (1867). In 1877 he published the first accounts of his observations of the “canals” of Mars, to which his name has been given. He published many books on astronomy.