BORRUS
689
BOSCO
church and part of the College of Propaganda
Borro mini's fancies are wildest; the cupola and
campanile of Sant' Andrea delle Fratte are in better
taste. The great nave of Saint John Lateran
was modernized, as it now stands, by Borromini.
His best work is the fai^ade of Santa Agnese in the
Piazza Na\ona. Borromini is generally considered
the father of all modern abuses in arcliitecture. He
inverted the whole system of Greek and Roman
architecture, without offering a substitute.
Thom.\s H. Poole.
Borrus (Borri, Burrus). Christopher, mis- .sionary, mathematician, and astronomer, b. at Milan in 1583; d. at Rome, 24 May, 1632. His family was one of good standing in Milan. He became a member of the Society of Jesus, 16 September, 1601; in 1618 he was sent from Macao with Father Petrus Marquez, S.J., as one of the first missionaries to Cochin-China. Here he stayed until 1622, being known under the name of Bruno. After his return he taught mathematics at Coimbra; in 1632 he entered the Cistercian Order, taking the name of Father Onofrio, and died the same year. His most im- portant work "Relatione della nuova missione deUi P. P. della Compagnia di Gesu al Regno deUa Cocin- cina" appeared at Rome in 1631 and was translated into French (Rennes, 1631), Dutch (Louvain, 1632), Latin and German (\'ienna, 16.33), and English (London, 1633). It was also in.serted in Churchill's "Collection of Voyages" (1704), II, 7S7-S38, and in Sprengel and Forster's "Is^eue Beitrage zur Volker- und Landerkunde" (Leipzig, 1793), II, 27-110. The work was considered one of the best som-ces of information concerning Cochin-China on account of its e.xcellent description of the physical, political, and ecclesiastical conditions of the country. The obser- vations of Borrus on the magnetic variation of the compass appear to be of more importance, but un- fortunately they have not yet been published. According to Ivircher he drew up the first cliart for the Atlantic and Indian Oceans sho^\ing the spots where the magnetic needle makes the same angles with the meridian; in this he is to be regarded as the forerunner of Halley. Borrus gives the explanation to the chart in a manuscript that belongs to the Royal Academy at Lisbon. In another manuscript, now at Evora, "Tratada da arte de navegar pelo Cristovao Bruno", which boars on the same subject, he makes excellent suggestions, according to Alla- tius, as to a new method for determining the longi- tude at sea and also concerning impro\emei;ts in sea-charts. Father Le Jeunehomme undertook a translation of the treatise into Latin. Philip of Spain, desiring to understand the nautical studies and inventions of Borrus. once sinnmoned the latter from Coimbra to Madrid. Besides what has been already mentioned Borrus wrote, "Doctrina de Tribus Cecils, Aereo, Sydereo et Empeirco" (Lisbon, s. d.), which Pietro de Valle translated into Persian (Maius, Scriptor. vet. nova collect., IV, n. ix), and also some accomits of his travels for the Propaganda.
Ai.LATlus, Apes Urbana' (Home. 10.3.1). 0(3; Ktrcher, Mafjnee sive de arte ynaffneticd (Rome, 1041). .502; Dk Visch, Bibliotheca scriptor-:m Sacr. Ord. Cistercunsis (Cologne, 1056), 71; Argelati. BU>lioth. Scriptor. Mediolanensium (Milan, 1745). 1, ii, 238; d'Avkzac, Aper^ua historiqiws sur la bouasole in Bullet, de In Hoc. de Giogr. (Paris, 1800). XI.\, .358; Cahayon, Dncum. inidilK (Poitiers, 1864). IV. 39; Von Humboldt, Kosmns (.Stuttgart. 18()9). IV. 171; PEScHEL-UncE. Geschichte der Erdkunde (2il eil., Munich. 1877), 726; Amat di' S. Fii.ippo, Bwf/rafin dti Tiaof/iatori italiani (2(i ed., Rome, 1S82). 375-377; CoRvo. Roleiro de Lisboa a Goa por D. Joao de Castro (Lisbon, 1882). 393 .-inq.; Backer-Sommervogel, BM. de la c. de J. (1890). I. 1821-22; VIII. 1878; Hei.i.mann. ed., Neudrucke von Schriftcn und Karten iiber Meteoruloffie uiui ErdmagnetismM ^Berlin, 1895), No. IV, 18.
Otto Hartig.
Bosa, Diocese ok, in the province of Cagliari, Sardinia, and suffragan to the Archdiocese of Sassari. The city numbers about 3.5,000 inhabitants. St.
Gregory the Great, in one of his letters, speaks of a
Bishop of Bosa, T\ithout, however, mentioning the
bishop's name. In 1073 Costantino de Castro, Bishop
of Bosa, who, according to an inscription, had built
the cathedral dedicated to St. Peter, was appointed
Metropolitan of Torres by St. Gregory VII. Among
the most illustrious bishops of this see are numbered:
the learned Cardinal Giovanni Casanova (1424);
G. Francesco Fara (1591), author of the first (but
very inaccurate) history of Sardinia; Serafino Es-
quirro, a learned theologian, who had been General
of the Ser%-ites (1677). It is asserted by some that
the see was originally at Calmedia, but was trans-
ferred to Bosa after the destruction of the former
town; also, that the first bishop was St. Emihus,
sent thither by St. Peter and martyred in 70 — for
this, however, there is no historical e\-idence. The
diocese has a population of 40,200, -nith 21 parishes,
104 churches and chapels, 100 secular priests, and
40 seminarians.
Cappelletti, Le chiese d'ltalia (Venice, 1844), XIII; B.\t- tandiek, Ann. pont. cath. (Paris, 1907).
U. Benigni.
Bosch, Peter v.\n der, Bollandist, b. at Brussels, 19 October, 1686; d. 14 November, 1736. After studying the humanities at the College of IJrussels. 1698-1705, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Mechhn, 25 September, 1705. At the close of his novitiate he studied pliilosophy at Antwerp, 1707-09, and then spent a year in Italy to complete his Uterary training. Recalled to Antwerp in 1710, he spent six years in teaching and then went to Louvain, where he took a theological course, 1716-20. He was ordained priest at Louvain in 1719 and distinguished himself by the pubhc defence of theses in March and September, 1719, and by his defence " De Universa Theologia " in 1720. In 1721, at the end of his third year of probation, he was made an assistant to the Bollandists and remained a mem- ber of this body during the rest of his hfe. His hagiographical writings are found in July, IV-VI, and August, I-III.
DoLMAUs, Elogium R. P. Petri Bnschi hagiographi in Acta
Ch. De Smedt.
Bosco, Giovanni Melchior, Venerable (Don Bosco), founder of the Salesian Society, b. of poor parents in a little cabin at Becchi, a hill-side hamlet near Castelnuovo, Piedmont, Italy, 16 August, 1815; d. 31 January, 1888; declared Venerable by Pius X, 24 July, 1907. When he was little more than two years old his father died, leaving the support of three boys to the mother, Margaret Bosco. Jolm's early years were spent as a shepherd and he received liis first instruction at the hands of the parish priest. He possessed a ready wit, a retentive memory, anil as years passed his appetite for study grew stronger. Owing to the poverty of the home, however, he was often obliged to turn from his books to the field, but the desire of what he had to give up never left him. In 1835 he entered the seminary at Chieri and after six years of study was ordained priest on the eve of Trinity Sunday by Archbishop Franzoni of Turin.
Leaving the seminary, Don Bosco went to Turin where he entered zealously upon his priestly labours. It was here that an incident occurred which opened up to him the real field of effort of his afterlife. One of his duties was to accompimy Don Cafasso upon his visits to the prisons of the city, and the condition of the children confined in these places, abandoned to the most evil influences, and with little before them but the gallows, made such an indelible im- pression upon Ills mind that he resolved to devote his life to the rescue of these unfortunate outcasts. On the eighth of December, 1841, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, while Don Bosco wtis
