Stanislaus Kostka, a Polish noble who died at seventeen years of age; Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian prince of twenty-three; and John Berchmans, a Flemish townsman of twenty-two.
Among some of the famous men educated by the Jesuits we find Bossuet, Corneille, Molière, Tasso, Fontenelle, Diderot, Voltaire, and Bourdaloue, himself a Jesuit.
When Père Porée replied to the remark that he was not one of the great poets, he said, "At least you may grant that I have been able to make some of them." A few others were Descartes, Buffon, Justus Lipsius, Muratori the historian, Calderon, and Vico, the author of "Ideas of History," Richelieu, Tilly, Malesherbes, Don John of Austria, Luxembourg, Esterhazy, Choiseul, St. Francis de Sales, Lambertini, afterward Benedict XIV, the most learned of the popes, and the present Pontiff, Pope Leo XIII, renowned for his learning and wisdom.
Nearly all the Jesuit writers had been Jesuit professors, with almost no exception, and nearly all had taught humanities, belles-lettres, and rhetoric. Father Southwell in 1676 numbers 2240 authors, and Father de Backer in 1876 counts 11,100.
AUTHORS
We find some remarkable authors among the Jesuit writers. Foremost come the Bollandists, renowned throughout the world for their monumental work, the "Acta Sanctorum." Similar gigantic works were carried on by Fathers de Backer, Sommervogel, and Pachtler. In the various branches of learning we need mention a few of the greater writers.
In astronomy, we find Ricci, Perry, De Vico, Secchi, Curley, Sestini.
In mathematics, Hagen, Algué.