Angelo Secchi was an Italian Catholic priest, astronomer from the Italian region of Emilia. He was director of the observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University for 28 years. He was a pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy, and was one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the Sun is a star.

The Roman College was a school established by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1551, just 11 years after he founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It quickly grew to include classes from elementary school through university level and moved to several successive locations to accommodate its burgeoning student population. With the patronage of Pope Gregory XIII, the final seat of the Roman College was built in 1584 near the center of Rome's most historic Pigna district, on what today is called Piazza del Collegio Romano, adding the church of St. Ignatius in 1626, and a renowned observatory in 1787. The college remained at this location for 286 years until the revolutionary Capture of Rome in 1870.