Hugh Sempill

Society of Jesus

History of the Jesuits
Regimini militantis
Suppression

Jesuit Hierarchy
Superior General
Adolfo Nicolás

Ignatian Spirituality
Spiritual Exercises
Ad majorem Dei gloriam
Magis

Notable Jesuits
St. Ignatius of Loyola
St. Francis Xavier
St. Peter Faber
St. Aloysius Gonzaga
St. Robert Bellarmine
St. Peter Canisius
St. Edmund Campion
Pope Francis

Hugh Sempill (or Semple) (in Latin, Hugo Simpelius or Sempilius) (between 1589 and 1596 – 1654) was a Scottish Jesuit mathematician and linguist. He describes himself in his work as Hugo Sempilius Craigbaitaeus, probably making him the Hew Sempill of Craigbait and Langside found in local genealogies, where his birth is given as 1590.

A Jesuit, Sempill taught as professor of mathematics at the Colegio Imperial de Madrid (Imperial College of Madrid), which employed teachers from all over Europe and made courses in geometry, geography, hydrography, and horology.

He also served as procurator of the Royal Scots College in Madrid (now located in Salamanca).

Sempill's De Mathematicis disciplinis Libri duodecim (Antwerp, ex officina B. Moreti, 1635), dedicated to Philip IV of Spain, was a work that was read across Europe (his work was cited, for example, by the Jesuit Philippus Brietius in the Frenchman's own Parallela Geographie). Sempill's work was essentially a compilation and many pages consist of little but a list of names of writers in various scientific genres.

Sempill also wrote Experentia Mathematice. De compositione et divisione numerum, linearum, quadratorum... (Madrid, 1642).

The crater Simpelius on the Moon is named after him. The name was originally assigned by Riccioli in 1651.

External links