GRENADA - GRENADINES, 2000, 4th centenary of Sir Anthony Van Dyke,
Scott 2173
Van Dyke's painting of Fr. della Faille is the bottom center stamp and the
selvage of the souvenir sheet.
Jean Charles (Jan-Karel, Juan Carlos, Johannes Carolus) della Faille (de la Faille) was born to a wealthy family in Antwerp where he attended the Jesuit school. He joined the Order at Malines (Mechelen) in 1613, studied mathematics and went to Dole in France for his theology. He taught mathematics there, at Louvain, Malines and Lier. In 1629 he was appointed to the Jesuits' Imperial College in Madrid, and besides his normal course taught mathematics, defense and military engineering to the nobility. From 1637 on he served Philip IV as an advisor on military construction. In 1644 Philip IV appointed him as tutor to his son, Don Juan of Austria (1629-1679), with whom he made military expeditions to Naples, Sicily and Catalonia. He met his death while on one of these expeditions.
Della Faille made a great contribution toward producing calculus by being the first to determine the center of gravity of a sector of a circle in a 1632 work, Theoremata de centro gravitatis partium circuli et ellipsis. The well-known 1629 portrait of him by Sir Anthony Van Dyck is in Brussels' Museum of Fine Arts.