ALBERA, PAOLO. - Salesian and second successor of St. John Bosco, b. at None on 6 June 1845, d. at Turin on 30 Oct. 1921. He was among the “very first” to take the name of the Pious Society of Salesians. After several years of teaching at the college of Mirabello, he was ordained priest in 1871 and was immediately sent to open a new house in Genoa; and that institute, within a year, grew so much that it had to move to larger premises at Sampierdarena. His piety, prudence, and religious spirit marked him out in 1881 for the office of inspector of the Salesian houses in France, and then, at the death of Don Bosco, for that of general spiritual director, which he held for 18 years. Thus he was able to visit almost all the houses in Europe, Africa, and America, bringing and strengthening that interior spirit and that dynamic zeal which he had learned from the founder. At the death of Don M. Rua (1910) he was named Rector Major. The high office further revealed his greatness of soul and his untiring enterprise. The Pious Society of Salesians and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians greatly increased in numbers; houses multiplied even in the missions; the institute strengthened its organization. The times did not spare him toil, but he gained the expansion of his charity. Hence came his initiatives for war orphans (1916), for the children of Italians expelled from Turkey (1912), and for the poor children of Central Europe, victims of the earthquake. The most consoling event for him was to see himself surrounded, not long before his death, by a host of young people from almost all the nations of America and Europe, gathered in Turin to prepare for their future mission as apostles, thus realizing the dearest design of the Rector Major.
Celestino Testore ALBEREGNO, Jacobello. - Venetian painter, d. in 1397. Of him we have only one work, a triptych in the Accademia in Venice, representing the Crucifixion with the Madonna and saints. The technique is Giottesque: the figures, upright and very elongated, in execution and proportions relate to Antonio Veneziano.