ANTONIO da GAETA. - Missionary, son of Francesco Laudati, duke of Marzano. He was first a Knight of Malta and then a Capuchin (1632). After some years of fruitful apostolate in the Neapolitan region, in 1652 he went to the Congo and settled in Angola and later at Massangano. He was untiring in the exercise of his apostolic ministry and obtained numerous conversions, among them the famous one of the queen of Matamba, called Zinga, who for many years had forgotten her Christian profession, as is learned from the account of A., published by his fellow friar p. Francesco Maria Gioia da Napoli in 1669. In 1658 he governed the mission as vice-prefect, and in 1662 he was elected apostolic prefect. He died on 9 July of the same year at Loanda.
BIBL.: F. M. Gioia da Napoli, Vita e morte del servo di Dio fra' Antonio da Gaeta, in La meravigliosa conversione alla santa fede di Cristo della Regina Singa, Napoli 1669, pp. 450-465; R. da Cesinale, Storia delle Missioni dei Cappuccini, III, Roma 1873, pp. 596-623; Apollinaris a Valentia Bibliotheca Fr. Min. Cappuccinorum prov. Neapolitanae, Napoli 1886, p. 43; C. da Terzorio, Le missioni dei Minori Cappuccini, X, Roma 1938, pp. 457-90. Melchiorre da Pobladura