APOLLONI, GIBOLAMO

APOLLONI, GIBOLAMO. - Josephite missionary, b. at Carrè (Vicenza) in 1865, d. 20 Nov. 1932 at Rome. Among the best disciples of the theologian Murialdo, founder of the Pia Società di S. Giuseppe (Giuseppini), he was an educator of young people at Turin, Venice, and Vicenza, and in 1904 went to Benghazi under the auspices of the Associazione Missionari Italiani to establish a mission for the black children who were victims of the slave trade. The mission, located in the oasis of Fuchiat, received more than fifty boys and twenty girls, and built schools, workshops, and gymnasiums. The consuls, especially the Italian one, cooperated with A. so that, pursuant to international conventions, the Turkish government might issue them a certificate of freedom for slaves who had managed to escape. A. also founded an outpatient clinic-dispensary, a pawnshop, and a sharecropping agricultural enterprise. Having returned to Italy (1911), until 1921 he directed in Rome the parish of the Immacolata al Tiburtino. He was superior of the Pia Società, and then again parish priest of the same church until his death.