ASPERTI, SAMUELE. - Jesuit spiritual director, b. at Gorlago (Bergamo) in 1818, d. at Mantova on 20 June 1896.
Ordained priest at Bergamo, he was for several years a missionary in England, then attached to the curia of Bergamo.
Having entered (1857) the Society of Jesus, he served as spiritual director in the colleges of Padova, Bressanone, Cremona, and in the seminary of Brescia. When the seminary for the missions of central Africa, established at Verona by Mons. Comboni in 1866, was transformed into a missionary religious Congregation (1885), Fr. A. played a predominant part in the constitution and formation of the new institute: spiritual director and first master of novices from 1885 to 1892, he shaped its spirit and wrote its rules, giving its members the name “Sons of the Sacred Heart.” In 1892 he became its superior, but withdrew the following year because of illness.