CAPECELATRO, ALFONSO. – Cardinal, writer, born in Marseille on 5 February 1824; his father Francesco, Duke of Castel Pagano, had taken refuge there to avoid the reprisals of Ferdinando I, who had returned to Naples with the help of Austrian arms. In 1830 the C. family, having returned to Italy, settled in a villa at S. Paolo Belsito (Nola). At the age of sixteen C. entered the Congregation of the Oratorians in Naples. At about twenty, during a visit to Montecassino, he formed a friendship with the monk don Luigi Tosti. Ordained a priest in 1840, at the Gerolamini, near the Church of S. Filippo in Naples, he devoted himself energetically to study and religious work: Alfonso Casanova, Fr. Lodovico da Casoria, Enrico Cenni, Fr. Gaetano Bernardi, and Federico Persico often gathered at his home. In recognition of his historical and literary merits, Leo XIII appointed him first vice-librarian in 1879 and immediately afterward archbishop of Capua (1889); he then created him cardinal in 1885 and, in 1893, librarian and prefect of the Vatican Library. He died at Capua on 14 November 1912.
Because of their historical and apologetic character, their extensive references to the times, and that classical literary taste, which Carducci did not dislike, C.’s biographies are still regarded as documents of conscientious research and examples of good Italian prose. We may mention Storia di S. Caterina da Siena, Newmann, La religione cattolica in Inghilterra, S. Pier Damiani, La vita di Cristo (in refutation of Renan), La dottrina cattolica, S. Filippo Neri, P. Lodovico da Casoria, S. Alfonso. Some of his books of prayer are noteworthy: Sursum corda, L'anima con Dio, L'elevazione al Sacramento. Of his episcopal activity, there remain the Pastorali and the Discorsi, as well as numerous pamphlets, among them: L'amore della patria agli italiani, La questione sociale e il cristianesimo, Il mio augurio agli italiani del sec. XX, La povertà, Le vie nuove del Clero..., published in Milan by the L. F. Cogliati firm. Valuable information may be obtained from an examination of the Carteggio, by following the history of C.’s friendships with P. Zocchi, Fogazzaro, Montalembert, Manzoni, Tommaseo, Conti, Cardinal Mercier, and Tosti.