CAPECELATRO, ALFONSO. - Cardinal, writer, b. at Marseilles on 5 Feb. 1824; his father Francesco, Duke of Castel Pagano, had taken refuge there to escape the reprisals of Ferdinand I, who had returned to Naples with the aid of Austrian arms. In 1830 the C. family returned to Italy and settled in a villa at S. Paolo Belsito (Nola). At the age of sixteen C. entered the Congregation of the Oratorians in Naples. In his twentieth year, during a visit to Monte Cassino, he formed a friendship with the monk Don Luigi Tosti. Ordained priest in 1840 at the Girolamini near the Church of S. Filippo in Naples, he devoted himself to study and religious work: among those who met at his house were Alfonso Casanova, Fr. Lodovico da Casoria, Enrico Cenni, Fr. Gaetano Bernardi, and Federico Persico. In recognition of his historical and literary merits, Leo XIII in 1879 first appointed him vice-librarian and soon after Archbishop of Capua (1889); he made him a cardinal in 1885 and in 1893 librarian and prefect of the Vatican Library. He died at Capua on 14 Nov. 1912.
Because of their historical and apologetic character, with ample reference to the times and that classical literary taste which Carducci did not disdain, C.’s biographies are still regarded as documents of conscientious research and texts of good Italian. We may mention his *Storia di S. Caterina da Siena*, *Newman*, *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*. Notable also are some of his prayer books: *Sursum corda*, *L’anima con Dio*, *L’elevazione al Sacramento*. Of his episcopal activity there remain his pastoral letters and discourses, and numerous pamphlets, among which: *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 firm L. F. Cogliati. Valuable information may be gleaned from an examination of his correspondence, which reveals the history of C.’s friendships with P. Zocchi, Fogazzaro, Montalembert, Manzoni, Tommaseo, Conti, with Cardinal Mercier and with Tosti.