CAPITANIO, BARTOLOMEA, blessed. - Foundress of the Sisters of Charity, known as those of Maria Bambina, or of b. C., born at Lovere (Bergamo) on 13 Feb. 1807, died there on 26 July 1833. Entering at the age of eleven the boarding school of the Poor Clares in her native city, she felt a vocation for teaching; and, having returned to her family in 1824, she opened a school for the education of youth in her paternal home, making teaching an apostolate. Nor was her work limited to this, for, when the hospital of Lovere was inaugurated in 1826, C. devoted herself actively to it, both in the duties of director and bursar, to which she had been called, and in the care of the sick.
She conceived the grand project of a charitable institution that was to extend both into the field of education and into that of charity. Having in fact consecrated herself entirely to God, on 21 Nov. 1832, Vincenza Gerosa (v.) she began the work and opened the first house of the new Congregation, which was approved by Gregory XVI on 5 June 1840. Declared venerable by Pius IX on 8 March 1866, she was beatified by Pius XI on 30 May 1926. She will be canonized on 22 May 1950.