CAPITANO, BARTOLOMEA, Blessed. - Foundress of the Sisters of Charity, known as of Mary the Child, or of the Blessed C., born at Lovere (Bergamo) on 13 February 1807, died there on 26 July 1833. Having entered 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 home in 1824, she opened in her father’s house a school for the instruction of youth, making of her teaching an apostolate. Nor was her work limited to this, for when the hospital of Lovere was opened in 1826, C. devoted herself to it actively both in the functions of director and bursar to which she had been called, and in the care of the sick.
She conceived the grand design of a charitable institution which was to extend both into the field of education and into that of charity. Having consecrated herself entirely to God on 21 November 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 18 March 1866, she was beatified by Pius XI on 30 May 1926. She will be canonized on 22 May 1950.