DEL BUFA LO, GASPAR, Blessed. - Apostle of devotion to the Most Precious Blood, born in Rome on 6 January 1786 into a noble but impoverished family, died there on 28 December 1837. Assistant canon of the basilica of St Mark from 24 November 1807, ordained priest on 31 July 1808, he devoted himself with remarkable zeal to the apostolate. When Rome was invaded by French troops in 1808, he refused—though twice requested—to take the oath of allegiance to Bonaparte (1810), and was exiled and then imprisoned in Piacenza, Bologna, and finally in Corsica in 1813.
As soon as he was freed on 26 January 1814, he returned to Rome and, after resigning his canonry at St Mark’s, concentrated all his energy on founding an ecclesiastical congregation dedicated to preaching missions and spiritual exercises. Overcoming opposition and struggles, strongly supported by Pius VII, he opened the first house of the Institute of the Most Precious Blood at Giano in Umbria on 15 August 1815. He then traveled with his spiritual sons throughout nearly all of Italy, contributing greatly to the reform of the people and the clergy. The Blessed also took special care of the hospice of St Galla in Rome and gave valuable assistance to the Venerable Maria De Matthias in founding the Adorers of the Most Precious Blood. His beatification, decreed by Pius X on 24 June 1904, was solemnly proclaimed on 18 December of the same year.