GARGIULO, BONAVENTURA DA SORRENTO. — Bishop of S. Severo (Apulia), Capuchin writer of the province of Naples, b. at S. Agnello di Sorrento on 26 March 1843, entered the novitiate at Nocera on 28 June 1839, missionary in England (Nov. 1867–Aug. 1870), preacher, lecturer, and provincial definitor, appointed bishop on 23 January 1895, d. at S. Agnello on 9 May 1904.
Tireless in his ministerial works and initiatives, he was a versatile disseminator of the ecclesiastical sciences through articles, pamphlets, and books. He founded the Andrea Festa printing press at S. Agnello, later transferred to Naples. Among his monographs, those on local history are noteworthy (Sorrento, S. Agnello 1877; Vita di s. Agnello, Naples 1903; Apulia sacra, 2 vols., ibid. 1900–1904), as are those on Franciscan history (S. Francesco negli Abruzzi, ibid. 1885; S. Francesco nella Custodia di Napoli, Naples–Sorrento 1894) and Capuchin history (I Cappuccini nella provincia di Napoli, S. Agnello 1879; Il proto-convento di S. Efrem Vecchio, Naples 1889; S. Lorenzo da Brindisi al cospetto di Napoli, S. Agnello 1881). He founded and directed the widely circulated bimonthly journal L'eco di s. Francesco (32 vols., 1873–1904). Among his writings of theological exposition, Michoel (2nd ed., Naples–Sorrento 1892), on S. Michael the Archangel, and La corporea Assunzione di Maria al cielo: tradizione e scuola francescana (Naples 1902) deserve mention. Through the periodical Il III centenario di Torquato Tasso (1894–95), he defended Tasso’s orthodoxy and Thomism.
BIBL. F. Sorrentino, Mons. B. G., in L'eco di s. Francesco, 32 (1901), pp. 229–38 (with a catalogue of the works); A. Zawert, The history of franciscan preaching and of franciscan preachers (1909–1927), New York 1928, p. 266; Beniamino da Sarno, Mons. B. G., in L'Italia francescana, 8 (1931), pp. 300–307.
Ilarino da Milano