LONGO, BARTOLO. — Lawyer, founder of the Sanctuary of Pompeii, born at Latiano (Brindisi) on 10 February 1841, died at Pompeii on 5 October 1926. Having been shaken in his faith and brought back to it by dear friends, he abandoned a promising career to devote himself solely to works of religion and charity.
In 1885 he married the widowed Countess Marianna de Fusco, though as early as 1872 he had already promoted in Pompeii—then nearly abandoned—the teaching of catechism and devotion to the Rosary, establishing a confraternity there in 1876. On 8 May of that same year, with the offerings of the faithful, he began the construction of the temple, now of worldwide renown, around which over the years there flourished splendid works of charity and redemption: nurseries, recreation centers, workshops, schools, a printing press and workshops, an orphanage for girls, hospices for the sons and daughters of prisoners, especially for the daughters of condemned mothers. All these works later passed under the direct governance of the Holy See. He is credited with founding the congregation of the Sisters “Daughters of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii.” He collaborated in spreading the Assumptionist movement throughout the world and disseminated the devotion of the fifteen Saturdays, the novena, and the supplication, all of which he himself composed. His cause for beatification has been introduced.
He complemented his apostolate with various publications of a popular nature, including an unfinished *History of the Sanctuary* (Pompeii 1890); but more important for evaluating his pedagogical method are: *For the Moral and Civil Education of the Children of Prisoners* (ibid. 1894); *Forty Children of Prisoners* (ibid. 1895); *The Work of Pompeii and the Moral Reform of Prisoners* (ibid. 1895); *Memoirs for the Congress of Brussels* (ibid. 1899); *New Memoir* (ibid. 1899); *A Guide for the Prisoner to His Moral Rehabilitation* (ibid. 1905); *The Last Vow of My Heart* (ibid. 1925).