LUDOVICO da CASORIA, venerable. - Franciscan, b. at Casoria (Naples) on 11 March 1814, d. at Posillipo on 30 March 1885. He went to Africa to redeem black children, for whom he opened a college. The ingenious phrase is his: “Africa will convert Africa.”
In 1859 he founded the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity, called Bigi from the colour of their habit, to which he added the Suore Bigie Elisabettine. He created innumerable works, relying solely on the help of Providence. He gathered thousands of little beggars in Naples, founded a home with an agricultural school in the Deserto di Sorrento, and a home at Posillipo for old fishermen and scrofulous children.
In 1871 he opened in Assisi an Institute for the blind and deaf-mute; in Rome, a boarding school with the church of the Immacolata. In Florence he built a church dedicated to the S. Cuore, the first in Italy, together with a hospice. He also established an academy, attended by the most learned men of the time and admired even by unbelievers. In 1882, on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Poverello of Assisi, he offered a meal to five thousand poor people and erected at Naples, in Posillipo, a monument to s. Francesco with the tertiaries Dante, Giotto, and Colombo. The cause of beatification was introduced on 13 March 1907.