Bartolomea Capitanio born in Lovere, Italy was, with Vincenza Gerosa, one of the foundresses of the Catholic religious institute the Sisters of Charity of Lovere.
Background
Bartolomea was born January 14, 1807 in Lovere, at he north end of Lake Isea in the Brescian Alps. She was the eldest daughter of a merchant, Modestus Capitanio and his second wife, Catharina Casnossi. Her father ran a business dealing in grain and also a small greengrocer’son
Career
lieutenant was enough to support the family and also to finance some charitable donations. As she grew up her father became an alcoholic and became aggressive at home. She was educated at the convent of the nuns of Saint Clare in Lovere.
In her early years, she was deeply affected by reading the life of Street Aloysius Gonzaga, whose virtues she attempted to emulate.
When she completed her studies, she opened a private school for girls, where she encouraged the devotion of the Six Sundays of Street Aloysius, approved by Pope Clement XII in 1739. The Austrian government, which controlled Lombardy at that time, issued her a teacher"s diploma upon her passing the requisite examination.
A sodality of the Blessed Virgin owes its beginning to her efforts. lieutenant was through the sodality that seventeen-year-old Bartolomea first became acquainted with Vincenza Gerosa, a fellow native of Lovere.
They created their congregation to teach the young and nurse the sick.
Bartolomea died of consumption in 1833, at the age of twenty-six. Even without support of an established order, they managed to start a home for orphaned girls, school and hospital
Bartolomea Capitanio is also the name of a school, in the state of Amapá in Brazil. The institution praises the Holy Bible and the life of the saint.