Matias Bellintani de Salo, in the second book of “Cronicas Capuchinas” (Capuchin Chronicles), closes the portrait gallery of the key players at the beginning of the “Beautiful and Holy Reformation”, with the biography of Maria Lorenza Longo, introducing her as the “sister Clare” of those first friars.
This name has its correspondence in history. The ability to fully incorporate Francis’ spirit and faithfully unite it to her femininity, characterize the multifaceted presence of this woman who, arriving in Italy from Cataluña, follows the steps of the Poverello from Assisi in service to the sick and the contemplative life.
Lady Lorenza built and administered the Santa Maria del Popolo hospital in Naples and founded the Capuchin nuns protomonastery, which in a way is like St Damian was to St Francis and to the first Capuchin friars.
The origins of her mission
We don’t know exactly where and in what year she was born. We only know that she was born in Cataluña, “from the noble Richenza family”, probably around 1463. At home she received, together with the usual formation for young girls of her time, the faith and charity seeds which would later vigorously bloom in her middle age.
At a very young age, she married Juan Llone, whose last name she took, and which later, in Italy, became “Longo”, under the influence of the Italian name. She gave birth to two sons and a daughter; about this daughter we know that her name was Esperanza and that she was married to a man named Gerardo de Omes.
It’s very probable that Maria Longo moved from Spain to Italy in 1506 with her husband, whom, in arriving in Naples, was named regent of the Royal Chancellery by Fernando of Aragon.
Her biographers give testimony to Maria Lorenza’s domestic virtues and to the fact that she was afflicted by an incurable illness – a horrible paralysis – caused by poison administered by a servant whom she had chastised because of her loose morals. Bellatini sees, without any doubt, “God’s hand to use her for works in His honor and for others’ benefit.”
It was, in fact, her miraculous cure that brought about a decisive change in her life. It has been sufficiently documented, mentioned by recognized writers, citing direct testimonies from identifiable contemporaries.
It’s around 1510-1511. Maria Longo, already a widow, goes with her son-in-law to Loreto to pray for the grace to be cured of her illness. Arriving at the holy house, a priest, according to her wishes, celebrates the mass of the Friday after Pentecost, in which is read the story of the paralytic cured by The Lord. Jesus’ words, read from the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke, acquire for her an actual meaning: at that same moment she feels an extraordinary energy traveling through her limbs and she is completely cured.
Bellantini points out it was fitting that from the Queen of the virgins should start the reform of the sacred virgins, and above all those belonging to St Clare, who in front of the altar of the Blessed Virgin, cutting her hair off, consecrated her virginity to God.
The miraculous intervention of Our Lady of Loreto inspired Maria Longo to consecrate her life in God’s service to the sick. She took the habits of the Franciscans as a specific commitment to follow in the steps of the Poverello of Assisi, who started his evangelic life serving the lepers.
BETWEEN THE RAYS OF DIVINE LOVE
During this time the “Divine Love” movement was spreading in Italy, and everywhere it would push to religious fervor and charity works. It had started in Vicenza during the lent missions in 1494 by blessed Bernardino de Feltre, and had reached Genoa, where St Catalina de Fieschi, third order Franciscan, had imbued into it the strong influence of her contemplative spirit and heroic dedication to serving the sick. His biographer and disciple, Hector Vernazza, had taken him to Rome, and later on to Naples, leading him to promote the establishment of hospitals for the “incurable” ill, as back then those sick with syphilis were judged, an illness that caused horrible losses because of the behavior of soldiers in the peninsula.
In Naples, Vernazza found in the “Company of the Whites of Saint Mary Succor of the miserable”,
established by s. Jaime de las Marcas, the right environment for his initiative and in Maria Lorenza Longo the right person to carry it on. His daughter, Batistina Vernazza, writes: “My father went to see her and told her: Lady, you are the person that God has chosen to head our hospital…”.
She resisted this proposal, not because of the work of serving the sick, since she was used to it and found it pleasant, but because of the position of director that the Genovese was offering which was a rare occurrence to be offered to a woman in those times, if not unique. Bellintani interprets
in this way her resistance: “These brothers (the Whites), who ordinarily are the most prominent gentlemen in Naples, petitioned by Mrs Lunga, worked very hard to benefit such hospital, and dressed in white would come every Saturday to provide what was needed, being food, or any other need. That’s why it seemed to her that she could avoid this burden, since there were others who could take it. Her decision displeased a Genovese by the name of Hector Vernazza who had been the principal force for the foundation of that pious place.”
The first residence of the incurables was S. Nicola al Molo hospital. A manuscript from that time informs: “On November 27, 1519 the building of this hospital in the city of Naples was started, precisely where the church of S. Nicolas al Molo used to be, across from the Castillo Nuevo, until another location could be found.”
Maria Longo and Vernazza worked together at S. Nicolas al Molo until the fall of 1519; Vernazza’s daughter recalls: “She (Maria Longo) and my father would visit the Naples residences asking for mattresses for the beds of the sick. This lady stayed in the hospital and would run and govern it, while at the same time would take on pious work such as helping poor girls, arranging marriages for them and other similar works.”
Maria Longo had accepted to run the hospital. Vernazza could leave Naples, confident that his initiative, in capable hands, would prosper; a statement by a notary public dated December 4, 1519 confirms that the Genovese had returned to Rome.
IN THE HOSPITAL OF SANTA MARIA DEL PUEBLO
Because of the increase of requests to be interned at the hospital and the lack of space in S. Nicolas al Molo, it was decided to search for another place where a brand new hospital that would meet the growing needs of the people could be built. Some houses and land were bought on the hill of San Agnello on February 10th, 1520; on the sale document created by Notary Juan Palomba, the name of Maria Longo heads a large group of the Company of Whites. The construction on that site started, and in two years the Hospital of Santa Maria del Puerblo was inaugurated. A witness tells us that “on the 23rd day of March, 1522, a Sunday, those afflicted by the incurable illness moved in solemn procession to the Santa Maria del Pueblo new hospital, as the Catalan woman Maria Longo, a widow, had ordered. The hospital and the chapel, begun in 1520, were finished in 1522, and this woman moved to live in it.”
A manuscript from this time depicts her life in the hospital as the example of daily family life, where Mrs Longo performs the motherly duties. When the White moved into the new accommodations, they built a stairway to Mrs. Longo’s rooms, which she used to go serve the brothers when they had to go or came back from “Justice”, and she would have their clothes and shoes washed and sawn.
Bellintani describes Maria Longo’s hospital activities: “As the head of the hospital she always showed charity towards the sick, was prudent and diligent in running it, and would practice Christian virtues such as humility, fasting and prayer. She despised herself and took care of the sick as a servant, especially those most afflicted, taking care of them personally, and exhorting and consoling all of them. She was so diligent and effective that the poor afflicted felt comforted and consoled and would share, even after her death, that she would visit them to comfort and console them, and they felt that her visit had been real.” (A wonderful testimony of the suffering who remember it as a real occurrence and feel the benefit of the motherly visit, the sweet and loving presence of Maria Longo, even after her death.)
“Mrs Longo –the chronicler Passero notes – governed that hospital herself, and has always served it and still serves it continuously, without rest, through alms and her own wealth. Hard to believe for those who have not eyewitnessed the service that this woman has performed.”
Her biographers do not tire of admiringly telling moving episodes of the loving assistance of Maria Lorenza. Among others, they bring to mind the custom, started by her, of having the De Profundis prayed for the dead an hour after the afternoon Angelus, a custom that spread in Naples and other cities and catholic countries which Gragory the XIII would later indulgenced.
Toward Contemplative Life
In September 1529 Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, lieutenant General of the viceroy, prince of Orange, allowed the capuchins to introduce their reform in Naples. A few months later the first friars arrived headed by Ludovico of Fosombrone, and went in search of support, to Santa Maria del Pueblo, where they were welcomed by the foundress and governor, Maria Lorenza Longo.
“She was the first – according to Bellintani – to welcome the capuchins in Naples and used her influence to secure san Efrem for them. But, in the meanwhile, she allowed them to stay in the hospital of the incurables. And later, when they had some tribulations, she helped them with Charles V, who, because he knew about the sanctity and qualities of this woman, had her in great esteem and listened to her words. She did the same with Paul III. Reasons why they accepted to take care of the nuns’ monastery that she built.”
This information is precious, even though very brief, and it makes us wish we had more particular data to get to understand exactly the role played by Maria Longo in the stormy beginnings of the capuchin reformation. However, based on what we know, we can deduct that she justifiably may be placed alongside Catalina Cibo y Victoria Colonna in defending and protecting our first friars.
It was in 1530 when the capuchins arrived in Naples and Maria Lorenza, hosted them in the hospital and later procured for them the convent of san Efren Antiguo, had the opportunity of getting to know them closely, listen to them, and enter their spiritual orbit. That same year, sor Maria Carafa, sister of Giampietro, cofounder of the teatinos, started the reform of the Dominican sisters in the monastery of the Sabiduria in Naples, which had been abandoned by the Poor Clares.
These two occurences were pivotal to a soul as open to divine calling as Maria Lorenza’s. She decided then to consecrate the rest of her life to the founding of a Poor Clare monastery that could achieve, in the feminine Franciscan branch, a reformation parallel to that of the capuchins. The difficulties must have been many, since it took years to overcome. Just think about the inextricable confusion in which the capuchins were immersed.
Three years later, Providence sent St. Cayetano Thiene to Naples. When the teatinos arrived at the end of August 1533, Thiene and Marimoni went straight to Maria Longo. Carata had written to his Dominican sister asking to recommend them to “Madama Longa’s” hospitality, of whom he later gave this eloquent testimony: “From the beginning we placed them in Y.S’s hands, without considering anybody else, friend or relation…and I have proof that my faith was not in vain, because Y.S. did not receive those brothers as men sent by men, but as holy angels sent by God’s Majesty, and have treated them with great charity, which goes beyond our thankfulness and opinion.”
Maria Longo considered the teatinos fathers as God sent, and managed to keep them in Naples. Therefore, when they decided to return to Venice six months later, to keep a fundamental rule of the Instituto, she did not allow them to leave. She knew very well how important poverty is to religious life, so she hosted them in the hospital when they abandoned their first residence in Naples, so that they wouldn’t be forced to accept money from the Count of Oppido.
From march to july 1534 the teatinos stayed at st Maria del Pueblo, from where they moved to nearby houses procured for them by Maria Lorenza. Santa Maria de la Stalleta, the third residence of the teatinos, poor, simple, allowing free pastoral action in the center of town, dissuaded Carata of forcing them to return to Venice. St Cayetano erected the sofiada church, his favorite place for his priestly ministry.
From the very beginning, st Cayetano had assumed Maria Longo’s spiritual direction, whom his order had received as an “honorable sister and mother in Christ.” Those two souls, both disposed to contemplation and service to their fellow man, understood each other completely. Maria Lorenzo shared her long cherished project with this saintly director: to end her days founding a cloistered convent. St Cayetano must have told her that he thought this project had been divinely inspired and that she could go ahead.
But precisely at this time, the hospital was going through a critical moment: because of its rapid growth, favored by the ample spaces, the hundreds of sick people mixed not only with those willing to help them, but also those who took advantage, agitators of all kinds, among whom were found vagabond clerics and religious. The moral reputation of the foundress managed to overcome these inconvenients. What would have happened if she had gone away? Shouldn’t she continue the daily struggle?
Her friend, Maria Ajerbo, duchess of Termoli, ardently desired to follow her in her cloistered life, also abandoning the hospital. The problem was complex and st Cayetano, in his prudent humility, decided to present it to the expert Giampietro Carata.
On a letter dated January 18, 1534, arrived the firm and decisive answer: “I agree with you that these two religious women should elevate themselves from the care of those poor sick people to better and more perfect endeavors; and just like they welcomed Christ on His poor destitute, the same way they should welcome Him in person. Listen to Him who talks about human pride and fraudulent search: foxes have dens, birds have the sky, their nests, but the Son of Man doesn’t have where to recline His head. Would the Lord Jesus be able to recline His head where you harbor glutton vagabonds, impious deserters of the sacred religion, perverted apostates? Is it possible for a hospice that welcomes such despicable people to welcome Christ? Therefore, you will tell those devoted sisters, my dearest brother: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Let the dead bury their dead. They should better abandon themselves to the wise designs of Our Saviour and Lord, listen to His wholesome inspirations, follow his footsteps and imitate Him.”
Carafa reacted with his usual impulsivity, exasperated by the negative aspects of the hospital environment. But what he was arguing to convince became the Christ centered logic justification. The matter was not to abandon a corrupted environment, but to go ahead to welcome Christ in the poor, to welcome Him in person, giving the opportunity to find in the circle of generous souls the intimate rest of the house in Betania. From this perspective the project of the proto-monastery of the capuchin poor clares was born and became a reality.
In the meanwhile, after a thorough review of the serious demands of the hospital situation, they made the decision that while Maria Lorenza could go on to the cloistered life, Maria Ajerbo would remain as hospital administrator, agreeing to found a religious house for loose women who decided to convert.
Even in this delicate endeavor was Maria Longo inspiring and exemplary. Bellintani recounts: “She frequently went to the places where the prostitutes gathered, trying to convince them, through all kinds of exhortations, reasons and gifts, to stop sinning, and when she didn’t obtain a complete outcome, would knee before them, would beg them to abstain from sinning at least on Fridays and Saturdays, and would pay them so that their need or avarice would not entice them to sin. And those she managed to convince, she would attempt to marry them off or would employ at the hospital.
Following in the footsteps of her saintly friend and teacher, Maria Ajerbo developed this mission with the help of capuchins and teatinos, remodeled some business premises close to the hospital, added to them, and built a monastery. On December 17, 1538, the penitentiary Cardinal Antonio Pucci, granted the canonical decree. The eminent moral presence of the Duchess of Termoli imparted such outstanding spirituality to the project that she soon deserved the respect and esteem of public opinion. That monastery, from a house for repented women, grew into an authentic center of religious life, which adopted the third Franciscan order, and at the end of the XVI century manifested its vitality by originating a second more austere monastery.
Maria Ajerbo remained there as administrator and mother until the end. She would have preferred to follow her saintly friend in the cloister, but with admirable abnegation accepted to continue her mission in the world among the incurables and converted women. She accepted to be separated in life, and the Lord wanted to reward her with a marvelous example of how pleased He was with this sacrifice and friendship. After death, and wanting to place her body by Maria Longos’, “she – records Bellantini of the eyewitness of nine people – miraculously raised her arm towards the Duchess, embraced her, and remained like that, since death should not separate those who had loved each other so much in life.”
Foundation of the Capuchins
At the end of July 1534, the teatinos moved from the hospital for the incurables to st Maria de la Stalleta. In those vacated premises, Maria Longo began to house those who wanted to follow her in the contemplative life. At the beginning of 1535 she asked the Holy See permission to found a monastery under the name of Our Lady of Jerusalem, referring to a pilgrimage that she would have wanted to go on to the Holy Land and which she had to renounce to. On February 19 of the same year, Pope Paul III with the bull Debitum Pastoralis Officii authorized the construction of the monastery naming her lifetime Abbess and foundress, founding a religious community of the “Third Order Franciscan according to the rule of Saint Clare.”
Only five months later, on July 19, 1535, the Papal Bull was made known to the metropolitan curia of Naples by the executors designed by a papal rescript: the Bishop of Caserta, the Abad of San Severino and the prior of San Martin. On July 20 of that same year, a notarial certificate names Maria Longo “director of the hospital of the incurables” and documents that she had recently founded the monastery of Santa Maria de Jerusalem.
On August 21, 1535, a letter from Cardinal Andres Mateo Palmieri authorized Mrs Maria Lorenza Longo, through a benign Papal concession, to take the habit of the “Third Order of St. Francis according to the rule of St Clare” from any priest. Keeping in mind her advanced age – she was older than seventy – and her health, she could wear the red partial skirt or completely, according to her confessor’s advice, and recite “the solemn profession of the three vows without the novitiate.”
A second letter from Cardinal Palmieri on November 22, 1535, calls the Senora Longa “Sor Maria” for the first time, and announces to her that the Pope will allow her and her religious sisters to live in a provisional monastery until the permanent one is finished.
In the meanwhile, petitions for admission kept coming. Religious from other monasteries and aspirants from the world, were anxiously soliciting to enter the new community. Even the well-known Marquesa de Pescara, Victoria Colonna almost takes the veil. The rising monastery was flourishing under the guidance of its foundress. It was necessary to ask the Holy See for more concessions.
On April 30, 1536, a Brief from Paul III authorized Maria Longo to relocate the monastery to larger premises, and allowed her to increase the number of religious from twelve to thirty three. But they must have faced some obstacles because on the following July 20th another papal rescript confirmed the preceding concessions and gave some new ones.
A powerful protector in Rome was Cardinal Andres Mateo Palmieri, who describing himself as a “most obedient son and brother” wrote to Maria Longo: “my greatest pleasure in this world is serving you.” A friend of the capuchins and of Victoria Colonna, and one of the few close friends of Paul III, he mediated ample papal concessions for Maria Longo’s monastery, and he was very familiar with her exceptional merits and exemplary virtues.
From 1535 to 1538 st Cayetano Thiene, a sincerely Franciscan soul, was the spiritual director of the foundress, and contributed in a decisive way to an authentic reform of religious life in the rising monastery. But in May 1538, when the teatina community relocated from Santa Maria de la Stalletta ti the big parochial church of st Paul Mayor, the saint felt he needed to abandon that activity citing a rule from his ministry.
Maria Longo then relocated the monastery to st Maria de la Stalleta and asked the Pope to put the new monastery under the guidance of the Capuchins On December 10, 1538, Paulo III, with the Motu Propio Cum monasterium, asked them, by holy obedience, to take the spiritual care of the new monastery. This important papal document marks the official date of the beginnings of the capuchins poor clares.
The Bull of foundation from 1535 and the Brief of 1536 talk about a monastery of the “Third Order of St Francis following the rule of St Clare” while the Motu Propio of 1538 states this specific denomination of the “Order of St Clare”, and notes, together with the capuchin influence, that the nuns follow “the strictest observance of the rule of St Clare.”
The change was not only on the wording, but also in the acts; the monastery effectively went from the third to the second Franciscan order, and was no longer given, as it was in the foundation Bull, the capacity of ownership of property, movable or immovable, which was incompatible with the strict observance of the rule of St Clare. It was also necessary, after examining the first papal concessions to the monastery, to solicit an integrative convalidation, since they had been given to a monastery of the third order. A Papal brief, noting the judicial defect, affirmed that the nuns were living under the rule of St Clare and not of the third Franciscan order, from the moment the monastery had been relocated, which coincided precisely with the time when the capuchins had substituted the teatinos as spiritual fathers.
No new constitution was written, instead Santa Coleta’s was adopted, since in the XVI century it still represented the most rigid interpretation of the rule of St Clare. Some observances were added adapted from the capuchins, who with the primitive ideal of the seraphic reform gave those sisters the name of capuchinas.
The reputation of austerity which surrounded the monastery from its very beginnings helped to spread in the church the new religious family. In 1553 Perusa founded a monastery based n the same model which the Pope commissioned to the capuchins. Gubio and Brescia followed the example; St Charles Borromeo founded two in Milan; in 1576 Gregory XIII summoned to Rome four nuns from the Naples proto-monastery to bring their institution and placed the new monastery under the direction of the capuchins which he recognized as the “principal and model of piety established in Rome for the glory of God.”
A century later, there were 89 capuchin monasteries in Italy, with more than 2500 nuns, and from the beginning of the XVII century there were large numbers of them in France and Spain. Oases of contemplative life, cloisters usually buried in the heart of populous cities, irradiated on the world God’s light emanated from prayer and solitude.
Silent Sunset
In the quiet of her monastery, the foundress of the hospital of the incurables spent her last years, completely dedicated to prayer and the formation of her sisters. Bellintani writes: “Secluded in the monastery she dedicated herself completely to prayer and mental exercises, since her illness prevented her from manual labor. She would train her daughters according to the rule of st Francis and st Clare, guided by the capuchins who confessed and guided them.“ Very well known in Naples, Maria Longo attracted to the monastery a multitude of sould hungry for her counsel and comfort. She was visited by the poor beneficiaries of past times and the great of the world who had collaborated with her. Her words were the echo of a heart full of God’s tenderness. She was visited by her friend Maria Ajerbo, who had obtained a Papal rescript to come and go and some times spend a short time in the monastery. St Cajetan also visited the monastery, “because she could talk highly about divine things, and would give admirable and profound meaning to the Holy Scriptures, so much that he would be astonished and consoled, saying that he had been more enlightened by her than by reading the books.”
Her first concern was to form her community in an authentic Franciscan spirit. The experience of a long life spent in the observanc4e of every virtue, would form in her lips the wisest teachings, and the halo that already circled her forehead confirmed it very effectively. The Lord frequently validated her mission of mother and teacher with unique charisms, as her biographers state.
In August 1542 she experienced and extraordinary ecstasy. The nuns who surrounded her, together with Maria Ajerbo, thinking she was about to die, tried to forcefully move her. She, conscious again, smiling cautioned them, and without revealing anything about her indescribable mystic experience, made them understand that she had learned that her time was near. She put the monastery business in order, appointed, according to the faculties given to her by the pope, the abbess and the other officials and dedicated herself completely to prepare for the awaited transit.
The exact date of her death is not known. It was probably at the end of 1542, we can deduct she died around that time from a letter written by her nuns to cardinal Carpi, in April 1543. Two days before her death, she gathered her nuns and gave them the last recommendations; “…exhorting them to observe the rule and the virtues, but especially peace, using the words that Jesus told His disciples: I give you my peace, I leave you peace.” And embracing them all, one by one, she entrusted to them specially the older ones, and begged the abbess to take care of them, helping in the observance, being compassionate to them and making sure they lacked nothing, not even a corporal need.
In the austere environment that Maria Longo had created, she left in her death her maternal understanding as a lasting memory.
Her last days were disturbed by the perspective of impending great harm to the capuchins and Naples. To this city, which had consumed her best energies, were foreshadowed terrible turmoil, which in fact were verified later because of the Inquisition, while, at this same time, Occhino’s apostasy dangled like a Damocles’ sword over the capuchins; she must have shared the indescribable consternation of those friars, to whom she had been “sister Clare”.
Did she offer the supreme sacrifice of her life for those who had been closer to her heart? We can believe so, as the moving recognition from Bernardino de Colpetrazzo brings to mind the sacrifices, prayers, tears and penitence of the Naples capuchinas during that sad time.
Bellintani has left us a detailed recollection of her last moments: “About to expire, turning to her sisters, she told them ‘Sisters, do you think I have done many good deeds? I have no trust in myself, only in The Lord. A showing them the tip of her little finger, said: this little bit of faith has saved me. She said this full of joy and a beautiful expression in her face; she always had the crucifix in her hand; after she finished saying this, she kissed the crucifix and said Jesus three times, and she expired.”
After her death, around her body, there were great show of love and esteem, graces and prodigies were registered and her sanctity started to get known. However, in a few decades the memory of this exceptional creature was forgotten.
An authentic daughter of the catholic Spain, foundress and director of the great hospital of the Incurables, reference point of any reform arrived or initiated in Naples during the first decades of the XIV century, mystic endowed with charisms and mother of souls, foundress of one of the most flourishing families of Poor Clares, after an activity of Mediterranean resonance, in the sunset of life she eclipses herself in a cloistered monastery, among her humble cloistered sisters, and at death, shares the common grave that will in no time will lose her mortal remains.
Bellintani narrated that when they wanted to place the body of her friend Maria Ajerbo by the body of Maria Longo, it, exhumed, exuded a marvelous violet fragrance. Six months later, when her burial place was moved to another location, the venerable’s head was identified and separated, it exuded a violet fragrance, and after almost fifty years, when her biographer was writing, he affirmed that “she still exuded a violet fragrance “.
Was this an omen, maybe, a sweet sign of the silence with which history would cover the splendid figure of the foundress of the Capuchins? It looks like it, since we had to wait until 1880 for the ordinary process of information about her reputation of sanctity, and until 1892 for her beatification cause to be introduced by Leon XIII, while the apostolic processes about her virtues took place in Naples in the years 1893-1904.
BIBLIOGRAFY
Matthias [Bellintan] a Sale, Historia capuccina II, ed. a Melchiore a
Pobladura (Monument a historica Ordinis minorum capuccinorum, Vi) Ro-
ma, 1950, 255-272.
Neapolitana. Beatijicationis et canonizationis servae Dei Mariae Lau-
rentiae Longo ... Positio super introductione causae, Roma 1982.
Los procesos ordinarios y apost6licos, como tambien los relacionados
con Super introductione causae y super virtutibus, estan en Roma, en el
Archivo de la postulaci6n general de los capuchinos.
Lexicon Capuccinum, Romae, 1951, col 1049.
Francesco Saverio [Toppi] da Brusciano, Marfa Lorenza Longo e l’opera
del Divino Amore a Napoli, Romae 1954. Es un extracto de la tesis docto-
ral aun manuscrita; fue publicada en Collectanea Franciscana 23 (1953)