In October 1872, Bartolo Longo, an advocate from Latiano, Italy, went to Pompeii to deal with the administration of land belonging to Countess Mariana De Fusco. In those day, the Pompeii valley was a miserable place overrun with brigands and infested with disease.

Bartolo Longo stove for the social and spiritual uplifting of the people there, and the Rosary was his basic tool. In this fight against poverty, social discrimination and crime, the Rosary was his banner and instrument of spiritual strength.

On 13 November 1875, Sister Concetta Delitala made Bartolo Longo the gift of an image of the Madonna of the Rosary. The Advocate made this his symbol, and on 3 May 1876 he laid the first stone of a new church dedicated to the "Blessed Virgin of the Rosary", where the venerated image was to be kept.

Around the church, which soon attracted mass pilgrimages by country folk, social works were begun for the care of young girls, orphaned and abandoned children, and the children of prisoners.

Bartolo Longo was beatified 25 October 1980. "Charity and faith as the foundation of Peace" are the principles of his thinking. St. Bartotlo Longo's Day is 8 May.