Born in Milan on December 18, 1838.
Died in Intra (Varese) on 25 July 1921.
Ordained a priest on May 26, 1861, he was appointed coadjutor in the parish of Rosate, after eight years he was sent to Lecco where he remained for a short time. From the autumn of 1870 he was numbered among the coadjutors of the cathedral of Milan, where he distinguished himself for his intense apostolate among the poor. On February 17, 1884, he entered as parish priest of Cesano Boscone. On 1 June 1896 he founded the Casa Sacra Famiglia, a hospice for the incurable in the Milanese countryside, where he gathered a small group of blind, old, stupid, crippled and mutilated people and wanted it as "a miniature copy of the Cottolengo of Turin". From 1919 he was replaced in the direction by Don Luigi Moneta.
Don Silvio Vannoni recalls that Msgr. Domenico Pogliani was among the founders of institutes that had recourse to don Guanella for advice and were encouraged in their works and provided with money and comfort.
Sources:
PIERO RAMPI, ad vocem, in Dictionary of the Ambrosian Church, edited by Angelo Majo, vol. V, Milan, NED, 1992, pp. 2898-2899.
ANTONIO AUTERI, The Holy Family Hospice: from its foundation to the arrival of Moneta, in Luigi Moneta. An Ambrosian priest for a miracle of charity, edited by Edoardo Bressan, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 1996, pp. 103-132.
Guanellian sources:
SACRA RITUUM CONGREGATIONE, Comen. seu Mediolanen. Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Aloysii Guanella [...]. Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, Romae, Typis Guerra et Belli, 1950, pp. 384-385 (witness Don Silvio Vannoni), the surname appears erroneously transcribed as «Pagliani».
Photographs:
Holy Family Hospice of Cesano Boscone - Milan on the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation 1896-1946, [p. 5].