Born in Milan on 1 November 1874.
Died in Detwok (Sudan) on November 10, 1924.
After completing his studies in the Milanese seminaries, he entered the Institute for African Missions in Verona (Comboniani), strongly attracted by the missionary ideal. In 1899 he set out for Lull, on the banks of the White Nile, being the first to evangelize the Scilluck tribes. Having founded a first mission station there, in 1906 he went on to found a second in Tonga and, years later, a third in Detwok, where black fever seized him.
In 1910 Don Guanella welcomed Father Beduschi into the Casa Divina Provvidenza for a long time, when the latter, repatriated to recover his strength, went around Lombardy founding relief committees for African missions, fascinating everyone «with his figure withered by the torrid sun of the equator, with his meek word, simple and picturesque at the same time, quivering with passion for his distant beloved Negro children». Don Guanella encouraged and enjoyed seeing his brothers engaged in that holy work: on 1 July of that year he had Father Beduschi accompanied by Don Bacciarini, his fellow student in the Milanese seminaries, by Msgr. Peri-Morosini who urged to be more generous to Ham's sons in central Africa than he had been to his deeds. Don Bacciarini was then the soul of the collection in favor of the Comboni missions: together with Don Ramiro Lucca, then assigned to the episcopal curia, he went house to house putting together twenty-two 970 kg boxes, full of clothing and foodstuffs which were then sent to Mombasa.
Sources:
An apostle of Central Africa, in «Pro Famiglia», 1925, p. 51.
Guanellian sources:
Guanellian Letters, n. 2147.
From the heart of Africa, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1911, pp. 131-132.
Gleaning, in "The Divine Providence", 1911, p. 148.
Aloisii Guanella, Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, pp. 274 (witnesses of Monsignor Aurelio Bacciarini) and 575 (witnesses of Don Leonardo Mazzucchi).
Aurelii Bacciarini, Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, pp. 43, 91 (witness Mons. Emilio Cattori) and 445 (witness Don Nazareno Pompili).
Photographs:
«Pro Famiglia», 1925, p. 51.