Gaspare Luigi Bertoni, CSS (9 October 1777 – 12 June 1853)[1] was an Italian Catholic priest and the founder of the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata, also known as the Stigmatines.

Bertoni later studied under the Jesuits and the Marian Congregation at Saint Sebastian's School in his hometown of Verona.

On 1 June 1796 - around the time of the French Revolution - troops from France began a two-decade occupation of the northern Italian cities.

Bertoni joined the Gospel Fraternity for Hospitals and worked to help those wounded and ill while also focusing on those who were displaced or otherwise harmed due to the effects of the occupation.

Bertoni was a rather frail and average looking man,[4] beset with fevers and a continuing infection in his right leg during the last two decades of his life.

On 15 December 1966 he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Paul VI acknowledged his life of heroic virtue.