The son of Annunziata and Antonio del Bufalo, he grew up in the city of Rome, in the servants' quarters of a noble family, where his father worked as chef.

[1] His father was a failed entrepreneur who had dabbled in the theater and in professional soccer[2] before taking a position as a cook in the household of the Altieri family, whose palace was across from the Church of the Gesù in Rome.

As he was suffering from an incurable malady of the eyes, which threatened to leave him blind, prayers were offered to Francis Xavier for his recovery.

He visited the sick and the poor often and founded a young persons’ religious organization whose members prayed and did charitable work together.

Along with other clergy who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809 after the deportation of Pope Pius VII, he was sent into exile to northern Italy and imprisoned for four years.

[1] Despite facing considerable difficulties, in 1815 he founded a society of priests, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, at the abbey of San Felice in Giano, Umbria.

Cardinal Cristaldi, papal treasurer and advisor to Pope Pius VII, suggested that Gaspar and his new band of missionaries go into the towns and provinces where the bandits lived and establish mission houses.

His activity in converting the "briganti", who came in crowds and laid their guns at his feet after he had preached to them in their mountain hiding-places, excited the ire of the officials who profited from brigandage through bribes and in other ways.

Gaspar was accused of disregarding canon law and the mission cross and chain that the members wore was completely untraditional.

He was well known for his eloquence in preaching, his devotion to the poor (especially the Santa Galla Hospice in Rome), and his work with the brigands of southern Lazio.

Later, his body was transferred to the house of the Missionaries on the Via dei Crociferi in Rome (Santa Maria in Trivio), where it remains today.

The titles accorded to him by his contemporaries:"II Santo", "Apostle of Rome", "Il martello dei Carbonari" (Hammer of Italian Freemasonry).