(born Lorenzo; 9 June 1809 - 6 August 1889) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as a missionary and a Capuchin friar.

On the death of his brother he passed as a student to the diocesan seminary in 1824; but at the age of sixteen entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order, receiving the habit on 25 September 1825.

[citation needed] Massaia was ordained to the priesthood on 16 June 1832 in Vercelli and served as a spiritual director at a hospital in Turin from 1834 to 1836.

[citation needed] He was appointed as a lector of theology; but even whilst teaching he acquired some fame as a preacher and was chosen confessor to Prince Victor Emmanuel, afterwards King of Italy, and Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa.

That year the Congregation of Propaganda, at the instance of the traveller Antoine d'Abbadie, determined to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Galla for the Oromo in Ethiopia.

The titular head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abuna Qerellos III, had been dead for about 20 years and there was a movement amongst the native Christians towards union with Rome.

[citation needed] Massaia, who had received plenary faculties from Pope Pius IX, ordained a number of native priests for the Coptic Rite; he also obtained the appointment by the Holy See of a vicar-apostolic for the Copts, and himself consecrated the missionary Justin de Jacobis to this office.

[citation needed] As a result of the ensuing political agitation, Massaia was banished from the country and had to flee under an assumed name.

In 1850 he visited Europe to gain a fresh band of missionaries and means to develop his work: he had interviews with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, and with Lord Palmerston in London.

At the command of the pope, he wrote an account of his missionary labours, under the title, "I miei trentacinque anni di missione nell' alta Etiopia", the first volume of which was published simultaneously at Rome and Milan in 1883, and the last in 1895.