Luigi Versiglia

(5 June 1873 – 25 February 1930) was an Italian Catholic prelate and professed member from the Salesians of Don Bosco who served as the first apostolic vicar of Shaoguan from 1920 until his murder.

In 1885 his parents sent him to school at one of the oratories that the Salesians of Don Bosco managed though he never entertained notions of becoming a priest instead of a veterinarian as he wished.

His ordination to the priesthood was celebrated on 21 December 1895 and he was later appointed as novice master at Genzano in Rome from 1896 until 1905 where he became known for his strict austerities and discipline.

[2][5] The priest began his work and established a motherhouse for the order at Macau while opening a new mission in the Shaoguan region where Pope Benedict XV appointed him as its first apostolic vicar in 1920.

Versiglia received his episcopal consecration in 1921 at the Canton Cathedral where the Salesian Servant of God Carlo Braga was stationed at the organ for the event.

He and Callisto Caravario – fellow Salesian whom he knew well – were travelling at noon on 25 February 1930 via boat along a river to the Lin-Chow mission when Bolshevik pirates boarded their ship.

[5] But the pirates managed to subdue the pair and knocked them unconscious after striking them with their rifle butts before binding them and going to rummage through their possessions in their luggage.

[1] His remains were interred at the Lin Kong-How Cathedral but the Red Guards vandalized this place during the Cultural Revolution.