Italy 1944
After hearing a conference on the martyrs in Mexico shortly after taking his first vows in 1931, Nicola Martino Capelli wrote: "O Virgin of the Mexican martyrs, allow me also one day to be a martyr for Christ the King and for you, Immaculate Virgin. O mother I write you still touched by the conference given on the Mexican martyrs. I am sure that through the intercession of your martyrs you will grant me this wish. Your son, Frater Martino Capelli." (Missionario mancato - martire esaudito: P. Martino Capelli, SCJ, SCJ Postulator's Office, Bologna 1996)
He had great Marian devotion and dreamed of becoming a missionary. He had great intellectual capacity and developed an enthusiasm for pastoral work when he was called to help the priests in the area around Castiglione.
On July 20th,Fr. Capelli left for Salvaro to help Monsignor Mellini, the former pastor. There he met a Silesian, Don Elia Comini and the two became fast friends until death.
On September 29, 1944, answering the call to aid the wounded, Fr. Capelli and Fr.Comini were arrested by the Germans as spies. At first the soldiers used them to transport their ammunition up and down the mountain under escort. They were then imprisoned along with a large group of other partisans in a stable belonging to a rope factory in Pioppe di Salvaro. After two days of cruel imprisonment on Sunday October 1, Frs. Capelli and Comini along with 44 other partisans were led to the so-called "vault" of the rope factory where they were cut down by machine gun fire from the Nazi SS. A few were able to pretend death under the stack of bodies and saved themselves by waiting until the German soldiers departed. One of them was able to recount the last gesture of Fr. Martin Capelli. Wounded and dying, he raised his arm said a few words and a blessing and then fell with arms extended in the form of the cross. He was 32 years old.
All traces of him and the others who were executed were lost when water-tight dam bulkheads were opened and their bodies were washed into the Reno River. "One Day, O mother, we will meet at my martyr's death." (Fr. Capelli in his Consecration to the Immaculate Virgin)
In the Salvaro cemetary, there are markers to Don Elia and to Fr. Martino: in tribute to their witness as pastors of Monte Sole:
There is no greater love
than to give one's own life
Father Nicholas Martino Capelli revealed this
in the way he lived
and in the magnitude of his simple martyr's death.