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As Alfredo Del Rosso's scheduled retirement date of August 1969 approached, he began to have second thoughts about stepping down as pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Civitavecchia, Italy. He attempted to persuade missionary superintendent Roy Fuller to let him remain for one more year in that coastal town, suggesting that young Salvatore Scognamiglio—who was slated to replace him— could serve another church for a year. Perhaps Del Rosso, now 79, feared the uncertainties of complete retirement. He was alone; his wife, Niny, had died. But Roy Fuller didn't budge and kindly but firmly insisted that Del Rosso step down and allow Scognamiglio to step in as planned.
Del Rosso's thoughts may have included some economic uncertainties. When he stepped down as pastor, he would continue to receive the monthly pension he had been granted in 1961. However, since he was no longer pastoring, he would no longer receive the housing and utilities that had come with the Civitavecchia assignment. Following the loss of that benefit, Alfredo Del Rosso moved to Prato upon his retirement to live with his daughter Maria and her family in their condominium apartment. His son-in-law, Alberto Parenti, had become a public relations representative for the large Italian textile manufacturers association headquartered near Florence. Salvatore Scognamiglio and his family arrived from European Nazarene College in Busingen, Germany to pastor the 90-member Civitavecchia congregation.
At that point, Alfredo Del Rosso did not retreat to rocking-chair retirement. He continued doing some translation work. In 1970, he wrote Roy Fuller that he had completed a thorough revision of his earlier Italian translation of the Nazarene Manual. However, as far as I could determine, that manuscript was never published.
The work of the district for which Del Rosso had laid the foundations also continued to progress. In 1971, two more men were ordained, and that summer the district held its first youth camp (the Italians had already participated in two all-Europe youth institutes).
After a property in the Montesacro suburb of Rome had been purchased and renovated to accommodate a church, district office, and parsonage, the Fullers invited Del Rosso to give the dedicatory address. However, a snowstorm prevented him from making the trip from Prato to Rome. The new chapel was located close to the home of Del Rosso's daughter Noemi, and she and her family joined the Boccinis and the Fullers to become the nucleus of that congregation. Two of Del Rosso's other daughters, Febe and Lea, were part of the Salvation Army in England and Italy.
Expressing his concern for his family's spiritual well-being, Del Rosso wrote to Roy Fuller in November 1973, "May the Lord bless all our dear families and give us to see all our dear ones saved and sanctified by the Holy Spirit." It was only natural that Del Rosso should hope that his children and grandchildren would form part of a strong corps of second- and third-generation Nazarenes and so carry forward his legacy. That did not happen to the degree he had long hoped, but after all, most of his children were already grown when he became a Nazarene in 1948.
Alfredo Del Rosso's vision for a holiness work that would reach every Italian burned bright to the very end of his life. In April 1973, he wrote to Roy Fuller, "May the Lord give us a revival of preaching in the Holy Spirit and Italy will return as it was in the times of the first saints and apostles in Rome." His dreams also continued to reach beyond the borders of Italy. In March 1974, Del Rosso made a moving plea for an Italian-speaking pastor to be sent to minister to the Italian-speaking population near European Nazarene College in the area of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. In 2025, that plea remained unanswered.
After our own appointment to Italy in January 1974, a story accompanied by photos of all the new missionary appointees and our assignments appeared in the English-language Herald of Holiness (now called Holiness Today). Upon receiving his copy, Del Rosso wrote to Roy Fuller, "I saw in the Herald of Holiness the photos of two new missionaries to Italy. May the Lord bless them and bring them to our country with His blessing. They will be two more souls working in Italy that believe in the full salvation from sin."
At the 1975 district assembly conducted in the just-dedicated Moncalieri church building in suburban Turin, district leadership was faced with a confession of adultery by Pastor Alberto Ricchiardino, who had been ordained in 1971 and was then pastor of the Moncalieri congregation. The denomination had to ask that Ricchiardino surrender his credentials as an ordained elder. After a sad meeting of the Italian Board of Ministerial Credentials with General Superintendent Edward Lawlor, Del Rosso wrote Roy Fuller, "Forward, dear brother. Forward, young missionaries. . . . The Nazarene work will go forward and prosper. Every church will be revived. Other churches will join. Young people will consecrate their lives and will go to the Bible school to prepare themselves for the holiness work in Italy! Hallelujah! God is with us!"
It was the kind of uplifting letter that Roy Fuller needed at that moment. Only two years before, he had been required to withdraw the credentials of another Italian pastor, Rev. Izzo, who had been caught taking money from a bookstore where he worked in Naples. Now, another promising pastor in the district had let Satan enter his life and sabotage his ministry. Those were difficult setbacks for Fuller, but Del Rosso's warm support helped sustain him.
To be sure, Alfredo Del Rosso wasn't without his faults—but he poured his life into proclaiming full salvation from all sin. As he grew old, he did not become bitter. He did not become disgusted with the way the younger generation ran things in the church, nor did he ever express fear for its continued existence.
Asked to lead a morning Bible study at the 1975 Nazarene family camp held on the Italian Riviera, Alfredo Del Rosso used one session to lead Olga Spannacini to the Lord. Olga had come to the camp to assist her son, who had a disability and had been a part of the Florence congregation for two decades. Following her conversion, this 65-year-old woman helped lead an elementary-school-age granddaughter to the Lord, followed by one of her two daughters and that daughter's husband - all because of Del Rosso's clear witness and insistent challenge.
To the end of his life in 1985, Alfredo Del Rosso's central concern remained that the Nazarenes maintain a clear doctrine of entire sanctification and that they experience it in their own lives. In a letter to Roy Fuller in February 1975, he noted, "Great is the need of preaching true holiness." That same month, during a district-wide evangelism conference held in Rome, I saw him take aside Domenico Calabrese, a local preacher from Florence, and explain to him "more clearly the way of holiness" after Calabrese said something that Del Rosso thought revealed theological confusion on Calabrese's part.
Alfredo Del Rosso still enjoyed playing his accordion and, nearly every Sunday, traveled the 20 miles from Prato to Florence on the bus to participate in morning worship. He also served throughout the district as a supply preacher when pastors were away. Age, however, began to slow Del Rosso down. One evening during the 1976 district assembly in Florence, he collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital by Maria and her husband. The delegates were greatly concerned for him and held a special time of prayer for him. By the next evening, Del Rosso was feeling well enough to exert some authority and discharge himself from the hospital.
One unfortunate omission from the film record of Alfredo Del Rosso's ministry resulted from a tight filming schedule that prevented him from appearing in Mission Europe, a 1970s film about Nazarene work and ministry in Europe. The filming had to be done in the summer of 1974, immediately following the Nazarene World Youth Conference in Switzerland. During that particular period, Alfredo Del Rosso was out of the country on vacation with family and friends. So, sadly, the man who had been responsible for planting the Church of the Nazarene on the European continent was conspicuously absent from that film.
What evaluation can we make of Alfredo Del Rosso, a man revered by some and maligned by others? At the time of my research, around 1980, Florence and Civitavecchia were the two strongest Nazarene churches in Italy. He and his wife had been instrumental in planting both. Through his ministry, almost all the other congregations existing at that time had their beginnings—either through his direct contacts or through the expanding network those contacts created. He helped to launch the publishing program and was superintendent when the fledgling Bible school was launched. It eventually merged with the German school to become European Nazarene College. A second generation of Italian Nazarenes eventually assumed leadership. Angelo Cereda's son attended European Nazarene College to prepare for ministry and, around 1980, was the Nazarene leader in Sicily. Elide Capannoli (of the Florence Lagomarsino family) opened her home in Siena for the start of work in the city where Del Rosso grew up. By the late 1970s, the Italian district had passed the 40 percent self-support level and had accepted the challenge of becoming a regular district by the year 1990, when Alfredo Del Rosso would have turned 100 (he died in 1985 at age 95). At the 1977 district assembly, Salvatore Scognamiglio was named district superintendent by General Superintendent V. H. Lewis.
At the 1975 district assembly, General Superintendent Edward Lawlor preached a stirring message on "Mastered by a vision."
What, then, is my evaluation of Del Rosso? That phrase captures my assessment: Del Rosso was a man who allowed himself to be mastered by a vision. Looking back over his life, I see a man who found himself in the right place at the right moment and allowed the Holy Spirit's vision to guide him.
Material for this biography was gathered in Italy in the late 1970s from letters, books, magazine articles, and interviews with many of the principal characters, including several missionaries to Italy, Alfredo Del Rosso himself (1890–1985), and members of his family. Many of those interviewed for this biography have since died.
Printed resources include In Their Steps by D. I. Vanderpool (Beacon Hill Press, 1956) and They of Italy Salute You by Earl Morgan (Nazarene Publishing House, 1958).
Complete text of book in PDF format: Del Rosso's biography in English Del Rosso's biography in Italian