Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati

Lay Dominican

Feast Day

July 4

Life

1901–1925

Canonized

2025

Order

Third Order of Saint Dominic (Lay Dominicans)

Born

Turin, Italy

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on 6 April 1901 in Turin, the son of Alfredo Frassati, the founder and director of the newspaper La Stampa and later Italian ambassador to Germany, and of Adelaide Ametis, a painter. He grew up in a prominent but only nominally religious household, and his own deep faith was in large part his own achievement rather than his inheritance.

From his student years Pier Giorgio gave himself to the poor and the sick of Turin with an energy that astonished those who knew him. A member of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, of Catholic Action, and of the Italian Catholic University Federation (FUCI), he spent his time and his money on the destitute of the city, often giving away his tram fare and walking home, or returning without the overcoat in which he had set out. In 1922 he entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic, taking the name Girolamo.

He was also an enthusiastic sportsman and a passionate mountaineer, finding in the heights of the Alps an image of the soul's ascent to God. On the back of one of the last photographs taken of him on a climb he wrote the words Verso l'alto — 'To the heights' — which have become his spiritual motto. He was outspoken in his Catholic convictions and openly opposed to the rising Fascist movement.

In the summer of 1925 Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, which his family believed he had caught from the sick he served. He died in Turin on 4 July 1925, at the age of twenty-four. The vast crowd of the poor of Turin who lined the streets at his funeral revealed to his astonished family the extent of the hidden charity he had practised among them.

Pope John Paul II beatified him on 20 May 1990, calling him 'the Man of the Eight Beatitudes,' and Pope Leo XIV canonised him in Saint Peter's Square on 7 September 2025, together with Carlo Acutis. The Holy See established his liturgical memorial on 4 July, the anniversary of his death.