Pier Giorgio Frassati was born in Turin on the 6th of April, 1901.
His father, Alfredo, was a jurist, a diplomat, and a journalist, as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of the famous and still existing Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. His mother, Adelaide Ametis, was a painter and an intellectual.
From a young age, Pier Giorgio showed a special concern for the poor; he cared for them by actively participating in the charitable activities of the local St. Vincent de Paul Society, a volunteer organization founded in Paris in 1883 by Frédéric Ozanam.
Driven by a desire to stand with the most disadvantaged workers and champion their cause, he enrolled in the Mining Engineering programme at the Polytechnic University of Turin. During his University years, Pier Giorgio joined the local group of FUCI (the Italian Catholic University Federation), a student association founded in 1896.
With his friends from FUCI, he shared study sessions, leisure time, and memorable mountain excursions—hiking and climbing being a great passion of his—as well as political engagement, immediately distancing himself from the raising Fascism.
He contracted polio-likely during one of his frequent visits to the sick and needy-and passed away on the 4th of July, 1925. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on the 20th of May, 1990, and proclaimed a saint by Pope Leo XIV on the 7th of September, 2025.
