Journey 3 · Young Lives Freely Given
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati
The man of the Beatitudes
Feast day July 4
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Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati
The man of the Beatitudes
Map of a life
This life told in 5 chapters
Begin the journey
OpeningOpening1 min
Chapter 1 of 5The son of a dynasty of newspapers and politics1 min
Chapter 2 of 5A student in love with life, and the fire of the Eucharist1 min
Chapter 3 of 5A brother to the slums of Turin1 min
Chapter 4 of 5The last battle, and the secret of an unfinished note1 min
Chapter 5 of 5A family awakened, and a historic funeral1 min
Feast day
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati
Some places may celebrate on a slightly different day.
July 4
Patron of
- Young people and students
- Mountain climbers
- Catholic Action
Often depicted with
- An ice axe and climbing rope
- The words "Verso l'alto" (Toward the heights)
Opening
Opening
If one picture captures young Pier Giorgio Frassati, it is the photograph of him on a sheer rock face: one hand gripping a ledge, one foot stepping up, head high, smiling into the mountain wind. Beneath it, in his own hand, are the words that have become famous: “Verso l’alto!” Toward the heights!
This handsome, dashing young man did not seek the heights of worldly glory, though he was born at the very top of wealth and power.
The heights he loved to climb were the heights of self-giving love: the Eucharist every morning, the poor, foul-smelling slums of Turin, and spending every last drop of his strength for the destitute.
Pope John Paul II, himself a lifelong lover of the mountains, came to kneel at his tomb and gave him a beautiful title: “the man of the Beatitudes.”
Chapter 1 of 5
The son of a dynasty of newspapers and politics
Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on April 6, 1901, in the city of Turin in northern Italy, on Holy Saturday. His father, Alfredo Frassati, was a powerful man: founder and director of the newspaper La Stampa, known throughout Europe, a senator and later Italy’s ambassador in Berlin. His mother, Adélaïde Ametis, was a gifted painter from a noble family.
Pier Giorgio and his sister Luciana grew up in great luxury: a splendid house, fine cars, servants everywhere, and frequent visits from leading politicians, writers and artists.
Yet behind that grand surface the family was cold and divided. His father was an unbelieving freethinker, always absorbed in politics and journalism; his mother practiced her religion in the stiff, formal manner of the upper classes; and husband and wife were often at odds and distant with each other.
In a home that lacked real warmth, little Pier Giorgio leaned wholly on God. From the age of four or five he showed remarkable compassion for the poor.
Once, a poor woman in rags came to the door carrying her starving child, begging for food. Seeing the child barefoot and freezing on the marble floor, Pier Giorgio at once took off his own brand-new shoes and socks and gave them to him, then ran into the house and locked the door for fear of being scolded.
No one had taught him to feel for the suffering; it was a holy fire that seemed to have burned in him from birth.
Chapter 2 of 5
A student in love with life, and the fire of the Eucharist
When he grew up, Pier Giorgio studied mining engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin. When friends asked in surprise why a rich young man like him would choose such a hard, dirty field, he answered frankly:
“I want to be a mining engineer so I can work side by side with the poorest miners, and bring Christ to ease their toil in the dark tunnels!”
He was lively, full of energy and very charming: tall, strong and handsome, with a smile that lit up the whole room. He loved sports: swimming, riding, rowing on the Po, and above all mountain climbing.
On weekends he would gather a group of close friends to climb the dangerous snowy peaks of the Alps. He never climbed alone. He took his friends up to the heights to breathe the clean air, gaze at the majestic beauty of creation and sing hymns of thanks to God together.
Yet the source of all that energy lay in hours of silence before the Eucharist. Every morning, in thunderstorms or freezing snow, Pier Giorgio got up very early and walked to the parish church for Mass and Holy Communion.
He was so absorbed in prayer that candle wax could drip onto his coat without his noticing. He often spent whole nights in Eucharistic adoration.
He once confided to his fellow students:
“Every morning when I receive Jesus, I feel an endless strength given to me to face all the trials of the day. Without the Eucharist, my life would be nothing but a heap of empty ashes!”
Chapter 3 of 5
A brother to the slums of Turin
After lectures, while other rich young men gathered in elegant cafés, Pier Giorgio would quietly sling an old backpack over his shoulder and make his way into the dampest, most squalid slums of Turin.
He was a fervent member of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and a Lay Dominican. With his pocket money, and what he saved by always traveling in the cheapest class, he bought food, medicine, clothing and coal and carried them to one tumbledown shack after another.
He did not stand at a distance tossing coins like a condescending benefactor. He went inside, sat on the edge of the filthy bed, held the wrinkled hands of lonely old people, picked up children covered in sores, cleaned up rubbish with his own hands and bandaged the foul-smelling wounds of people with contagious diseases.
Some days he even gave his train or tram fare to someone in need and then had to run many kilometers home in the pouring rain to be in time for dinner. When his parents scolded him for coming in late and covered in mud, he only smiled, bowed his head and apologized without a word of explanation.
When a close friend saw him coming out of a foul-smelling house and asked uneasily, “How can you stand the stench and filth of people like that?” Pier Giorgio looked at him with shining eyes and answered with words that still sting the conscience:
“Jesus comes to visit me every morning in the Eucharist; I can only repay that love by going to visit Him in the poorest of the poor!”
He took an active part in Catholic Action and in social movements defending the rights of poor workers. As fascism began to rise in Italy, he bravely held the Catholic banner high in street demonstrations, in the face of police batons and tear gas. His faith was never willing to compromise with injustice and tyranny.
Chapter 4 of 5
The last battle, and the secret of an unfinished note
At the end of June 1925, after going into the slums to care for a poor family with a contagious disease, Pier Giorgio caught acute poliomyelitis, a deadly disease in those days, when there was still no vaccine.
The disease struck with terrifying speed. With fierce pain in his bones and spine, the strong young man was gradually paralyzed from his legs up to his chest.
And this is what breaks your heart: while Pier Giorgio was fighting death in his room, the rest of the house was busy preparing the funeral of his grandmother, who had just died. Seeing his parents and sister so grief-stricken, Pier Giorgio bit his lip and bore the terrible pain alone, without a word of complaint, so as not to add to his parents’ worries.
By July 3, 1925, when the family realized what was happening, his whole body was paralyzed, and the doctors said he had only hours to live.
With trembling, half-paralyzed hands, Pier Giorgio used the last of his strength to scrawl a few words in pencil on a scrap of paper to a friend in the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, reminding him to take injections to a poor sick man named Converso and to redeem a pawn ticket for another poor family nearby.
That was the last note of a twenty-four-year-old at death’s door: he could hardly breathe, but his heart still ached for a poor man without medicine.
Around seven in the evening of July 4, 1925, held in the arms of his sobbing mother, Pier Giorgio Frassati died peacefully and went home to God, at the age of twenty-four.
Chapter 5 of 5
A family awakened, and a historic funeral
Pier Giorgio’s funeral stirred the whole city of Turin.
The Frassatis planned a solemn funeral for ministers, ambassadors and high society. But when the plain wooden coffin was carried out of the house, his parents stood stunned: tens of thousands of poor people, ragged beggars, cripples on crutches, cab drivers and miners filled the streets, weeping as if they had lost the only father or brother they had ever had.
Only then did his father, Alfredo Frassati, the powerful unbelieving senator, realize with a shock what a treasure his family had had all along. He fell down beside his son’s coffin in tears of remorse. Pier Giorgio’s holy life melted the ice in his father’s heart and brought him back to the Catholic faith at the end of his life.
His body was first buried in the family tomb in the cemetery of Pollone. On March 31, 1981, when it was moved to rest in the Cathedral of Turin, people were astonished to find his body intact after more than half a century in the grave.
On May 20, 1990, in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati. On September 7, 2025, Pope Leo XIV canonized him together with Carlo Acutis, the young saint of the digital age. The Church celebrates him on July 4 each year.
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati is a wonderful model for young Catholics today. He shows that you can be young, modern, sporty and in love with life, and at the same time a great saint, ardently in love with God and ready to give everything for the poor.
The words “Verso l’alto!” (Toward the heights!) on that old photograph are still an urgent call to each of us: do not settle for a mediocre, drifting, selfish life. Have the courage to climb the heights of faith and love, where we can open our arms wide to the suffering people of this world.
The end of the story
You have walked with Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati to the end of the story.
A few images you will carry with you:
As a child, he took off his new shoes for a poor barefoot child, then ran and hid for fear of being scolded.
After Communion each morning, he shouldered his backpack and made his way into the poorest slums of Turin.
Paralyzed in his sickbed, he still struggled to write a note reminding a friend to bring medicine to a poor man.
Stay in silence
This stays with you: the tens of thousands of poor people weeping at his funeral said more than all his parents’ fame.
Verso l'alto, toward the heights, is not a faraway mountain; it is bending down each day beside someone who needs us.
Let us pray
Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati,
as a child you took off your new shoes for a poor barefoot child. As a young man, after Communion each morning, you went into the poorest slums of the city.
Pray for young people, that they may live joyfully and love nature, their friends and the poor.
Help me carry the Lord I have just received to those in need, as you did every day.
Amen.
Sources
- Feast dayAuthor’s edited profile
- Patron ofPatronages and symbols, version 1.1
- Often depicted withPatronages and symbols, version 1.1
- Reflectionpiergiorgiofrassati.net
- Reflectionpiergiorgiofrassati.net
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Journey 3