Ground floor: The Brescian roots

The third room: Friends

First panel

The first panel, above, shows a photo of the Dosso, Mama Giuditta’s house in Verolavecchia, and, below, a handwritten letter from Giovanni Battista Montini to Lionel Nardini (1897-1918), his close friend, who, having entered the seminary in 1913, was called to the military in 1916 and died in a military field hospital in Vesio di Tremosine.

Lionel had a reputation for sanctity, for his piety, charity and zeal. Paul VI would write that he “guided” him by his example in the seminary. On the same line are two other group photographs: the first depicts young people gathered for spiritual exercises in the Sant’Antonino house in Brescia (1914); the second depicts the boys of the Marian Congregation of the Arici Institute in Brescia, of which Montini was prefect (Dec. 8, 1914).  

In the centre we find a group of friends from the Saint Philip Neri, Oratory of the Priests of Peace (1916): there we see his friend Andrea Trebeschi (Brescia 1897 – Gusen 1945), with whom he collaborated for the student newspaper “La Fionda,” and Father Giulio Bevilacqua (1881-1965), who was decisive in his formation and whom Paul VI would create cardinal after he became Pope. Next to it, is a photograph, at the Arnaldo classical high school (1916), showing Montini among friends, two of them (Francesco Castagna and Alessandro Capretti) wearing military uniforms: Montini kept in touch with them through correspondence and by sending them books. Nearby is a letter from Msgr. Giandomenico Pini (1871-1930), general ecclesiastical assistant of the FUCI from 1907 to 1923, dated June 22, 1918. 

Below are two handwritten letters from Montini: one to Andrea Trebeschi dated Dec. 16, 1937, and one to Father Giulio Bevilacqua dated Nov. 29, 1940. Next to it is a photograph depicting Montini in Lugano, Switzerland, with his brother Francis, Father Bevilacqua, and Benedictine Abbot Anselm Fellmann (21 Juni 1890 in Sursee; † 17 Oktober 1970 in Engelberg). 

slide slide