Roman Catholic Cardinal. The youngest of five children of whom only two survived infancy, Elia Dalla Costa received his early education at the seminaries of Vicenza and Padua, graduating in Letters from the latter city's university in 1897. Ordained priest for the diocese of Vicenza, he was soon appointed substitute to the parish priest of his native Villaverla who was facing difficulties in running the parishes due to his advanced age. Appointed professor of Letters at the seminary of Vicenza, he was successively named curate of Pievebelvicino, parish priest of Pozzoleone and from 1910 until 1922 of Schio. Distinguishing himself for his humanitarian activities during the Great War in aid of orphaned children and wounded soldiers, following the war he was decorated with the Order of the Crown of Italy. Named bishop of Padua in 1923, during his brief episcopate there he managed to restore fifty parishes destroyed during the Great War. Promoted to the metropolitan see of Florence in 1931, Pope Pius XI created him cardinal priest with the title of San Marco in the consistory of March 16, 1933. Erecting the grand seminary of Montughi in 1935, during the Second World War, Dalla Costa became a point of reference for the rescue of Jews in a Nazi occupied Italy. Personally involved in numerous rescue activities, his role in the rescue network organization was a pivotal one and numerous successful operations were organized thorough his initiative, later successfully concluded through the aid of several others, such as Franciscan friar Rufino Niccacci and Bishop Placido Nicolini in Assisi. Passing away in Florence of pulmonary embolism, Dalla Costa was by the time of his death the oldest member of the Sacred College of Cardinals. A deeply spiritual man, in 1981 the cause for his beatification was introduced while in 2012 he was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem with the medal consignment taking place in Florence in February 2014.