Roman Catholic Cardinal. The son of a watchmaker, Pietro La Fontaine received his first education at home through private intuition, entering later the local seminary of Viterbo. Ordained priest there by the local bishop in December 1883, he lectured literature, Sacred Scripture, law and ecclesiastical history at the named seminary of which he became spiritual director and later rector in 1896. Named chaplain and tutor of Gradi's prison by the Ministry of the Interior in 1906, in December that year he was furthermore appointed bishop of the diocese of Cassano all'Ionio, receiving his episcopal consecration in Rome on December 23, 1906. La Fontaine's name soon became well known throughout Italy and following his appointment as apostolic visitor by the Holy See to the seminaries of the regions of Benevento and Liguria and to the seminaries of Massa Marittima, Pisa, Volterra, along with those of the islands of Malta and Gozo. Named vicar of the Patriarchal Lateran Basilica in 1908 and consultor of the Commission for the Codification of the Code of Canon Law, La Fontaine was transferred to the titular see of Caristo in April 1910 following his appointment as secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Vicar of the archpriest of the Patriarchal Vatican Basilica, on March 5, 1915, he was promoted to the patriarchate of Venice. Pope Benedict XV created him cardinal priest with the title of Ss. Nereo ed Achilleo in the consistory of December 1916, opting later in 1921 for the title of Ss. XII Apostoli. His personal sacrifices along the Great War and its immediate years in order period to bring aid to the disadvantaged groups, earned him the respect and admiration of many. Upon his death he was buried in the crypt of the Votive Temple of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lido, Venice, built by him amid the tombs of Italian soldiers killed in Piave during the Great War. However, when his third successor, Cardinal Giovanni Urbani, opened his cause of beatification in 1958, his remains were transferred to St. Mark's cathedral in Venice in a sarcophagus once intended to house the remains of Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who had been by then elected to the papacy as John XXIII.