Roman Catholic Cardinal. Quinto al Mare born Giacomo Lercaro was the eighth of nine children in a family of seamen, three of whom, including himself, would become priests. Entering seminary in Genoa in 1902, he was ordained on July 25, 1914 by Bishop Ildefonso Vincenzo Pisani CRL. The following November, he was sent to Rome in order to purse his studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Serving as a military chaplain at the hospitals of Galliera, Forte San Martino, Torri di Quartesolo and Villabella di San Bonifazio during the Great War, he was appointed prefect of the seminary of Genoa where his brother Amedeo was then rector by the end of the conflict period in 1918, remaining in such office until 1923, during which period he also served as substitute professor of theology and professor of Sacred Scripture and patrology. A tutor of religion in secondary schools as of 1927, he soon became involved in numerous student movements in the Genoa district, founding himself through the Liceo Classico Cristoforo Colombo a movement for apostolic social activities. National chaplain of the 'Apostolato del Mare', he rendered ministry in the poorest suburbs of Genoa. Named pastor provost of the basilica of Santa Maria Immacolata of Genoa between 1937 and 1947, he founded the 'Didascaleion', a study center for the encounter of the theological thought with modern culture. Becoming one of the most prominent anti-Fascists within the Church during the Second World War, he preached solidly against Nazism and offered support in his home for those persecuted by Benito Mussolini, most notably to Italian Jews. Forced to operate under the alias of Father Lorenzo Gusmini, he lived in a vacant monastery cell to avoid being killed by Nazi collaborators. Shortly after the end of the war, Pope Pius XII appointed him first archbishop of Ravenna on January 31, 1947 and then the twentieth archbishop of Bologna on April 19, 1952. Receiving his episcopal consecration on March 19, 1947 from Archbishop Giuseppe Siri, in the consistory of January 12, 1953 Pius XII created him cardinal priest with the title of Santa Maria in Traspontina. During his early years as a cardinal, Lercaro established his first contacts with Angelo Roncalli and became well-known for the way in which he turned his episcopal palace into an orphanage. Retiring from the pastoral government of his see on February 12, 1968, he acted as Papal legate to the 39th International Eucharistic Congress held in Bogotá, Colombia on August 27 of that same year. Spending his last years at Villa San Giacomo in Particella di San Lazzaro di Savena, a school for the youth that he had founded, he died of a cardiac crisis at three in the afternoon ten days short of his 85th birthday, assisted by his brother Don Attilio. Clad in liturgical vestments, in accordance with his personal wishes, his casket was laid directly on the cathedral's floor during his solemn funeral mass, surmounted only by a missal, donated to him by Pope Paul VI and again from him to the cathedral. Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli, then President of the Secretariat for Non-Christians, represented the Pope and Cardinal Antonio Poma, Archbishop of Bologna, was the principal celebrant of the mass in which another eight cardinals also participated together with numerous archbishops, bishops and priests. His remains lie at rest inside the same cathedral.