22 Facts About Giovanni Fornasini

Giovanni Remo Fornasini was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, resistance member and patriot in Bologna.

Giovanni Fornasini was murdered by a German Nazi Waffen SS soldier and was posthumously awarded Italy's Gold Medal of Military Valour.

Giovanni Fornasini is being investigated by the Catholic Church towards his possible canonisation.

Giovanni Fornasini's beatification was celebrated in Bologna on 26 September 2021.

Giovanni Fornasini studied at Collegio Albergati in Porretta Terme but did not graduate, and is recorded as not having been a good student.

Giovanni Fornasini continued his theology studies and on 29 March 1940 he was ordained subdeacon and on 7 June 1941 deacon, On 28 June 1942 he was ordained a priest by Cardinal Giovanni Nasalli Rocca di Corneliano, in San Petronio Basilica, Bologna.

Giovanni Fornasini celebrated his first Masses at Pianaccio, San Luca, and Porretta; Giovanni Fornasini celebrated his first solemn Mass on 12 July 1942 in the church of San Tommaso a Sperticano.

Don Giovanni Roda was elderly, and following his death in August 1942 Fornasini was installed as parish priest in Sperticano on 27 September.

Giovanni Fornasini opened a school similar to the one he had attended as a boy in Porretta.

Giovanni Fornasini soon gained a reputation as a man of action.

Giovanni Fornasini was always around trying to free people from their difficulties and to solve their problems.

Giovanni Fornasini ordered his church bells to be rung in celebration.

Serra said: "On the sad day of 27 November 1943, when 46 of my parishioners were killed in Lama di Reno by Allied bombs, I remember Don Giovanni Fornasini working as hard in the rubble with his pickaxe as if he had been trying to rescue his own mother".

Giovanni Fornasini gathered evidence which persuaded the Germans that the explosion had been an accident and the hostages were released.

Giovanni Fornasini then convinced the Germans that several other acts of sabotage had been committed by Tuscan partisans, and that local people had not been involved.

Giovanni Fornasini did not manage to intervene before the massacre at Corsaglia, the place where he later lost his own life.

Giovanni Fornasini was forced to attend a squalid German party to celebrate her birthday where, despite insults and mockery, he protected her.

Giovanni Fornasini knew Fornasini well: he had made confession to him at least twice, and shortly after the murder called him "Don Fornasini, dearest to me".

The officer replied, that that was a lie, and invited Giovanni Fornasini to inspect Marzabotto, where he shot him in the head, among all the other corpses there.

Giovanni Fornasini's remains were recovered in the spring after the Nazi withdrawal from Italy.

All sources agree that on 13 October 1945, Giovanni Fornasini was given a Christian burial in his own church of San Tommaso a Sperticano.

An elementary school in Porretta Terme, Scuola Primaria "Don Giovanni Fornasini", is named in his honour.