Una vocazione familiare: Giovanni Battista Montini nel Carteggio 1914-1923

This article, prompted by the recent critical edition of Giovanni Battista Montini’s correspondence from 1914 to 1923, focuses on some relevant issues regarding youth, training, and the future Paul VI’s early priesthood and ministry up until the time he joined the Vatican Secretariat of State. The author undertakes an analysis of the correspondence with attention to new historiographical contributions and, through comparison with other twentieth-century figures of the Italian church, highlights the exceptional nature of Montini’s epistolary production and the peculiarity of his education in terms of modernity, political events of the time, and the papacy. With regard to culture and humanity, as well as Montini’s vocational path, his family of origin, together with the family’s circle of friends and Brescia’s Catholic environment, seems to have had a fundamental influence on his unique development.