Archbishop Pier Giacomo De Nicolò, father Gabriele M. Alessandrini o.s.m., Priore della SS. Annunziata di Firenze, and Emilio Pisani, President of “Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation”, in the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Maria Valtorta
The funeral was celebrated on Tuesday 6 April in the Vatican Basilica by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. Ten years ago he officiated in the Basilica of the Ss. Annunziata, Florence, the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Maria Valtorta. A beautiful publication of this event is still available as a memory, edited by the Heritage Foundation. Monsignor De Nicolò honoured with his friendship Emilio and Claudia Pisani, editors of Maria Valtorta, to the point of having had the delicacy of wanting to celebrate the funeral of Claudia, who died prematurely on 7 October 2012. Emilio keeps a perennial and grateful memory of him.
(from the “L'Osservatore Romano”,Tuesday 6 April 2021):
Celebrated in St. Peter's by the cardinal secretary of state
The funeral of the nuncio Pier Giacomo De Nicolò
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin celebrated, on the morning of Tuesday 6 April, in the Vatican Basilica, the funeral of the apostolic nuncio Pier Giacomo De Nicolò, titular archbishop of Martana, who died on the 3rd at the age of ninety-two.
The eldest of eight brothers, the first three of whom became bishops, the late prelate died on Holy Saturday, as happened in 2020 to his second brother, Mariano.
Pier Giacomo was born in Cattolica, in the diocese of Rimini, on 11 March 1929, and attended the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary and the Pontifical Lateran University. Ordained as a priest on 12 April 1952, he had a degree in theology and in Utroque iure. Having entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1956, he carried out diplomatic services in the Secretariat of State, Section for Relations with States, in the pontifical representations in Germany, Switzerland and Portugal, then again in the Secretariat of State. On August 14, 1984 he was elected archbishop by John Paul II at the titular Church of Martana and, at the same time appointed apostolic nuncio to Costa Rica. He received episcopal ordination on October 20 of the same year in the Vatican basilica, consecrated by the cardinal secretary of State Agostino Casaroli, the deputy archbishop Eduardo Martinéz Somalo and the bishop of Rimini and San Marino-Montefeltro, monsignor Giovanni Locatelli. On 11 February 1993 he became papal representative in Syria. Transferred again as Apostolic Nuncio, to Switzerland and Liechtenstein on 21 January 1999, he renounced to his mandate, having reached the age limit, on 8 September 2004.
