Messori was born on April 16, 1941, in
Sassuolo, in the
province of Modena, into an
anticlerical family. His father, Enzo, a poet in the Modena dialect, after three years in the
Royal Italian Army, joined the
Littorio Division of the
Italian Social Republic and, following a period of training in
Germany, fought on the
Western Alps front against the French Army. Meanwhile, the family had taken refuge in the Brescia area, from where, after the end of
World War II, they moved to
Turin, settling in Borgo San Donato, in a building at number 18 Via Sobrero. Here his father found work at the general management of
Italgas. Messori attended public schools in Turin. After graduating from the
Liceo Classico Massimo d'Azeglio, he enrolled in the Faculty of Political Science at the
University of Turin, where he acquired a
rationalist and
agnostic education. But a year before graduating in July 1964, while reading the
Gospel, Messori converted to
Catholic Christianity. As he himself said, "I was converted by an unexpected and irresistible force". In that experience which he defined as an "evidence of the heart".
Conversion to Christianity was fulcrum of his life. Messori, after his Christian conversion, became a passionate researcher into the reasons for faith. Messori died in his house in
Desenzano del Garda on 3 April 2026, at the age of 84. ==Works==