Pier Giorgio was born in Turin on April 6, 1901, the son of the owner of the newspaper La Stampa, who was later Italy's ambassador to Germany. He studied mining engineering so that he could work among miners, joined the Dominican Third Order, and spent his allowance and his free hours on the poor of Turin's tenements, who knew him when his own family did not.
He was a strong alpinist and the leader of a circle of friends he called the Shady Characters; a photograph of him on a climb carries the words he wrote on it, 'Verso l'alto', towards the heights. He caught poliomyelitis, probably from someone he was helping, and died on July 4, 1925. The crowd of the poor at his funeral astonished his parents.
St. John Paul II beatified him on May 20, 1990, and his body was moved from the family tomb at Pollone to Turin Cathedral the same year. Pope Leo XIV canonized him in St. Peter's Square on September 7, 2025, together with Carlo Acutis.