page_title: Dominic Savio
section_title: Special knowledge
hierarchical_section_title: Dominic Savio / Notable incidents in the life of Dominic Savio / Incidents with special spiritual significance / Special knowledge
context_page_description: Dominic Savio was an Italian adolescent student of Saint John Bosco. He was studying to be a priest when he became ill and died at the age of 14, possibly from pleurisy. He is the only person of his age group who was declared a saint not on the basis of his having been a martyr, but on the basis of having lived what was seen as a holy life. He was noted for his piety and devotion to the Catholic faith, and was eventually canonized.
  Bosco regarded Savio very highly, and wrote a biography of his young student, The Life of Dominic Savio. This volume, along with other accounts of him, were critical factors in his cause for sainthood. Despite the fact that many people considered him to have died at too young an age – fourteen – to be considered for sainthood, he was considered eligible for such singular honour on the basis of his having displayed "heroic virtue" in his everyday life. Savio was canonised a saint on 12 June 1954, by Pope Pius XII, making him the youngest non-martyr to be canonised in the Catholic Church until the canonisations of Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the pious visionaries of Fatima, in 2017.
context_section_description: John Bosco narrates how Dominic came to his room one day and urged him to accompany him. He led Bosco through many streets to a block of flats, rang the doorbell, and at once, went away. When the door opened, John Bosco found that within, there was a dying man who was desperately asking for a priest to make his last confession. Later, John Bosco asked Dominic how he had known about that man. However, since the question made Dominic uncomfortable, John Bosco did not press the matter.
caption: Pope Pius IX formally defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and figured in a vision that occurred to Dominic Savio.
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