Giovanni Ferro was born in Costigliole d’Asti, in Piedmont, to Giovanni and Carolina Borio. At the age of eleven he began his studies with the Somaschi Fathers and, having heard the religious call, he made his profession of vows in 1920. He was ordained a priest on 11 April 1925 and obtained a degree in philosophy from the Gregorian University. In the following years he taught in various somascan institutes, in the meantime obtaining a degree in Theology in Turin. He was Rector of the Collegio Trevisio of Casale Monferrato and then Rector and Dean of the Gallio of Como, who ruled until 1945, with great difficulties during the Second World War and the Italian Social Republic. In 1945 he was appointed Parish Priest of the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Genoa and was a teacher of Pastoral Theology at the Major Seminary. In 1948 he was elected Provincial of the Somascan Fathers. On 14 September 1950 he was appointed Archbishop of Reggio Calabria and Bishop of Bova: the consecration took place by the hand of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri on 29 October 1950. Archbishop of Reggio Calabria from 1950 to 1977 and Bishop of Bova from 1950 to 1960 and from 1973 to 1977. On April 18, 2008 (the anniversary of his death) was announced the Nulla osta of the Holy See for the opening of the diocesan phase of canonization, which opened in Reggio Calabria on May 21, 2008.