Pope Francis’s Italian Roots: The Bergoglio Family of Piedmont
When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Bishop of Rome on 13 March 2013 and took the name Francis, his surname already told the story: the Bergoglios were a family of Piedmont. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires on 17 December 1936, the son of Mario Giuseppe Francesco Bergoglio and Regina María Sívori.
The Bergoglio family of Asti and Turin
His father, Mario Giuseppe Francesco Bergoglio, was born in Turin on 2 April 1908, son of Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio and Rosa Margherita Vassallo. A railway worker, he emigrated to Argentina and married Regina Maria Sívori in Buenos Aires on 12 December 1935. The Pope’s grandfather, Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio, was born in the province of Asti on 13 August 1884, and left for Argentina in the years of the great Piedmontese emigration.
On his mother’s side the roots are Italian too: Regina Maria Sívori was born in Buenos Aires in 1911, granddaughter of a family whose line reaches back to the province of Alessandria, in Piedmont.
The documented family tree
The whole Piedmontese line is set out in a single documented family tree, reconstructed generation by generation and available to consult in full.
View the full documented family tree (PDF) →
From a Piedmontese railway family to the See of Rome. Where does your family begin?
Behind Pope Francis stands Piedmont — the Bergoglio family of the province of Asti, and a grandfather who crossed the Atlantic in the great migration. Your family’s trail is waiting in an Italian archive too. Tell me a little about your family, and I will give you an honest assessment of what is possible.