At the death of Pius XII, one of the truly great as to the identity of the man who would become his successor. Various leading churchmen well known to the public were mentioned, and the name of Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was one of those brought forth. When, after three days of balloting, he was elected and took the name of Pope John XXIII, his antecedents and previous achievements became the focus of world wide attention. In this intimate and perceptive portrait we see him first as the son of a humble peasant family of the province of Bergamo entering the seminary at an early age, and wishing only to become a country priest. But 'Obedience and Peace' was the motto he chose, and when, after his ordination in 1904, his zeal and intellectual capacities drew the attention of his ecclesiastical superiors.