Elia Dalla Costa (14 May 1872 – 22 December 1961) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate and cardinal who served as the Archbishop of Florence from 1931 until his death.

[2] In 2012 the organization Yad Vashem named him as a "Righteous Among the Nations" due to saving the lives of Jews during the Holocaust at great risk to himself.

[4][3] The cause for his beatification opened two decades after his death in 1981 and he was titled as a servant of God; he was named as venerable after Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue.

Dalla Costa rendered humanitarian services to the wounded and assumed care for orphaned children throughout World War I and was later decorated with the Croce di Cavaliere della Corona d'Italia for his actions.

[1] Dalla Costa was a staunch anti-communist and anti-fascist; when Adolf Hitler visited Florence in 1938 he took the dramatic decision (despite great external pressure) to close all the doors and windows of the episcopal palace and refused to participate in the celebrations.

Dalla Costa organized an elaborate rescue network and also wrote to the heads of all the Florentine convents and monasteries asking them to shelter Jews to keep them safe.

Nontraditional Catholic thinkers coexisted in the Tuscan capital city in fruitful interaction with radical democratic spokespersons and intellectuals emerging from the Partito d’Azione, side-by-side with open-minded representatives of the Communist tradition."

Dalla Costa was also the mentor of Bruno Borghi, who took up full-time industrial labour in the 1950s and became involved in local trade unions, also forming postulates similar to liberation theology.

Local newspapers hailed the club as “an organism articulated according to the highest standards of modern sociology”, praising it for filling the gap in the social life of the community and providing residents with a place to gather.

Dalla Costa would also create a charity network through the centre, which was tasked with distribution of clothing and food to local families in need.

In response, Dalla Costa released a public statement condemning the company for the layoffs and arguing that industrial leaders must recognize their social obligations instead of pursuing profit.

Local trade unions and left-wing circles praised Dalla Costa's statement, with Giorgio La Pira declaring that his statement was “a type of act that recalls the gestures of the Prophets and Apostles of the Scriptures.” Left-wing newspaper Il Giornale del Mattino hailed Dalla Costa as the hero of the working class, listing his other achievements such as his stand against Mussolini as Bishop of Padova, rescuing Jewish refugees and intervening on behalf of striking workers during the Pignone crisis in 1953.

An example of this was Dalla Costa's meeting with the acting mayor of Moscow, which became controversial in Italy; Horn recalled: "Virtually nowhere else in Italy — and probably nowhere else in Europe and the world at that time — could lay and Catholic observers witness the spectacle of a cardinal extending his welcoming hand to the acting mayor of Moscow in a location of such venerable tradition as Santa Croce in downtown Florence on the occasion of one of the spectacular international peace initiatives animated by La Pira.

But a compromise was later reached in 1954: Ermenegildo Florit was made the coadjutor so that he could aid Dalla Costa in his episcopal duties as the aged prelate grew ill.[2] He later participated in the 1958 conclave that resulted in the election of Pope John XXIII.

The cause for Dalla Costa's canonization opened on 26 January 1981 under Pope John Paul II after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the edict of "nihil obstat" (nothing against the cause) and titled him as a Servant of God.

Dalla Costa was named as Venerable on 4 May 2017 after Pope Francis confirmed that the late cardinal had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue.

In November 2012 it was announced that Dalla Costa had been named on the previous 29 February as a "Righteous Among the Nations" after Yad Vashem in Jerusalem determined that he had done the most — at risk to himself — to save Jews from the horror of the Nazi Holocaust (or the Shoah) during the period before and during the war.