Achille Ratti’s pontificate touched the formation of his successors Giovanni Battista Montini and Albino Luciani in a different way. The first Roman experience of the young Montini and its cultural elaboration are strongly marked by the confrontation with fascism and by the relationship with Pius XI. Instead, in Luciani’s formation, which occurs almost completely under Pope Ratti, major events and dilemmas of the pontificate seem absent and only a thorough look can find the invisible thread of the Church of Pius XI in his formation. However, in Luciani’s mature life, the Magisterium of Pius XI emerges more clearly. In particular, for Luciani, Pius XI is the pope who universalized the catechetical addresses of Pius X and Benedict XV, in view of a centralization of catechesis. Moreover, he is the cautious pope of the reconciliation between the Church and the Italian State to whom Luciani, as patriarch of Venice, refers in the Seventies for the revision of the Concordat. Luciani’s experience seems representative of the cultural itinerary of the most of the Italian priests educated under Pius XI pontificate.