DON CESARE ELLI was born in Valera in the province of Milan on June 21, 1911. His father Pietro and his mother Marina Pessina of very simple conditions, are mainly dedicated to the cultivation of the land. Don Cesare received from his family a solid religious education and the testimony of a serene and trusting faith in God the good and merciful Father.
Since childhood he has felt the desire to give himself to the Lord and for this discernment he enters the seminary of S. Ilario (Genoa) belonging to the Foreign Missions Institute of Milan. He attends high school, but having reached the threshold of the novitiate he is not considered suitable for the missionary ministry abroad due to him, says the Master's report, "of a too shy character and few initiatives".
Firm in his desire, he did not give up and through the interest of Father Valli of the Oblates of Rho he managed to enter the Guanellian seminary at the San Girolamo Institute in Fara Novarese.
He wrote to the director of the seminary: “I sincerely thank, and will be ever more grateful, Divine Providence for having accepted me into your venerable Congregation… And when, Father, will I be able to come? I wait for the day of entry at night and during the day so great is my desire...".
The young Cesare Elli always distinguished himself during his formative years. He made his novitiate in Fara Novarese and professed on September 1934, XNUMX. He completed his studies in high school and philosophy in the house of Lecco and those of theology in the Institute of Ferentino. The judgment notes of his Superiors say of him: “subject of heartfelt and intense piety, excellent in the observance of the Rule, exemplary and observant cleric, who shows seriousness of life and spirit of sacrifice; diligent in their youth welfare offices”.
On 25 June 1939 at the hands of Mons. Alessandro Fontana he was ordained a priest in our parish of San'Agata in Ferentino.
His obediences were simple: a year in Ferentino as prefect of boys; in Como as head of the Pia Opera del sacro Cuore; in Vellai di Feltre for six years as Superior and then from 1948 to 1986 in Puglia. director and treasurer in Ceglie Messapica from 1948 to 1958; in Bari as Superior from 1958 to 1964 and again in Ceglie from 1964 to 2 November 1986, the date of his death. Despite the fact that Don Cesare's period was one of the most tiring and suffering periods for the Don Guanella Work in Ceglie - both for the construction of the Institute and for the many humiliations and misunderstandings caused to the confreres by people of the common people - nevertheless it was the flowering period of many male and female vocations for the Work of Don Luigi Guanella.