 His parents - though farmers - managed to enroll their son in an education with the Barnabite Fathers where older brother Giovanni Ottavio also studied.The latter's good example served to have a great impact on Boccardo who began to think that he might want to become a priest and received additional confidence in that path when his sister Giacinta entered - in 1874 - a cloistered convent.Boccardo's parents expressed their reluctance at allowing Luigi to become a priest but his older brother Giovanni Ottavio interceded to their parents on his behalf.