Grazia Honegger Fresco was introduced to Montessori education from a very young age: at age 4 she enrolled in one of the Case dei Bambini that Rome boasted. 

In 1947, at the invitation of Adele Costa Gnocchi, she joined the first experimental class of the new Montessori Childhood Assistants School founded by Costa Gnocchi herself. What followed were many years of observation and study of the newborn, which profoundly affected her pedagogical views on birth, the mother/child relationship and adult education. 

Grazia met Maria Montessori in 1949 when she participated in the Montessori Congress in Sanremo and in 1951 she was a student of the last course Maria Montessori gave in Rome. In the same period she began to work with Adele Costa Gnocchi in the Children's House of Palazzo Taverna, known as the Scuoletta, and, starting in 1952, she became Giuliana Sorge's assistant in the Montessori courses. In 1953 she began to popularise Montessori ideas through writing, collaborating with the magazine Vita dell'Infanzia of the Montessori National Opera (ONM), and later publishing her own quaderno (1984-2017). 

She remained active throughout her long life – and in the Montessori 150th celebratory year (2020) she was interviewed for two important Italian documentaries.

Grazia’s children have dedicated a website to her vast and inspiring Montessori legacy.