1. Franz Ehrle was a German Jesuit priest and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
15 Facts About Franz Ehrle
1. 2.
Franz Ehrle served as the Archivist of the Secret Archives of the Vatican, in the course of which he became a leading agent in the revival of Thomism in the teachings of the Catholic Church.
3.
Franz Ehrle was born in Isny im Allgau in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, the son of Franz Ehrle, a physician, and Berta von Frolich; he was educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch.
4.
Franz Ehrle joined the Society of Jesus on 20 September 1861.
5.
When Pope Leo XIII opened the Vatican Secret Archives in 1880, Franz Ehrle was called to Rome to do research on the official correspondence between the Holy See and Germany during the Thirty Years War.
6.
Franz Ehrle became more and more involved, but, responding to Pope Leo's call for a renewal in Thomistic studies, his interests shifted to gathering and cataloging books and manuscripts relating to scholasticism, and he visited other European libraries to do so.
7.
In September of that same year, Franz Ehrle was made a member extraordinary of the Board of Councilors of the Vatican Library, serving from 1890 to 1895, after which he served as its prefect until 1914.
8.
In 1898, Franz Ehrle organized an international conference on the preservation of manuscripts at the Swiss Abbey of St Gall.
9.
Franz Ehrle published an account of the meeting and the proceedings were published.
10.
Franz Ehrle worked to have reference librarians available to assist researchers.
11.
Franz Ehrle began a descriptive cataloging project for the Vatican Library's collection that he projected would take 80 to 100 years to complete.
12.
Franz Ehrle's forward thinking nature led him to introduce the use of photography to preserve endangered manuscripts before other libraries began the practice.
13.
Franz Ehrle sought not only to provide for the protection and repair of Vatican manuscripts, but to make available the facilities of Vatican workshops to aid in preserving endangered manuscripts from around the world.
14.
Franz Ehrle was promoted to the office of Cardinal Deacon by Pope Pius XI at the papal consistory of 11 December 1922, and given the titular church of San Cesareo in Palatio.
15.
Franz Ehrle died on 31 March 1934 in Rome at the age of 88.