Romano Guardini - Short portrait
Guardini was born in Verona on 17 February 1885 and grew up in Germany. He attended grammar school in Mainz. After graduating from high school, he first studied chemistry in Tübingen, national economics in Munich and Berlin, then theology in Freiburg and again in Tübingen. In 1910 he was ordained a priest and then worked in pastoral care for several years. In 1920 he went to Bonn and habilitated in theology there in 1922. A year later he was appointed to the newly established chair of philosophy of religion and Catholic worldview at the University of Berlin. From 1924 he was a pioneer and inspirer of the Quickborn Catholic youth movement and a leader in the German liturgical movement. With his writings he exerted a strong influence on the educated strata of German Catholicism.
In 1939, his Berlin chair was abolished by the Nazis. At first Guardini continued to work as a private scholar in the Allgäu. In autumn 1945, he was then appointed to the chair of Philosophy of Religion and Christian Worldview at the University of Tübingen. From 1948 to 1962, he held the chair of the same name at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich. At the University Church of St. Ludwig there, he also worked as a pastor and university preacher. In 1952, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and in the years that followed he received numerous other high awards at home and abroad. In 1961 he was appointed a member of the liturgical preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). He died in Munich on 1 October 1968.
His literary estate and author's rights are administered by the Catholic Academy in Bavaria, which has also built up an archive of his writings accessible for research.
Curriculum vitae in data
Below you will find a list of the most important stations in Romano Guardini's life.
Romano Guardini Work Concordance
The "Romano Guardini Works Concordance" was the brainchild of Prof. Dr Hans Mercker (member of the committee of experts for Romano Guardini's literary estate at the Catholic Academy of Bavaria and editor of the first bibliography of Romano Guardini) in collaboration with Wolfgang Mercker, who is responsible for the technical implementation and programming of this online service.
The online concordance offers you a KWIC search (KWIC = Keyword in context) of Romano Guardini's most important writings (essentially "Romano Guardini Werke" and "Topos Taschenbücher"). The text corpus currently consists of 66 publications.
The following (external) link will take you to the concordance:
Romano Guardini Study Library
The Catholic Academy in Bavaria has set up a study library on Romano Guardini's writings. Archival materials, such as original manuscripts, are not part of this, which are now stored in the Archdiocesan Archives of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising under perfect conservation conditions and are accessible under the conditions there.
Our study library is open during the regular opening hours of the reception desk. andIf the library is not otherwise occupied, it is open to the public. The opening hours and occupancy must be requested in writing or verbally at the reception before the visit. Exceptions are not foreseen.
