Roman Catholic Cardinal. A native of Isny in the then Kingdom of Württemberg, Franz Ehrle was the son of a physician. Receiving his first education at the Jesuit Gymnasium "Stella Matutina" of Feldkirch, he entered the Society of Jesus on September 20, 1861 at Groheim's convent, Hohenzollern. Studying humanities at the college of Friedricksburg, Münster, philosophy at the abbey of Maria Laach in Switzerland and theology at Ditton's Hall, Liverpool, England, performing pastoral ministry in Liverpool for the next two years, he was a regular contributor to "Stimmen aus Maria Laach", of which he later served as director and publisher in Münich between 1916 and 1918. Performing literary and pastoral work in Tervueren, Brussels from 1878 till 1880, he led research at the Vatican Archives in Rome from 1880 till 1895. The result of this was the "Historia Bibliothecæ Romanorum Pontificum", finished in 1890. Promoter of the international conference of Sankt Gallen for the preservation of manuscripts, he was appointed extraordinary member of the board of counsellors of the Vatican Library and later pro-prefect in 1895. In June of the same year, he was named prefect, an office he kept until 1914. Associate member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris, he resided in Rome and Feldkirch from 1914 till 1916, and later in Münich between 1918 and 1919. Furthermore he was also appointed faculty member of the Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome and of the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1919. The principal organizer of the Biblioteca Leonina of Research, in the consistory of December 11, 1922, he was created cardinal deacon with the deaconry of San Cesareo in Palatio by Pope Pius XI. Appointed librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church on April 17, 1929, Ehrle remained in office until his death from pneumonia five years later at the curia of the Society of Jesus in Rome. His solemn funeral was celebrated in the church of Sanr'Ignazio, with Cardinal Gennaro Granito Pignatelli di Belmonte, bishop of the suburbicarian see of Ostia and Albano and Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, imparting the final absolution. His body lies buried in the chapel of the Society of Jesus at the Campo Verano Cemetery of Rome.