Engelbert Kirschbaum

Engelbert Kirschbaum (born January 6, 1902 in Cologne , † March 28, 1970 in Rome , Campo Santo Teutonico ) was a Jesuit and a Christian archaeologist .

Life

The son of the wholesale merchant Jakob Kirschbaum and his wife Emilie Wagner was born in Cologne and stayed there until he graduated from high school. After that, he entered the novitiate of the Jesuits in 's-Heerenberg one. He interrupted his theology studies at the order's own university in Valkenburg in 1926. Instead he studied art history in Munich and was awarded a doctorate in 1928. phil. PhD. In 1929 he graduated from theology and was ordained a priest in 1931.

From 1932 to 1934 he studied classical archeology at the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archeology , where he achieved a second doctorate . He worked as a professor at the St. Georgen Institute for Theology and Philosophy in Frankfurt / M.

From 1939 he worked as a professor of Christian archeology and art history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. From 1949 to 1958 he was also director of the Roman Institute of the Görres Society . Together with his secretary and later Vice Director Ludwig Voelkl (1899–1985) he reactivated the institute and the Roman quarterly publication .

He was one of the 1940-49 scholars involved in the excavations under St. Peter's Basilica in search of the tomb of the Apostle Peter . In the course of these excavations, the Vatican necropolis was uncovered. He became known through his book The Tombs of the Apostle Princes , which made the results of this work known to a wider audience.

Engelbert Kirschbaum died on March 28, 1970 after a long illness. He was buried on March 31 in a grave of the Pontificium Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum de Urbe on Campo Santo Teutonico . Although he was not a member of the Campo Santo Brotherhood, this honor was bestowed on him during his lifetime because of his services.

Honors

• 1956: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts

• German post-Gothic. A contribution to the history of church architecture from 1550–1800 , Augsburg 1930 (= dissertation)
• P. Giuseppe Marchi SI (1795-1860) and Giovanni B. de Rossi (1822-1894) , in: Gregorianum 21 (1940), pp. 563-606.
• The excavations of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome , in: Das Münster 2 (1949), pp. 395–406.
• with Ludwig Hertling: The Roman catacombs and their martyrs , Vienna 1950. 2nd edition 1955
• The graves of the princes of the apostles , Frankfurt 1957. 3rd edition 1974

literature

• Stefan Heid : Art. Engelbert Kirschbaum . In: Stefan Heid, Martin Dennert (Hrsg.): Personal Lexicon for Christian Archeology. Researchers and personalities from the 16th to the 21st century . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7954-2620-0 , Vol. 1, pp. 735-737.
• Heinrich Pfeiffer:  Kirschbaum, Engelbert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 673 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ekkart Sauser :  Engelbert Kirschbaum. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 15, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-077-8 , Sp. 788-789.
• Albrecht Weiland: The Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome and its grave monuments. Volume I , Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988, ISBN 3451208822 , p. 354 ff
• Engelbert Kirschbaum , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 24/1970 from June 1, 1970, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Literature by and about Engelbert Kirschbaum in the catalog of the German National Library