Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi
CARDINAL GIANFRANCO RAVASI is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church; the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology. Born in 1942 at Merate (Lecco, Italy), he is an expert on the Bible and biblical languages. A cardinal since 2010, he has been President of the Pontifical Council for Culture since 3 September 2007. He headed Milan’s Ambrosian Library from 1989 to 2007, where he became a well- known figure in literary and academic circles while also giving popular lectures on religious subjects. He studied in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute. He spent summers in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey, working as an archaeologist. He later served as professor of exegesis of the Old Testament at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy in Milan. He has some 150 volumes published mainly on biblical topics: editions on the Psalms and the Book of Job, the Song of Songs and Ecclesiasticus.
