Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954)

A priest of the Verbite Order, he was a professor of ethnology, languages and the history of religions in Modling and Freiburg and, on the foundation of the Ethnological Missionary Museum of the Vatican (1927), he was its first director. His research studies were mainly directed towards the study of the origin of the idea of God and religion within various cultures, trying to link what emerged from ethnological studies with what is stated in the Bible.