LIFE AND THOUGHT. - A monthly review founded in November 1914 by Fr. Agostino Gemelli, O.F.M., Dr. Vico Necchi, and Mons. Francesco Olgiati.
The programme set forth in the first article by Fr. A. Gemelli, "Medievalism," assumed a historical significance; it meant: the necessity of a return—not to the 13th century as if one were to relive the past—but to that conception of culture inspired by Christianity, which at that time was able to create the glorious century of Francis of Assisi and Dominic of Guzmán and of the universities founded by the Church, and which in our own day must give rise to a cultural movement characterized by the method of organic unity and harmonious synthesis of knowledge, and by a programme of action and thought responsive to present-day needs and modern achievements. It may therefore be said that Life and Thought served to prepare the emergence of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, inaugurated in 1921. The review has remained ever faithful to this ideal. All the principal questions (religious, political, social, literary, artistic, etc.) are promptly addressed, in the light of the Christian idea, by the most eminent writers of the Italian Catholic world. Among the contributors of former days were Cardinal Maffi, Fr. Semeria, Filippo Meda, Filippo Crispolti, and Count Dalla Torre. Among those of today, besides Fr. Gemelli and Mons. Olgiati, are the academician Pietro Rondoni, Maria Sticco, and Francesco Casnati. After a suspension due to the Second World War, Life and Thought resumed its life in 1947 with renewed vigour and spring-like freshness.