PIETRO ARCHIATI (1944-2022) was born near Brescia in Italy. From the age of ten, he attended a monastery school in a small missionary Order. After graduating from high school, he studied theology and philosophy in Rome and Munich. He worked in Laos as a teacher during the Vietnam War and later as a missionary in New York, including in the Marriage Encounter movement. In 1977, whilst a hermit on Lake Como in Italy, he discovered anthroposophy, which became his lifelong passion. He later said: 'Within days... I knew with profound certainty: This is what you have been looking for your whole life... Its effect on me was like a hurricane.' From 1981 he worked in South Africa as a lecturer in a seminary. Tension with the Church increased with time and ultimately led to his work no longer being possible within its framework. After leaving the Church in 1987, he became a freelance speaker and author of numerous books. From 2004 until his death, he co-founded a publishing company, Rudolf Steiner Ausgaben. His many prefaces and epilogues to the Steiner volumes he published are an attempt to build a bridge between anthroposophy and contemporary life.