PONTIFICAL YEARBOOK. - Official directory of the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy, of the Roman Curia and the pontifical court, compiled annually at the Secretariat of State. Its origins go back to 1716, when the Chracas printers began publishing the Notizie per l'anno..., with the principal data and lists of persons relating to the hierarchy of the Church, of the Curia and of the court. This publication, ever more complete in the following years, was interrupted between 1798 and 1817 (in some years of the French occupation it was replaced by an Almanac for the departments of the Tiber and Trasimeno), but resumed in 1818. From '50 the A. P. began to appear, from the printing house of the Rev. Apostolic Camera, with news on the hierarchy and the administration of the Papal State, compiled by the editorial staff of the Giornale di Roma. Suspended in 1870, two years later the Monaldi printing house began the Gerarchia cattolica e la Famiglia pontificia per l'anno..., bearing in an appendix other news concerning the Holy See. In '85 the printing was taken over by the Vatican Printing House and had (1899-1904) the designation of "official edition". In 1912 the title of A. P. was restored ("official publication" until '24). In the years 1912-24 it also carried brief explanatory notes on the dicasteries of the Curia and on certain court dignities, taken up again with changed criteria from 1940.
The A. opens with the series of the supreme pontiffs of Rome "according to the chronotaxis of the Liber Pontificalis and of its sources, continued to the present": in recent years, corrected and annotated, according to the results of historical scholarship, by Msgr. A. Mercati. There follow the hierarchy properly so called (Supreme Pontiff, Sacred College of cardinals, patriarchates, residential and titular archbishoprics and bishoprics, abbeys and prelatures nullius dioeceseos, apostolic administrations ad nutum S. Sedis, prelates of the Eastern rite with ordinary jurisdiction, apostolic vicariates and prefectures, missions sui iuris, custody of the Holy Land); the Orders, Congregations and religious Institutes, the Roman Curia (Sacred Congregations, tribunals, offices); the representations of the Holy See and the diplomatic corps accredited to it; the permanent commissions; the pontifical Chapel; the household of His Holiness; the palatine offices and administrations; the equestrian Orders; the State of Vatican City. It is concluded by a copious appendix of useful lists, the list of dignitaries deceased up to the whole month of Dec., the indexes (alphabetical, of subjects, schematic). The publication constitutes a panorama of the ecclesiastical order in the Catholic world, accompanied by statistical data, and contained in a dense in-16 volume printed by the Vatican Polyglot Printing House, illustrated with the portrait and coat of arms of the reigning Pontiff, the annual medal of the pontificate and the coats of arms of the cardinals.
Luigi Huetter
