BOLLARIO. — This name designates every collection of papal bulls or constitutions.
The first attempt to collect or print such documents separately dates from 1550, when a collection of 60 bulls was published in Rome under the title: Bullae dicersorum Pontificum a Ioanne XXII ad Iulium III ex bibliotheca Ludovici Gomes. In 1579, again in Rome, a collection of 163 bulls was printed under the title: Bullae dicersorum Romanorum Pontificum a Bonifacio VIII ad Paulum IV. Also in Rome, in 1579, the collection of Cesare Mazzutelli was printed, containing 723 bulls; this was followed by the collection of Lorenzo Cherubini (years 1586–1617), and that of A. M. Cherubini, the preceding author’s brother (year 1638). To the edition of A. M. Cherubini, in 4 volumes, Angelo da Lantusca and Giovanni Paolo da Roma added 2 volumes in 1672. These were the precursors of the Magnum Bullarium Romanum: a collection in 32 volumes, consisting of the 8 volumes published by Gerolamo Mainardo as a supplement to the B. of A. M. Cherubini, the 20 volumes published by C. Cocquelines, and the 4 volumes of the B. of Benedetto XIV. The great B. Romanum comprises papal letters from Leone I to the end of the pontificate of Benedetto XIV. It has two continuations: one in 19 volumes, published in Rome from 1835 to 1857, and the other in 10 volumes, published in
Prato from 1843 to 1867. The B. known as Taurinense, published under the direction of Cardinal F. Gaude and A. Tomasetti, comprises papal bulls up to Benedetto XIV and consists of 25 volumes: 20 printed in Turin from 1857 to 1872, and 5 printed in Naples from 1867 to 1885. These B. do not constitute authentic collections, and none of them is complete.
There are also particular B., comprising documents of a single Pope or documents concerning a religious Order.