FRANCESCO BULIĆ – Archaeologist, born at Vranjic (Vragnizza), near Spalato, on 4 Oct. 1846, died at Zagreb on 28 July 1934.
After completing his ecclesiastical studies at the seminary of Zara (1869), he attended the University of Vienna, where he graduated in classical philosophy (1873), and returned there in 1877 to complete his epigraphic studies. For the rest of his life he remained in his homeland, where he took an active part in civil administration, but above all devoted himself to teaching and archaeological studies. He served as director of the high school in Spalato (1883–96), director of the archaeological museum (1883–1920), and provincial conservator of monuments (1913–26).
Following the example of De Rossi, he devoted himself especially to the study of Christian antiquity in Dalmatia, which he succeeded in bringing to light, particularly in the very important centre of Salona. The results of his excavations and explorations are recorded in vols. VII and following of the *Bullettino di archeologia e storia Dalmata* (Spalato 1878 ff.), a periodical which from 1920 (vol. 43) appeared with a Croatian title and subtitle in French, under the co-direction of M. Abramić. Although, by reason of his Croatian origins, he was a fervent Slavophile and opponent of Italian aspirations (which he combated even as a Yugoslav delegate at the Paris Conference), he was not sectarian in the cultural field and zealously safeguarded the Latin and Italian historical-archaeological heritage of Dalmatia. Even after 1920 he continued to write, almost exclusively in Italian, in his own journal.
His merits lie chiefly in active archaeology. Lacking, however, a broad and deep archaeological and architectural culture, he was unable to achieve that synthesis of the antiquities of Salona which, in the last years of his life, others began to produce by drawing on his excavations. His publications are essentially ecclesiastical and fragmentary. Apart from the *Bullettino*, noteworthy are the *Inscriptiones quae in C. R. museo archeologico Spalati asservantur* (Spalato 1886, followed by several supplements up to 1894) and *Stridone luogo natale di S. Girolamo*, in *Miscellanea Geronimiana* (Rome 1920, pp. 253–330). Much of Bulic’s work went into organising and ensuring the success of the First Congress of Christian Archaeology in 1894. His merits were widely recognised, as were his publications and his character. He was a corresponding member of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology and of the Institut de France, and an ordinary member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Austrian Archaeological Institute.
In 1921 a rich *Strena Buliciana* was offered to him: *Commentationes gratulatoriae Francisco Bulic ob XV vitae lustra feliciter peracta oblatae a discipulis et amicis a. d. IV non. oct. MCMXXI* (Zagreb 1924).