BULLETTINO DI ARCHEOLOGIA CRISTIANA. — Founded by Giovanni Battista De Rossi in 1863 and compiled entirely by him until his death (1894), with which it came to an end. It was divided into five series, each, except the last, supplied by the author himself with extremely useful indexes, perfect of their kind. The first appeared monthly, in a sheet of eight quarto pages; the others were issued quarterly in octavo. From the beginning, the B. also had in Rome itself a French edition, prepared by De Rossi; subsequently, from 1867, in Belley, edited and annotated by Martigny, and from 1880, in Paris, edited by Duchesne. Its purpose was to provide promptly a more extensive account of the Christian antiquities and those of the early Middle Ages that were being discovered daily in Italy and abroad, and especially to furnish a supplement to the volumes of the Iscrizioni cristiane romane, as well as an anticipation of the most important material to be published in De Rossi’s Roma sotterranea.
In reality, since the two undertakings, the Iscrizioni and the Roma sotterranea, came to a halt at their beginnings, the B. became the regular and principal organ for learning about the fruits of De Rossi’s studies and excavations in Christian Rome. Indeed, it always remained essentially Roman, but progressively broadened its scope, embracing every branch of the field. De Rossi’s fundamental tendency to view Christian archaeology as the history and apologetics of the Church is fully affirmed here; his preferences for epigraphic, historical, and philological subjects also find free expression, supported by the broadest and choicest erudition.
The B. was the most effective and eloquent work of popularization of the new science, and won for De Rossi and for Christian archaeology the widest sympathies. Even today, reading it gives us a measure of the breadth and depth of De Rossi’s archaeological knowledge and an exact understanding of his scientific method in the various branches of archaeology.
A Nuovo Bullettino di archeologia cristiana was founded in 1895 by De Rossi’s disciples, Marucchi, Armellini, and Stevenson, and by his brother Michele Stefano, with the aim of continuing the B. of their deceased master. Important innovations were nevertheless introduced: it was made the official journal for the excavation reports of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, collaboration was extended to all scholars, including foreigners, and a deliberate effort was made to turn it into a survey of archaeology not merely Roman but of all Italy, indeed of the entire world, while also making it a timely source of information on the principal publications. These two praiseworthy aims never advanced beyond partial attempts, owing to the directors’ strictly Roman formation. Among them, Michele Stefano De Rossi (1898), Armellini (1896), and Stevenson (1898) died very soon, so that Marucchi remained « Direttore speciale » and virtually arbiter of the publication. Besides those mentioned above, the most frequent and esteemed contributors were Wilpert, Crostarosa, Kanzler, Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, Bonavenia, and Schneider-Graziosi; Gatti, Grisar, Hülsen, Savio, Grossi Gondi, and many others wrote in it more occasionally. The publication partly strayed into sterile polemics; in another respect, while faithfully preserving De Rossi’s orientations, it was in no way able to rival the solid and extensive learning of the old B. After struggling on during the Great War, it ceased publication with volume XXVII, in 1921. No indexes exist.