BULLETIN OF CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
Founded by Giovanni Battista De Rossi in 1863 and entirely compiled by him until his death (1894), after which it ceased publication. It was divided into five series, each, except the last, equipped by the author himself with extremely useful indices, perfect in their kind. The first series appeared monthly with a single sheet of eight pages in quarto; the others were quarterly in octavo. From the beginning, the *Bulletin* had a second French edition in Rome itself, edited by De Rossi; then from 1867 in Belley, edited and annotated by Martigny, and from 1880 in Paris, edited by Duchesne. Its purpose was to promptly provide a more extensive account of Christian antiquities and the early Middle Ages as they were daily being discovered in Italy and abroad, and especially to serve as a supplement to the volumes of the *Christian Inscriptions of Rome* and as an anticipation of the most important matters to be published in De Rossi’s *Roma Sotterranea*.
In reality, since both the *Inscriptions* and *Roma Sotterranea* projects were halted at their inception, the *Bulletin* became the regular and principal organ for acquainting readers with the fruits of De Rossi’s studies and excavations in Christian Rome. Indeed, it remained essentially Roman in character, though it progressively broadened its scope to embrace every branch of the field. The fundamental tendency of De Rossi to view Christian archaeology as the history and apology of the Church is fully affirmed here; his preferences for epigraphic, historical, and philological themes also found free expression, supported by the broadest and most select erudition.
The *Bulletin* was the most effective and eloquent work of popularization for the new science, winning De Rossi and Christian archaeology the widest sympathy. Even today, its reading gives us a measure of the vastness and depth of De Rossi’s archaeological knowledge and an exact notion of his scientific method across the various branches of archaeology.
A *New Bulletin of Christian Archaeology* 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 *Bulletin* of the deceased master. However, important innovations were introduced: it became the official organ for excavation reports of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, broadened collaboration to include all scholars, even foreigners, and deliberately sought to make it a review of archaeology not only Roman but of all Italy, indeed of the world, while also serving as a timely informer of major publications. These two laudable intentions never progressed beyond partial attempts due to the strictly Roman formation of the editors. Among these, Michele Stefano De Rossi (1898), Armellini (1896), and Stevenson (1898) soon died, leaving Marucchi as the “Special Director” and almost sole arbiter of the publication. Besides the aforementioned, the most frequent and esteemed contributors were Wilpert, Crostarosa, Kanzler, Pio Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Bonaventura, and Schneider-Graziosi; less frequently, Gatti, Grisar, Hülsen, Savio, Grossi Gandi, and many others wrote for II. The publication partly devolved into sterile polemics; in another respect, while faithfully preserving De Rossi’s approaches, it could not remotely emulate the solid and vast learning of the old *Bulletin*. After a difficult existence during the Great War, it ceased publication with volume 27 in 1921. No indices exist.