BULLETIN OF CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. - Founded by Giovanni Battista De Rossi in 1863 and compiled entirely by him until his death (1894), with which it ceased. It was divided into five series, each, except the last, provided by the author himself with very useful indexes, perfect of their kind. The first came out monthly with a sheet of eight pages in 4to; the others were quarterly in 8vo. The B. from the beginning had in Rome itself a second French edition edited by De Rossi; and then from 1867 at Belley under the editorship and with notes of Martigny, from 1880 at Paris under the editorship of Duchesne. Its purpose was to give promptly a more extensive notice of the Christian antiquities and of the early Middle Ages that were daily being discovered in Italy and abroad, and especially to provide a supplement to the volumes of the Iscrizioni cristiane romane, and as a kind of anticipation of the more important things to be published in the Roma sotterranea of De Rossi himself.
In reality, since the two undertakings of the Iscrizioni and the Roma sotterranea stopped at their beginnings, the B. thus became the ordinary and principal organ for learning the fruits of De Rossi's studies and excavations in Christian Rome. In fact it always remained essentially Roman, but it broadened progressively in subject matter, embracing every branch of it. De Rossi's fundamental tendency to see Christian archaeology as history and apology of the Church is fully affirmed here; his preferences for epigraphic, historical and philological themes also have free development here, with the aid of 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. Its reading even today gives us the measure of the vastness and depth of De Rossi's archaeological knowledge and an exact notion 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 purpose of continuing the B. of the deceased master. However, important innovations were introduced, making it official for the excavation reports of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, broadening collaboration to all scholars including foreign ones and deliberately seeking to make of it a review of archaeology not only Roman but of all Italy, indeed of the world, and at the same time a timely informant of the principal publications. These two praiseworthy intentions never succeeded beyond partial attempts, because of the strictly Roman formation of the directors. Among these there died very soon Michele Stefano De Rossi (1898), Armellini (1896) and Stevenson (1898), so that Marucchi remained "Special Director" and almost arbiter of the publication. Besides the aforesaid, the most frequent and esteemed collaborators were Wilpert, Crostarosa, Kanzler, Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, Bonavenia and Schneider-Graziosi; more rarely Gatti, Grisar, Hülsen, Savio, Grossi Gondi and many others wrote in it. The publication in part strayed into sterile polemics; on the other hand, while faithfully preserving De Rossi's directions, it could by no means emulate the solid and vast learning of the old B. After having lived precariously, during the Great War, it ceased its publications with volume XXVII, in 1921. No indexes exist for it.