HÜLSEN, CHRISTIAN. - Protestant archaeologist and epigrapher, b. at Charlottenburg on 29 Nov. 1858, d. at Florence on 19 Jan. 1935. A disciple of Th. Mommsen, he was one of his collaborators for the edition of the Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum.
From 1887 he was first secretary of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome. His scholarly activity bears witness to his predilection for Rome, for its monuments, for its churches and for the works of the Renaissance. He lived almost always in Italy, for more than twenty years in Rome, after 1909 in Florence, except for a brief period in Heidelberg.
The list of his writings was given by A. M. Colini (v. bibl.). Among these, mention should be made first of all of the supplementary volume to H. Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum (I, III, Berlin 1907); his volume Das Forum Romanum (ibid. 1904), which had several editions and translations into Italian, French and English; the study on Die römischen Skizzenbücher von Marten van Heemskerk im königlichen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin (ibid. 1916), and on Das Skizzenbuch des Giannantonio Dosio im staatlichen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin (ibid. 1933); his studies on architects, such as Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo, cod. Vat. Barb. lat. 448 (Leipzig 1910); furthermore the Saggio di bibliografia ragionata delle piante iconografiche e prospettiche di Roma dal 1551 al 1748 (Florence 1933). Leaving aside the work of the topographer and the epigrapher, C. H. is to be remembered here especially for his publications relating to the Christian monuments of Rome. In collaboration with Th. Kiepert he published the Codex urbis Romae topographicus, with an appended Nomenclator topographicus (2nd ed., Berlin 1912), in which all the ancient churches of Rome are listed. Among his other writings are remembered: La pianta di Roma dell'anonimo Einsiedlense, in Dissertazioni della Pont. Accademia romana di archeologia, 2nd series, 9 (1907), pp. 379-424; Il fondatore della basilica di S. Andrea sull'Esquilino, in Nuovo bullettino di arch. crist., 5 (1899), pp. 171-76; Die Basilica des Iunius Bassus und die Kirche S. Andrea cata Barbara auf dem Esquilin, in Festschrift für J. Schlosser (Berlin 1926), pp. 53-67; Osservazioni sulla biografia di Leone III nel Liber pontificalis, in Rendiconti della Pont. Accademia romana di archeologia, 2nd series, 1 (1923); Die Kirchen des heiligen Caesarius in Rom, in Miscellanea F. Ehrle (Studi e Testi, 38), Rome 1924, pp. 377-403.
But his fundamental work is Le Chiese di Roma (Florence 1927), published through the munificence of Pope Pius XI, to whom it is dedicated with gratitude by the author, after thirty years of research.
As a profound connoisseur of the topography of the Urbs through the centuries, C. H.'s work is historical and topographical in character; he investigates the genuine form of the names and the exactness of the location of the sanctuaries, their chronology from the ancient tituli to the 14th century. Of fundamental importance are the chapters devoted to the ancient catalogues of the churches of Rome from the 7th to the 16th century; to the indications drawn from the Libri anniversariorum, to the codices of various libraries of Europe with indications relating to the city's churches.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi