Archivio Segreto 
25 
Dataria, blit also consistorial bulls, prepared to execute decisions announced 
by the Pope in consistory, and issued by the chancery. 
It consists of 2161 volumes extending from the reign of Boniface IX. 
(1389-1404) to 1803, 13 and later volumes not yet accessible. Those made 
public have been inventoried by Fiocchi in indice 310 A , 14 which serves also 
as a concordance between the old system of numbering by years of each pon¬ 
tificate, and the new continuous numeration. Still further, it notes the vol¬ 
umes missing from the complete series, which are very numerous, the collec¬ 
tion having suffered on the journey to Paris. 
This register is of paper, in volumes of from 300 to 320 pages, octavo size. 
The copies seem to have been made on bunches of sheets, subsequently bound 
together. The arrangement is not chronological. The apparatus for the use 
of these volumes is found in indici 325 - 436 . It does not, for the most part, 
consist, as in the case of the Vatican Register, of rnbricellae , 15 nor are there 
such in the individual volumes. Here the aids are indexes. Each index 
volume serves for the registers of a given period, the index being by dioceses. 
All the A’s of the first volume to be indexed are brought together, then the 
A’s of the second volume, and so on, through the several letters and volumes. 
Director Kehr of the Prussian Institute found Garampi’s references to the 
series useful, 16 but this would hardly be the case with a person not thoroughly 
familiar with the Archivio. All these aids refer to the complete series, and 
their references, therefore, can not always be verified now that so many vol¬ 
umes have been lost. 
These bulls have to do in the first place with the conferring of ecclesiastical 
dignities, benefices, and emoluments; then with ecclesiastical indulgences, 
dispensations, and privileges; and finally with matters of ecclesiastical polity, 
such as the erection of congregations and general regulations for religious 
practices and the control of religious organizations. 
In search of American material many volumes of indexes were used, but 
the only portions exhaustively examined were the following: Indice 405 , 
“ Index Bullarum dementis XI., Innocentii XIII., Benedicti XIII., demen¬ 
tis XII., Benedicti XIV., 1700-1740.” This is not complete, and the line of 
selection is not obvious. It refers to a decree for the canonization of a former 
archbishop of Lima, 17 to rules for regulars in the regions of the Indies, 18 to 
a grant of decimae in the Western Indies of Spain for their defence, 19 to the 
revocation of a decree of Pius V. on the employment of regulars in parishes 
in the Western Indies, 20 and other decrees of general application. Indici 
406-410 index the bulls of Benedict XIV. (1740-1758), dealing with bene¬ 
fices. 21 The American material occurs regularly. There are two or three 
“Hinojosa, Los Despachos, pp. xxxiv-xxxvii, gives the number as 4200 and the dates 
as extending to Gregory XVI. (1831-1846). This number probably includes the briefs, 
which are here mentioned separately. The date is doubtless correct, but the later 
volumes are, of course, not yet regularly accessible. 
14 “ Concordantia numeri rubricellarum regestorum Lateranensium, seu veteris cum 
novo numero, An. 1903.” 
lj A number are described in the Inventorium Indicum as rubricellae, but are really 
indexes. 
18 Kehr, Aeltere Papsturkunden (Gottingen, 1902), p. 402. 
17 Benedict XIII., vol. IV., f. 7. 
18 Benedict XIV., vol. VI., f. 72. 
19 Benedict XIV., vol. XII., f. 140. 
20 Benedict XIV., vol. VII., f. 323. 
21 “ Epitome Bullarum Beneficialium SS. D. N. Benedicti XIV.” 
