The Bologna School is a historical school of ecclesiastical history

Ecclesiastical History

Ecclesiastical History or ecclesiastical history may refer to:*Ecclesiastical history *Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum by Bede*Church History , pioneer work on the Christian Church by Eusebius of Caesarea...

, specializing in the history of the Second Vatican Council

Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

, and largely supportive of the so-called hermeneutic of rupture, creating a pre-Conciliar and post-Conciliar period. The leading minds of this historical school have been Alberto Melloni

Alberto Melloni

Alberto Melloni is a church historian known especially for his work on the Second Vatican Council.Melloni studied in Bologna, Cornell and Fribourg...

 and Giuseppe Alberigo.

Among the critics of the School have been Vatican chief historian Walter Brandmüller

Walter Brandmüller

Walter Brandmüller PhD is a cardinal of the Catholic Church and President Emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences....

, Italian historian Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei is an Italian Roman Catholic historian and author.- Biography :Former student and assistant to the philosopher of politics Augusto del Noce and to the historian Armando Saitta at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome, he has extensively studied...

, and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.