[2] Although quoted virtually uncritically from the 8th to 18th centuries,[3] the Liber Pontificalis has undergone intense modern scholarly scrutiny.

The work of the French priest Louis Duchesne (who compiled the major scholarly edition), and of others has highlighted some of the underlying redactional motivations of different sections, though such interests are so disparate and varied as to render improbable one populariser's claim that it is an "unofficial instrument of pontifical propaganda.

[2] Duchesne and others have viewed the beginning of the Liber Pontificalis up until the biographies of Pope Felix III (483–492) as the work of a single author, who was a contemporary of Pope Anastasius II (496-498), relying on Catalogus Liberianus, which in turn draws from the papal catalogue of Hippolytus of Rome,[2] and the Leonine Catalogue, which is no longer extant.

[4] As enlarged in the 6th century, each biography consists of: the birth name of the pope and that of his father, place of birth, profession before elevation, length of pontificate, historical notes of varying thoroughness, major theological pronouncements and decrees, administrative milestones (including building campaigns, especially of Roman churches), ordinations, date of death, place of burial, and the duration of the ensuing sede vacante.

[2] It was only in the 12th century that the Liber Pontificalis was systematically continued, although papal biographies exist in the interim period in other sources.

[2] Early in the 14th century, an unknown author built upon the continuation of Petrus Guillermi, adding the biographies of popes Martin IV (d. 1285) through John XXII (1316–1334), with information taken from the "Chronicon Pontificum" of Bernardus Guidonis, stopping abruptly in 1328.

[2] The Liber Pontificalis was first edited by Joannes Busaeus under the title Anastasii bibliothecarii Vitæ seu Gesta Romanorum Pontificum (Mainz, 1602).

[2] Muratori reprinted Bianchini's edition, adding the remaining popes through John XXII (Scriptores rerum Italicarum, III).

Texte, introduction et commentaire, 2 vols., Paris, 1886–92) and Theodor Mommsen (Gestorum Pontificum Romanorum pars I: Liber Pontificalis, Mon.