Jerusalem and its surroundings have been one of the main fields of research and study of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum since its foundation in 1902 by the Custody of the Holy Land. The sites investigated stretch from the Middle and Late Bronze periods to the Hellenistic-Roman and Medieval periods. These include the “Jebusite” material culture in the cemetery on the eastern and western slopes of the Mount of Olives (Dominus Flevit and Bethany) published by Fr. Sylvester Saller and Fr. Stanislao Loffreda, respectively, the Hellenistic-Roman cemetery excavated at the same place and published by Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti and Fr. Józef Tadeusz Milik, as well as the Byzantine monastery excavated at Dominus Flevit and published by Bagatti.

Research at the Franciscan Institute has focused mainly on the monuments of the Byzantine–Medieval periods that were built on the Christian holy sites of the city, including the excavations of the Lazarion conducted and published by Saller and those in Ain Karim by Bagatti.

The restoration project carried out inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, beginning in 1962, resulted in Fr. Virgilio Corbo’s three-volume publication devoted to the Holy Sepulcher complex, and the same scholar published the results of his archaeological studies in the Gethsemane Garden and at the place of the Ascension.

The coins of Aelia Capitolina and those struck during the First Jewish Revolt found in a Dominus Flevit tomb were studied by Fr. Augusto Spijkerman and published in Liber Annuus, where scholars of the Institute have published most of the interim reports of their excavations and studies.