Galaxy Bulges and Elliptical Galaxies

Our knowledge on the central components of disk galaxies has grown substan- tially in the past few decades, particularly so in the last. T his frantic activity and the com- plexity of the subject promote confusion in the community. In these notes, I discuss the concept of galactic bulge and its different flavors. I also address fundamental scaling re- lations and the bulge-elliptical galaxy connection, their central black holes and formation models. In particular, I aim at conveying three important notions: (i): box/peanuts are just the inner parts of bars; (ii): the physical reality of two different families of bulges is evident; and (iii): at the high mass end, at least, classical bulges are not just scaled down ellipticals surrounded by disks.