  We present a new investigation of the habitability of the Milky Way bulge,
that expands previous studies on the Galactic Habitable Zone. We discuss
existing knowledge on the abundance of planets in the bulge, metallicity and
the possible frequency of rocky planets, orbital stability and encounters, and
the possibility of planets around the central supermassive black hole. We focus
on two aspects that can present substantial differences with respect to the
environment in the disk: (i) the ionizing radiation environment, due to the
presence of the central black hole and to the highest rate of supernovae
explosions and (ii) the efficiency of putative lithopanspermia mechanism for
the diffusion of life between stellar systems. We use analytical models of the
star density in the bulge to provide estimates of the rate of catastrophic
events and of the diffusion timescales for life over interstellar distances.
