The last known manuscript of Eusebius “Gospel questions” is mentioned by Latino Latini in a letter to Andreas Masius. The information about it begins “Sirleto wants you to know…” The quotation was printed by Angelo Mai when he first printed the remains of that work of Eusebius, reprinted by Migne, and so on. I’ve been trying to locate the letter in which Latini says this, without much luck.
But in a way, perhaps I am looking at the wrong end. Latini never saw the manuscript. His information came from Sirleto. Possibly it came by word of mouth, but equally there might be a letter somewhere from Sirleto to Latini — such letters do exist.
What I need to do, I think, is to find the correspondence of Sirleto. Do the papers of Latini contain the letters he received, I wonder? Pierre Petitmengin will know, so I ought to ask him. Have Sirleto’s letters been published?
I know nothing about Sirleto. In Petitmengin’s article I find mention of P. Paschini, Guglielmo Sirleto prima del cardinalato [1565] in Tre ricerche sulla storia della Chiesa nel Cinquecento, Rome, 1945, p. 153-281. There is an article on Sirleto, Guglielmo in the Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, 10 (1995), c. 532-33. There is Denzler, Georg. Kardinal Guglielmo Sirleto : (1514 – 1585.) Leben u. Werk. Ein Beitrag z. nachtridentin. Reform. München : Hueber, 1964. I hate books in German.
Online there is an article in a curious Catholic Encyclopedia site (a site which puts page scans online and then meanly defaces them!), and in the Italian Wikipedia, which links to a site about cardinals in English with a Sirleto article with bibliography. Looking through the last, someone published stuff from Sirleto’s papers, and suggests that these are in the Vatican.
UPDATE: There is a Wikipedia article, spelling his name Gugliemo, and a real Catholic Encyclopedia site.
A very important note is that of Eusebius in a writing called “Ad Marinum”. It is possible that this writing represents a part of Eusebius’ lost work “On the inconsistencies of the Gospels” (De Evangeliorum Diaphonia). The first question here addressed is, why did Jesus appear in Matthew’s account “late on the Sabbath”, but in Mark (16:9) “early on the first day of the week”?
Compare also here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/nicenepostnicene01unknuoft/nicenepostnicene01unknuoft_djvu.txt
Scroll down to “This work consists of two parts”
Thanks for your interest! I think these “questions” are all interesting.
You may not know that I have commissioned an English translation of all the remaining portions of the Diaphonia, including the Quaestiones ad Marinum, on problems at the end f the gospels, the Quaestiones ad Stephanum, on problems at the start of the gospels, and all the Greek and Syriac fragments. All have been done except one of the Syriac fragments; all the Greek is being revised at the moment.
You can find all my posts about this project under the “Eusebius” tag. I intend to publish this in printed form, sell whatever I can for a year or so (to recover the cost of hiring the translators), and then make it freely available.