Section A: Epistulae, vol. 1

A critical edition of Guglielmo Sirletos unpublished letters is still missing. The partial transcriptions of this large collection of epistles in the volumes of the Concilium Tridentinum by Gottfried Buschbell only provided partial transcriptions relating to Cardinal Marcello Cervinis legation during the Council of Trent betwen 1545 and 1547. While scholars have recognized Sirletos assistance to Cardinal Cervinis Tridentine exploitations and compositions of various critical decrees, the larger context of his entry into the household and Roman enterprises oft he powerful cardinal editore Cervini remain largely obscure. The following critical edition of Guglielmo Sirletos first letters, including other relevant correspondence between Sirletos arrival in Rome around 1539 and Marcello Cervinis departure for Trent in 1545 by distinguished Roman ecclesiastical officeholders within the papal Curia, aims at demonstrating how the collaboration between Cervinis enterpreneurial endeavors of his printing presses as well as his coordination of important theological brokers during the Dialogues of Religion in Germany, especially at the Diet of Regensburg in 1541, and Sirletos own ecclesiastical career emerged from a considerable failure at providing an authentic response to Lutheran as well as Protestant theological challenges. The first volume of the edited correspondence between Sirleto and one of his first most important patron as well as ardent supporters, the Cardinal of Santa Croce Marcello Cervini, offers various hitherto largely disregarded original documents that allow it to perceive Guglielmo Sirletos first years in Rome as a result from a larger Curial failure in affirming its ecclesiological status and significance towards Lutheran and Protestant theological challenges.