La tradizione latina della Passio Faustae et Evilasii (BHL 2833-5) alla luce del modello greco ritrovato

This paper provides the first modern scholarly examination of the Greek-Latin hagiographic dossier of the Passio Faustae et Evilasii (B.H.G. 658-658c - B.H.L. 2833-2835), by taking into consideration both the Greek and the Latin manuscripts.A quite recent edition exists for the Greek text, although it simply consists of the transcription of a single witness (Jerusalem, Library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, 1), whereas the Latin version is still unpublished.The collation of the main Greek witnesses has revealed that the ms. Grottaferrata, Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale, B.α.15 (XI cent.) – which has never been studied so far – stands out against the oth- ers, because it contains a much longer text, as well as many other individual variant readings.The Latin redactions agree very consistently with the ms. Cryptensis, which therefore turns out to transmit the same Greek recension that was contained in the model employed by the Latin translator(s). For this reason, the text of the Cryptensis allows us to recognize the genealogical relationships between the Latin texts: B.H.L 2833 and 2834 take center stage here, because they can now be identified as two independent revisions of an earlier (lost) Latin translations and have both retained some original read- ings.Finally,the paper draws attention to the codicological context in which the Latin version is transmitted, and in particular highlights the ms.Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, F.III.16 (B.H.L. 2834, X cent.). Since it preserves a remarkable hagiographic booklet realized no later than the VIII cent., the text of the Passio Faustae that it contains pre-dates every other manuscript witness by three centuries, and thus gives access to a very early stage in the circulation of this hagiographic legend.