CALASIO, MARIO da. — Friar Minor, born at Calasio in the Abruzzi in 1550, died in Rome on 24 January 1620. He entered the Franciscan Order at a young age and devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew, which he pursued for 40 years, thereby attracting the attention of Paul V, of whom he later became confessor. Paul V summoned him to Rome, conferred upon him the title of Doctor, and appointed him “general teacher of the holy language” in the City. His teacher of Hebrew was the converted Jew Fabio Fioghi, lecturer in that language at the Collegio dei neofiti, which instructed Jews in the Christian religion. C. taught Hebrew first in the convent of S. Pietro in Montorio, then in that of Aracoeli, the residence of the Order’s minister general and of its general house of studies.
C. published a Hebrew grammar (Verbum Dei, Canones generales linguae sanctae hebraicae, Rome 1616) and a Hebrew dictionary (ibid. 1617). His principal work, however, is the Hebrew Concordances (Concordantiae sacrorum Bibliorum hebraicorum, in quibus chaldicicae etiam librorum Esdrae et Danielis suo loco inseruntur, 2 vols., Rome 1621, apud Stephanum Paulinum). In publishing this colossal work, he intended first of all to provide Latin readers with a version of the “Hebrew Concordances” of Rabbi Isaac Mordechai Nathan (Venice 1323), a work written in Hebrew without vowels, of whose Hebrew roots the famous Giovanni Reuchlin had made a Latin version. C. made free use of II. He then added rabbinic, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic words corresponding to the Hebrew ones, in order to explain the Hebrew roots more fully, and also made use of the Theatrum linguae sanctae of Sante Pagnini (Lyons 1529), the Dictionarium Polyglottae Complutensis, and Schindler’s Lexicon pentaglorum (Hanover 1612). For the publication of this first Hebrew-Latin biblical concordance issued by a Catholic, a printing press of its own was established in the convent of Aracoeli; and, since C. had already died in 1620, WADDING, LUKAS (v.) brought the publication to completion, prefacing it with the introductions that appear under various names. The work was published in Rome in 1621–22; another edition was produced by Guglielmo Romaine in London in 1747–49. Although various authors still indicate other editions, the undersigned was able to accept only the two mentioned above.