CALASIO, MARIO da. - Franciscan friar, born at Calasio in the Abruzzi in 1550, died in Rome on 24 January 1620. He entered the Franciscan Order while still young and devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew, which he pursued for 40 years, so much so that he earned the attention of Paul V, of whom he later became confessor. The Pope summoned him to Rome, granted him the title of Doctor, and appointed him “general master of the holy language” in the city. His Hebrew teacher was the converted Jew Fabio Fioghi, a reader of that language at the College of Neophytes, which instructed Jews in the Christian religion. Calasio taught Hebrew first in the convent of S. Pietro in Montorio, then in that of Aracoceli, the seat of the Minister General of the Order and of the general study house.
Calasio 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 chaldaicae etiam librorum Esdrae et Danielis suo loco inseruntur*, 4 vols., Rome 1621, apud Stephanum Paulinum). In publishing this monumental work, his primary aim was to provide Latins with a version of the “Hebrew Concordances” by Rabbi Isaac Mordechai Nathan (Venice 1323), a work written in Hebrew without vowels, whose Hebrew roots had been rendered into Latin by the famous Johannes Reuchlin. Calasio made free use of this work. He then added Rabbinic, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic words corresponding to the Hebrew roots to clarify them further, and he also consulted the *Thesaurus linguae sanctae* of Santi Pagnini (Lyons 1529), the *Dictionarium Polyglottae Completensis*, and the *Lexicon pentaglotum* of Schindler (Hanover 1612). To publish this first Hebrew-Latin biblical concordance by a Catholic, a printing press was established in the Aracoceli convent, and since Calasio had already died in 1620, WADDING, LUKAS (v.) completed the publication, prefacing it with the prefaces that appear under various names. The work was issued in Rome in 1621–22; a second edition was produced by William Romaine in London in 1747–49. Although various authors mention other editions, the undersigned has been able to confirm only the two mentioned above.