Calasio, Mario da

CALASIO, MARIO da. - Friar Minor, b. at Calasio in the Abruzzi in 1550, d. at Rome on 24 Jan. 1620. He entered the Franciscan Order young and devoted himself especially to the study of Hebrew, which he continued for 40 years, so that he attracted the attention of Paul V, whose confessor he later became. The pope summoned him to Rome, granted him the title of Doctor and appointed him "master general of the holy language" in the City. His teacher of Hebrew was the converted Jew Fabio Fioghi, reader of that language at the College of the Neophytes, who instructed Jews in the Christian religion. C. taught Hebrew first in the convent of S. Pietro in Montorio, then in that of Aracoeli, seat of the minister general of the Order and of the studium generale.

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 give the Latins 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 Johann Reuchlin had made a Latin version. C. made free use of it. Then he added rabbinic, Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic words corresponding to the Hebrew ones, in order to explain the Hebrew roots better, and he also made use of the Theatrum linguae sanctae of Santes Pagnini (Lyons 1529), of the Dictionarium Polyglottae Complutensis and of the Lexicon pentaglorum of Schindler (Hannover 1612). For the edition of this first Hebrew-Latin biblical concordance, published by a Catholic, a printing press of its own was established in the convent of Aracoeli, and, since C. had already died in 1620, the famous Irishman Luke Wadding (v.) brought the publication to completion, prefixing to it the prefaces that are found under various names. The work appeared at Rome in 1621-22; another edition was produced by William Romaine, in London, in 1747-49. Although various authors still indicate other editions, the undersigned could accept only the two above-mentioned.

Arduino Kleinhans