Caldora, Giacomo - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 219

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

CALDORA, GIACOMO. – Powerful baron and captain from Abruzzo, b. at Castel del Giudice, on the Sangro, in 1368, and d. on 15 November 1439. Elected captain general of the Church and of Queen Giovanna (April 1424), he marched against Braccio together with Francesco Sforza, inflicting on him near Aquila the famous and bloody defeat in which Braccio met his death on 2 June 1424 (R. Valentini, Lo stato di Braccio e la guerra aquilana, in Arch. della soc. rom. di storia patria, 52 [1929], pp. 312, 318–31). His fame and power, after he had taken possession of all the lands seized from him by Braccio, then reached their height. All the Italian states competed for his allegiance, but he remained faithful to the queen and the Pope. In compensation for an expedition against Bologna, which had rebelled against the cardinal legate (1428), he received the castle of Bari and Carbonara in pledge, and assumed the title of duke (1430).

At the death of Queen Giovanna (1435), in the struggle that followed between the two claimants to the throne, Alfonso d’Aragona and Renato d’Angiò, C. followed the latter with the support of Pope Eugenio IV, and often resisted the Aragonese single-handed. He died suddenly during a siege of the town of Colle Sannita, and was buried at Sulmona with great honor.

BIBL.: Sources: all the chroniclers of the period, among whom may be cited: B. Fazio, Fatti d'Alfonso d'Aragona, Italian translation by G. Mauro, Venezia 1580; Anon., Diurnali di Monteleone, Napoli 1895; P. Collenuccio, Compendio delle istorie del regno di Napoli (Scrittori d'Italia, 115), Bari 1929; G. A. Campano, De vita et rebus gestis Braccii Perusini, in Rerum ital. scriptores, XIX, iv, nuova ed., Bologna 1929; T. Caracciolo, De varietate fortunei, ibid. XXII, 1, ivi 1934, pp. 73–105. Among the more recent historians: E. Ricotti, Storia delle compagnie di ventura, II, Torino 1883; N. F. Faraglia, Storia della regina Giovanna II d'Angiò, Lanciano 1904; id., Storia della lotta tra Alfonso V d'Aragona e Renato d'Angiò, ivi 1908; G. Masciotta, Una gloria ignorata del Molise. G. C. nel suo tempo e nella posterità, Faenza 1926,

Renata Orazi Ausenda