CALÒ, PIETRO. – Dominican, hagiographer, born at Chioggia, died perhaps at Cividale del Friuli on 11 December 1348. In 1307 he was appointed lector at the convent of Ferrara (Arch. Frat. Praed., 13 [1943], p. 145 ff.). His legendary contains personal information for the years 1330 and 1342.
He wrote: Legendae de tempore and Legendae de Sanctis; the former are lessons for the de tempore feasts, while the latter constitute a valuable legendary of the lives of the saints, containing 863 notices. The original number was 857, including some duplicates, after which there is an explicit. The six nos. 858–863 were added later, perhaps by the same author. About fifteen of these lives have been published here and there; de Natalibus (v.) drew extensively upon them, but the work as such remains unpublished, perhaps because of its great length. It is found in three codices, described in Analecta Bollandiana, 29 (1910), pp. 44–108: cod. Barberini lat. 713–714, of the fourteenth century, in the Vatican Library; cods. IX, 15–IX, 20 of the library of S. Marco (Venice), 6 vols., of the fourteenth century, extremely complete but less accurate than the Barberini codices; and cod. XVI, G. 23, of the fifteenth century, in the cathedral (Protestant) library of York, incomplete, covering only the last five months. This legendary is valuable because the author collected and abridged many earlier texts, displaying a certain critical sense.