Calonymos ben Calonymos (Qalōnymōs ben Qalōnymōs)

CALONYMOS BEN CALONYMOS (Qalōnymōs ben Qalōnymōs). - Rabbi, born in 1286 at Arles in Provence and lived for some years in Italy. Among his writings he left a satire on the customs of the time entitled 'Ebhen bōhan = touchstone = or Massekheth Pūrim = the treatise Purim =. Bartolocci (Bibliotheca magna rabbinica) states, but without sure foundation, that he translated from Arabic into Hebrew the commentaries of Averroes on Aristotle.

He belonged to the well-known Jewish family of the Kalonymides, originally from Lucca, which in its wanderings through the northern countries and the Rhenish provinces was a powerful vehicle of the cultural awakening of the age. To it, through the work of MĀSOLĀM BEN CALONIMOS (born probably in Italy and died at Magnona around the year 1000), belongs the beginning of Rhenish liturgical poetry; it brought about the diffusion of mysticism, carried into Italy in the 9th century by Abū 'Ahārōn of Bagdad, and the flourishing, especially through the work of C. b. C., of the pījūt (= poetry) or rhymed prose resulting from a mixture of prose and verses akin to the Arabic maqāmah, which arose as a reaction against the inferior juridical literature of the preceding years.

The family is still represented in the 16th century by the Neapolitan CALO C., who during 1529 translated into Latin from Hebrew the book of Alpetragius: Theorica planetarum.

Faustino Salvoni