CALONIMOS ben CALONIMOS (Qalōnimōs ben Qalōnimōs). - Rabbi, born in 1286 at Arles in Provence, he 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 Purim treatise =. Bartolocci (Bibliotheca magna rabbinica) asserts, though without certain foundation, that he translated Averroë’s commentaries on Aristotle from Arabic into Hebrew.
He belonged to the well-known Jewish family of the Calonimidi, originally from Lucca, which, in its wanderings through the northern countries and the Rhenish provinces, was a powerful vehicle of the cultural revival of the period. To it, through the work of MĀSOLĀM BEN CALONIMOS (probably born in Italy and died at Magnona around the year 1000), belongs the beginning of Rhenish liturgical poetry; it promoted the spread of mysticism, brought to Italy in the 9th century by Abū 'Ahārōn of Baghdad, 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 in reaction to the poor legal literature of the preceding years.
The family was still represented in the 16th century by the Neapolitan CALO C., who in 1529 translated Alpetragio’s book from Hebrew into Latin: Theorica planetarum.