CALONIMOS ben CALONIMOS (Qalônîmôs ben Qalônîmôs). — Rabbi, born in 1286 at Arles in Provence and who lived for some years in Italy. Among his writings he left a satire on the customs of the time entitled *Ebbien bôhan* (touchstone) or *Massekheti Pûrîm* (the Treatise of Purim). Bartolocci (*Bibliotheca magna rabbinica*) states, though without secure foundation, that he translated from Arabic into Hebrew the commentaries of Averroës on Aristotle.
He belonged to the noted Jewish family of the Calonimids, originally from Lucca, which in its wanderings through the northern countries and the Rhenish provinces became a powerful vehicle for the cultural revival of the age. To this family, through the work of MêSÛLAM BEN CALÔNIMÔS (born probably in Italy and died at Mainz about the year 1000), belongs the beginning of liturgical poetry: *piyyût*. In Italy in the 9th century, through Abû'Ahârôn of Baghdad, there flourished, especially through the work of C. b. C., the *piyyût* (persona) or rhymed prose resulting from a mixture of prose and verse akin to the Arabic *maqāma*, which arose in reaction to 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*.