Valperga di Caluso, Tommaso - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 623

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

VALPERGA di CALUSO, TOMMASO. — An abbot and Piedmontese scholar, born in Turin on 20 December 1737, died there on 1 April 1815.

A priest open to every horizon, philosopher, philologist, versifier, mathematician, astronomer—a true type of encyclopedic scholar who had acquired his education through his own direct preparation and study—he became famous for his numerous publications, memoirs, and essays on the most varied subjects, from Literaturae Copticae rudimentum and Prima lezioni di grammatica ebraica to the Principes de philosophie pour les initiés aux mathématiques, the three books Della poesia, and so forth. He gathered around himself the most cultivated and progressive element of Piedmont in various academies, encouraging Alfieri, guiding A. Peyron and C. Boucheron in Oriental studies, and influencing, together with Lodovico di Breme, the emerging Romantic movement. Gioberti judged him “the most learned man in Italy and perhaps the most universal sage of his time.”

BIBL.: the list of his works in C. Saluzzo, Notizie di T. V. di C., Turin 1815; C. Boucheron, De Thoma V. Calusio,

Article illustration — VALPARAISO, DIOCESE OF — View of the city and harbor.
(from K. von Schumacher, Südamerika, Berlin 1931, pls. 227)

there 1833; C. Calcaterra, Il «nostro imminente risorgimento», there 1935, pp. 42–50, 469–80; G. C. Rossi, L'abate C. e il Portogallo, in Convictium, new series, 1947, p. 727. Piero Sannazzaro