Joseph Calasanz
Spanish writer and saint
Joseph Calasanz (Catalan: Josep de Calassanç; Spanish: José de Calasanz; Italian: Giuseppe Calasanzio; September 11, 1557 – August 25, 1648), also known as Joseph Calasanctius and Josephus a Matre Dei, was a Spanish Catholic priest, educator and the founder of the Pious Schools, which provided free education to poor boys. For this purpose he founded the religious order that ran them, commonly known as the Piarists. He became a close friend of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei. Joseph is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church, following his 1767 papal canonisation.
Early biography
Calasanz was born in Peralta de Calasanz (before de la Sal) in the Kingdom of Aragon, on September 11, 1557, the youngest in a family of eight children, and the second son. His parents were Pedro de Calasanz y de Mur, an infanzón (minor nobleman) and town mayor, and Pedro's wife María Gastón y de Sala. Joseph had two sisters, Marta and Cristina. In his youth, he was nearly two meters tall. His parents gave him a good education at home and then at the elementary school of Peralta. In 1569, he was sent for classical studies to a college in Estadilla run by the friars of the Trinitarian Order.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q360589. VIAF identifies the subject as 52484210. The Library of Congress control number is n81078599. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1557, 1648, 1767 and 1569.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Calasanz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.