Nicola Coleti

(COLETTI)

Priest and historian, b. at Venice, 1680; d. in the same city, 1765. He studied at Padua, where he received the degree of Doctor. He was sent to the church of San Moisè at Venice, and there devoted himself to historical and antiquarian research. His first work of importance was a new edition of Ughelli's "Italia Sacra" published in ten volumes from 1717 to 1722. Besides correcting many errors, Coleti continued Ughelli's history to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Coleti then undertook the compilation of his large work entitled "Collectio Conciliorum". Up to this time there had been two standard histories of the councils, that of Labbe and Cossart (Paris, 1671-72), and that of Hardouin (Paris, 1715). Baluze had begun a similar work, but only the first volume had appeared. Coleti's collection was based on that of Labbe, though he availed himself of the labours of Baluze and Hardouin. The work was published by his brother Sebastiano at Venice from 1728 to 1733 in twenty-three volumes. The last two were called "Apparatus primus" and "Apparatus secundus", containing the indexes, for which the collection was especially valuable. Other works of Coleti's were "Series episcoporum Cremonensium aucta" (Milan, 1749); "Monumenta ecclesiæ Venetæ S. Moisis" (1758) — this is valuable to the historian for the ancient documents it makes known. Coleti also annotated a manuscript of Maffei now preserved in the Biblioteca Vallicellana at Rome and bearing the title: "Supplementum Acacianum monumenta nunquam edita continens, quæ marchio Scipio Maffeius a vetustissimis Veronesis capituli codicibus eruit atque illustravit, editum Venetiis apud Sebastianum Coleti anno 1728". In addition to the above, two posthumous dissertations, said to have been published by his brothers, have been attributed to Coleti, but the only mention of them is found in an old catalogue.