Giuseppe Gaetano Pietro Massimo Maria Calleri (Callery)

Sinologist, he was ordained a priest in 1834. He became a missionary in China, and then he left the clergy to enter the service of the French consul in Macao. He went back to Paris in 1846 and was appointed secrétaire-interprète pour les langues de la Chine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He kept this position for his entire life, aside from the years between 1849 and 1852, when he temporarily left it for financial reasons. During his travels Calleri collected a rich library, but he was twice forced, in 1849 and 1857, to sell a part of his collection. The second buyer was Guillaume Pauthier, who sued Calleri over the poor condition of many of the texts, opening a long and complex judicial controversy. The extant part of Calleri’s collection was sold in an auction in 1876.