Nicola Coleti

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Nicola Coleti (or Coletti; 1680 - 1765) was an Italian Catholic priest and historian.

Born in Venice, 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 Ferdinando 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, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio by Philippe Labbe and Gabriel Cossart (1671-72), and that of Hardouin (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 used Baluze and Hardouin. It was published by his brother Sebastiano 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 (1749), and Monumenta ecclesiæ Venetæ S. Moisis (1758). Coleti also annotated a manuscript of Scipione Maffei, now preserved in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana at Rome.

He died at Venice in 1765.

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.