BALDASSARRE di Santa Maria. — Discalced Carmelite (born B. de Azevedo), missionary, originally from Lisbon (1590). He took the habit in Rome (1608) and was sent to Persia (1615), where he devoted many years to translating the Gospels into that language. Two of his works survive in the Vatican Library (Persian manuscripts): one (no. 57) contains sacred discourses in Persian, and the other (no. 6) a Persian-Tuscan vocabulary. He died on mission in 1662.
BIBL.: Anon., A Chronicle of Carmelites in Persia, II, London 1939, pp. 807-808; Ambrosius a s. Terezia, Bibliogr. Miss. Carm. Disc., nos. 171-172; id., Nomenclator Mission. C. D., pp. 60-61.