CORTENOVIS, MARCELLO. – Barnabite missionary and naturalist, born in Bergamo in 1732. Brother of Gherardo (v.) and of four other Barnabites, he departed for the kingdom of Ava and Pegu (Burma) in 1771, arriving in September of the following year; he was designated bishop and apostolic vicar of that mission, but was not consecrated because of his subsequent death.
For 26 years he combined his apostolic care of souls (at Monlà, Rangoon, and Nabock, where he directed the seminary for indigenous people, and finally once again at Rangoon, in the administration of the Church of the Assumption and of the orphanage, where he also gathered pious women under a rule similar to that of the Angelicals) with the study of natural history. He had already published some specimens of his work while he was professor of literature and sciences at the seminary of Bologna and an associate of the Agrarian Academy of Udine (1768), in the Giornale d'Italia published by Grisellini in Venice (1770). Among his manuscripts are two Zibaldoni contenenti memorie storiche, geografiche, botaniche e zoologiche della Birmania, plundered by Father Gallo and Father Gobio for the Storia del cristianesimo nell'impero barmano. Worthy of mention is a journey he made to the Chinese province of Yun-nan, with the aim of establishing relations with those French missionaries and teaching them the shortest route from China to Ava. A letter from Father Sangermano, who received his last breath, reported by Premoli (III, p. 409), establishes the precise date of his death—incorrectly given by Boffito and Levati—as 5 June 1798.