CORTENOVIS, MARCELO. - Barnabite missionary and naturalist, b. in Bergamo in 1732. Brother of Gherardo (v.) and of four other Barnabites, he left for the kingdom of Ava and Pegu (Burma) in 1771, arriving in September of the following year, 1772; he was designated bishop and apostolic vicar of that mission, but was not consecrated due to his sudden death.
For 26 years he devoted himself to the apostolic care of souls (in Monla, in Rangoon, in Nabeck directing the seminary for natives, and finally again in Rangoon governing the church of the Assumption and the orphanage, where he also gathered pious women under a rule similar to that of the Angeliche) alongside the study of natural history, of which he had already given some evidence while professor of letters and sciences in the seminary of Bologna and affiliated with the Accademia agraria of Udine (1768), in the *Giornale d'Italia*, and with Gresilini in Venice (1770). Among his manuscripts are two *Zibaldoni containing historical, geographical, botanical and zoological mentions of Burma*, plundered by Fr. Gallo and Fr. Gobio for the *Storia del cristianesimo nell'impero barnabita*. Worth noting is his journey into the Chinese province of Yunnan, with the aim of establishing relations with those French missionaries and teaching them the shortest route from China to Ava. A letter from Fr. Sangermano, who received his last breath, reported by Premoli (III, p. 409), establishes the precise date of his death (erroneous in Boffino and Levati) as June 5, 1798.