Ignatius of Jesus (Carlo Leonelli)

IGNATIUS OF JESUS (CARLO LEONELLI). - Carmelite missionary. He was born at Sorbolongo (Pesaro, Italy) in 1596. Having earned a doctorate in utroque iure, he became a Discalced Carmelite in the Roman province and professed on 27 February 1626 at Montecompatri. From 1629 he was a missionary in Isfahan (Persia), then from 1634 in Shiraz. Transferred in 1641 to Basra as superior of that convent, he labored greatly there for the conversion of the Mandaeans, that is, the pseudo-Sabians, commonly called "Christians of St. John the Baptist"; concerning their worship he sent to Rome, for the information of the S. Congregazione di Propaganda, an interesting illustrated document, the so-called Divan Maudaeorum, with his own annotations and explanations in the margin (Biblioteca Vaticana, cod. Borgiano, siriaco 175). Transferred in 1656 to the mission of Syria, he worked at Tripoli and on Mount Lebanon until 1664, the year in which he was recalled to Rome, where he died on 21 February 1667.

There remain from him: Narratio originis, rituum, et errorum Christianorum S. Joannis, with a confutation of the errors of this people (Rome 1652); Grammatica linguae Persicae (ibid. 1661); Dictionarium latino-Persicum (ms., Biblioteca Vaticana, fondo Borgia); Scirinium duarum linguarum orientalium, i. e. Persicae et Arabicae (ms., Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, Rome); Doctrina Christiana Em. mi D. card. Bellarmini in Persicum translata (ms., Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, Rome).

Ambrogio di Santa Teresa