IGNAZIO di GESÙ (CARLO LEONELLI). – Carmelite missionary. He was born at Sorbolongo (Pesaro, Italy) in 1596. Having taken a degree in both laws, he became a Discalced Carmelite in the Roman province and made his profession on 27 February 1626 at Montecompatri. From 1629 he was a missionary in Isfahan (Persia), and from 1634 at Shiraz. Transferred in 1641 to Basra as superior of that convent, he laboured greatly for the conversion of the Mandaeans, or pseudo-Sabians, commonly called “Christians of St John the Baptist.” Concerning their worship, he sent to Rome, for the information of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, an interesting illustrated document, the so-called Divan Maudaeorum, with his own marginal annotations and explanations (Vatican Library, Borgian codex, Syriac 175). Transferred in 1656 to the Syrian mission, 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 by him: Narratio originis, rituum, et errorum Christianorum S. Joannis, with a refutation of the errors of this people (Rome 1652); Grammatica linguae Persicae (ibid. 1661); Dictionarium latino-Persicum (ms., Vatican Library, Borgia collection); 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).