MARIO da MERCATO SARACENO. – First Capuchin historian, b. 1512–13 into the noble FABIANI family, d. at Tolentino in 1581. Having passed from the Augustinian Hermits to the Capuchins in 1539–40, he served three times as provincial (of Bologna in 1555 and 1561, and of the Marches in 1556–59) and four times as definitor general, twice as minister general (1567–73).
At the instigation of Cosimo I de’ Medici he composed the Relationes de origine Ordinis Fr. Min. Capuccinorum (ed. Melchior a Pobludura, Assisi 1937); he also wrote several little poems. A forty-year-old sermon of his is still preserved unpublished in the Biblioteca Estense of Modena (v. L. 12.11).
Bibl.: Melchior a Pobludura, De vita et scriptis p. Marii Fabiani a Foro Sarsinio, in Collectanea Franciscana, 6 (1936), pp. 552–54; id., Poemetti del p. M. Fabiani generale dei Cappuccini, in L'Italia francescana, 12 (1937), pp. 315–25, 409–14; 13 (1938), pp. 27–32, 418–23; id., Historia generalis Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum, pars 1, Roma 1947, pp. 59–61, 237 sq.; N. Mancini, Un poemetto mariano del p. M. Fabiani?, in L'Italia francescana, 9 (1934), pp. 195–208; T. Graf, Zur Entstehung des Kapuzinerordens. Quellenkritische Studien, Olten 1940.