Mark of Lisbon

Mark of Lisbon, in Portuguese Marcos de Lisboa, in Latin Marcus Ulyssiponensis, (1511-1591), was a Portuguese Franciscan, historian, and the Bishop of Porto.

While visiting the main convents of the Franciscan Order in Spain, Italy, and France, Mark collected a number of original documents about the order's history at the instance of the minister general, André Álvarez. Earlier, in 1532, the minister general, Paul Pisotti, had instructed all the provincials of the order to collect all documents they could find pertaining to the fifteenth century, to continue the Conformities of Bartholomew of Pisa. When these documents were gathered together, it was given to Mark, who compiled them together with information he himself had gathered, as well as that from the Chronicle of Marianus of Florence, into his Portuguese language work Chronicle of the Friars Minor. This was published in Lisbon from 1557 to 1568.

The work is made up almost entirely of biographies of illustrious men of the order, which makes the title somewhat misleading. It is of great historical value, especially since the original sources to which the author had access, have entirely disappeared.

Mark of Lisbon is confused with Franciscan friar and lexicographer Marcos de Lisboa who actually authored the first major vocabulary in the Bikol language in the Philippines, the Vocabulario de la lengua Bicol and which according to Malcolm Mintz was rendered in manuscript form around 1610. However, though it was compiled from 1602 to 1611, the dictionary would only be posthumously published in 1754, and Arte de la lengua Bicol (1647) from Andres de San Agustin preceded it in print.

Bibliography

• Carvalho, José Adriano Moreira de Freitas [Publ.]: Frei Marcos de Lisboa: cronista franciscano e bispo do Porto, Porto, Faculdade de Letras do Porto, 2002. The contribution of Bernard Dompnier, "Les enjeux de l’édition française des Chroniques de frère Marc de Lisbonne" can be read online.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Mark of Lisbon — (Properly MARCOS DA SILVA).

Friar minor, historian, and Bishop of Oporto in Portugal, b. at Lisbon (date of birth uncertain); d. in 1591. While visiting the principal convents of the Franciscan Order in Spain, Italy, and France, at the instance of the minister general, Fr. Andrea Alvarez, he succeeded in collecting a number of original documents bearing upon the history of the order. Previous to this in 1532 the minister general, Father Paul Pisotti, had instructed all the provincials of the order to collect all documents they could find pertaining to the fifteenth century, for the purpose of continuing the "Conformities" of Bartholomew of Pisa. A great part of the material thus brought together was given to Mark of Lisbon; with the aid of which, and of the Chronicle of Marianus of Florence and what he had himself collected, he compiled in Portuguese his well-known "Chronicle of the Friars Minor", published at Lisbon in 1556-68. This work has gone through several editions; and has been translated into Italian, French, and Spanish, and partly into English. The Italian translation by Horatio Diola, bearing the title "Croniche degli Ordini instituti dal P.S. Francesco" (Venice, 1606) is perhaps the best known of these and the one most often quoted, because it is the most accessible. The work is taken up almost completely with biographies of illustrious men of the order, the title being thus somewhat misleading. It is of great historical value, especially since the original sources to which the author had access, have entirely disappeared. It is worth recording that to Mark of Lisbon we are indebted for the first edition of a grammar of the Bicol language in the Philippine Islands.

WADDING, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (Rome, 1907), 167; ROBINSON, A Short Introduction to Franciscan Literature (New York, 1907), 17, 42; LE MONNIER, History of St. Francis (London, 1894), 17-18.