MAZZARA DEL VALLO, a town of Sicily, in the province of Trapani, on the south-west coast of the island, 32 m. by rail S. of Trapani. Pop. (1901), 20,130. It is the seat of a bishop; the cathedral, founded in 1093, was rebuilt in the 17th century. The castle, at the south-eastern angle of the town walls, was erected in 1073. The mouth of the river, which bears the same name, serves as a port for small ships only. Mazzara was in origin a colony of Selinus: it was destroyed in 409, but it is mentioned again as a Carthaginian fortress in the First Punic War and as a post station on the Roman coast road, though whether it had municipal rights is doubtful.[1] A few inscriptions of the imperial period exist, but no other remains of importance. On the west bank of the river are grottoes cut in the rock, of uncertain date: and there are quarries in the neighbourhood resembling those of Syracuse, but on a smaller scale. See A. Castiglione, _Sulle cose antiche della città di Mazzara_ (Alcamo, 1878). FOOTNOTE: [1] Th. Mommsen in _Corpus inscr. lat._ (Berlin, 1883), x. 739. MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE (1805-1872), Italian patriot, was born on the 22nd of June 1805 at Genoa, where his father, Giacomo Mazzini, was a physician in good practice, and a professor in the university. His mother is described as having been a woman of great personal beauty, as well as of active intellect and strong affections. During infancy and childhood his health was extremely delicate, and it appears that he was nearly six years of age before he was quite able to walk; but he had already begun to devour books of all kinds and to show other signs of great intellectual precocity. He studied Latin with his first tutor, an old priest, but no one directed his extensive course of reading. He became a student at the university of Genoa at an unusually early age, and intended to follow his father's profession, but being unable to conquer his horror of practical anatomy, he decided to graduate in law (1826). His exceptional abilities, together with his remarkable generosity, kindness and loftiness of character, endeared him to his fellow students. As to his inner life during this period, we have only one brief but significant sentence; "for a short time," he says, "my mind was somewhat tainted by the doctrines of the foreign materialistic school; but the study of history and the intuitions of conscience--the only tests of truth--soon led me back to the spiritualism of our Italian fathers."