MASCARDI (Augustin), a distinguished person in the republic of letters, was born at Sarzane, a city of the state of Genoa, in 1591. He spent the early part of his life among the Jesuits, and afterwards became chamberlain to Pope Urban VIII. He was naturally so eloquent, that this same pope, merely to exercise his talent, founded a professorship of rhetoric for him in the college de la Sapienza 1628, and settled upon him for life a pension of 500 crowns. Mascardi filled the chair with great reputation; but his love of letters made him neglect what is of more consequence than even letters, the management of his affairs: for he was always poor, and always in debt. He wrote a great many things in verse and prose; and among the rest, a treatise intitled Dell' arte historica. In his "History of the Conspiracy of the Comtede Fiefque," he has very frequently attacked the religion of Hubert Folietta; and in his other books he used some writers in the same way, which occasioned him to be attacked in his turn. The objections which were made to him, together with his answers, were added to the second edition of the history just mentioned. He died at Sarzane, 1640, in his 49th year.