JULIUS, a famous cardinal and prime minister of France, was born at Piscina in the province of Abruzzo, in Naples, in 1602. After having finished his studies in Italy and Spain, he entered into the service of Cardinal Sachetti, and became well skilled in politics, and in the interests of the princes at war in Italy; by which means he was enabled to bring affairs to an accommodation, and the peace of Querias was shortly concluded. Cardinal Richelieu being taken with his conduct, did from thenceforward highly esteem him; as did also Cardinal Antonio, and Louis XIII. who procured him a cardinal's hat in 1641. Richelieu made him one of the executors of his will; and during the minority of Louis XIV. he had the charge of affairs. At last he became the envy of the nobility, which occasioned a civil war; whereupon Mazarine was forced to retire, a price was set on his head, and his library sold. Notwithstanding, he afterwards returned to the court in more glory than ever; concluded a peace with Spain, and a marriage treaty betwixt the king and the infanta. This treaty of peace paves for the masterpiece of Cardinal de Mazarine's politics, and procured him the French king's most intimate confidence; but at last his continual application to business threw him into a disease, of which he died at Vincennes in 1661.—Cardinal Mazarine was of a mild and affable temper. One of his greatest talents was his knowing mankind, and his being able to adapt himself, and to assume a character conformable to the circumstances of affairs. He possessed at one and the fame time the bishopric of Metz, and the abbeys of St Arnauld, St Clement, and St Vincent, in the same city; that of St Dennis, Clugny, and Victor, of Marseilles; of St Michel at Soiflons, and a great number of others. He founded Mazarine college at Paris; which is also called the college of the four nations. There has been published a collection of his letters, the most copious edition of which is that of 1745, in 2 vols. duodecimo.