ALESSIO SIMMACO, an Italian writer, was born near Capua in 1684, and died at Naples in 1771. Having by dint of personal application acquired a knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages, he was nominated a canon of the Neapolitan diocese, and ultimately appointed professor of biblical exegesis in the university of Naples. His name was first known among learned men through his commentary *Dell' Anfiteatro Campano*, in which he elucidates the early history of Capua, and proves, among other things, that it was the first of the eighteen Roman colonies established in Italy. In connection with his professorship he wrote a work named *Spicilegium Bibliicum*, the most comprehensive of the older encyclopaedias of sacred and profane learning extant; in which Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Plato, and most of the ancient authors, are made to contribute to the elucidation of Scripture. The other work on which Mazzocchi's fame chiefly rests is the *Commentario sopra le due tavole Eroclensi*; so called because these tablets were found in the neighbourhood of Heraclea, in Magna Grecia. The other works of this author are,—*Dedicatione sub astia*, Naples, 1738; *Dissertazione sopra l'origine de' Tirreni*, Rome, 1740; *De antiquis Coryceae nomibus scholasticis*, Naples, 1742; *In vetus marmoreum S. Neapolitanae ecclesiae Kalendarium commentatorius*, ibid., 1744; *Diatribae de librorum bipartitionem et convolutorum antiquitate*, ibid.; *Opuscula oratoriae, epistolae, carmina, et diatribe de antiquitate*, ibid., 1775; an improved edition of the *Etymologia linguae Latinae*, by Vossius, Naples, 1762; and other less important works. (See Fabroni, *Vita Italorum.*)