MANCINI, PASQUALE STANISLAO , Ital ian jurist and statesman, was born at Castel Baronia, in the prov ince of Avellino, on March 17, 1817. In 1848 he helped to per suade Ferdinand II. of Naples to participate in the war against Austria. Upon the triumph of the reactionary party he undertook the defence of the Liberal political prisoners. Threatened with imprisonment in his turn, he fled to Piedmont, where he obtained a university professorship and became preceptor of the crown prince Humbert. After the fall of the Bourbons, he went to Naples as administrator of justice, in which capacity he suppressed the religious orders, revoked the Concordat, proclaimed the right of the state to Church property, and unified civil and commercial jurisprudence. In 1862 he became minister of public instruction in the Rattazzi cabinet, and induced the Chamber to abolish capi tal punishment. For the next 14 years, he devoted himself chiefly to questions of international law and arbitration, but in 1876, upon the advent of the Left to power, became minister of justice in the Depretis cabinet.
Mancini's Liberalism found expression in the extension of press freedom, the repeal of imprisonment for debt and the abolition of ecclesiastical tithes. During the Conclave of 1878 he succeeded, by negotiations with Cardinal Pecci (afterwards Leo XIII.), in inducing the Sacred college to remain in Rome, and, after the elec tion of the new pope, arranged for his temporary absence from the Vatican for the purpose of settling private business. Resigning office in March 1878, he resumed the practice of law, and secured the annulment of Garibaldi's marriage. The fall of Cairoli led to Mancini's appointment (1881) to the ministry of foreign affairs. An indiscreet announcement of the limitations of the Triple Alliance contributed to his fall in June 1885, when he was suc ceeded by Count di Robilant. He died in Rome on Dec. 26, 1888.