MAZIO, RAFFAELE. - Born in Rome on 24 Oct. 1765, died there on 4 Feb. 1832. From his earliest studies he showed choice gifts of intellect and singular expertise in the Latin language. In 1785 he held a public theological disputation in the church of St. Ignatius, which was printed. Pius VI appointed him master of the pontifical ceremonies and canon of St. Mary in Trastevere, and Pius VII, in 1801, called him to the office of secretary of the Ceremonial Congregation. A member of the Commission presided over by Card. Caprara for the implementation of the Concordat in France (1801), he showed singular expertise in the dispatch of affairs and intrepid fortitude in the defense of the rights of the Church.
Exiled in 1809 first to Piacenza, then to Bologna and later to the Castle of Cento, at the Restoration he was one of the most valuable collaborators of Card. Consalvi and traveled with him to the courts of Paris and London. In this period he had a preeminent part in the handling of ecclesiastical affairs for Bavaria, Prussia, Piedmont, Savoy, Hanover, the Duchy of Lucca, and he accompanied Card. Spina to the Congresses of Ljubljana (1821) and of Verona (1822). At the same time he was secretary of the Latin Letters (1816), of the Consistorial Congregation (1818), and Vatican canon. Secretary of the Conclave from which Leo XII emerged as pontiff, he was appointed in 1824 assessor of the Holy Roman Universal Inquisition.
Pius VIII, in the Consistory of 15 March 1830, created him cardinal, publishing his appointment in the following Consistory of 5 July of the same year, with the title of St. Mary in Trastevere. The funeral oration for Queen Maria of Portugal by M. was published (Rome 1817). A history of the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy written by him, on the other hand, remained unpublished and was lost.
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