MAZZOCCHI, ALESSIO SIMMACO. – A most learned biblical scholar, philologist, and archaeologist, born at S. Maria di Capua on 22 Oct. 1684, died at Naples on 12 Sept. 1771. He was theological canon at Capua (1712) and later at Naples, where the archbishop Spinelli also appointed him rector of the Grand Seminary. He devoted himself to biblical exegesis. Highly esteemed by the king, who proposed him for an archbishopric (always refused by M.), he accepted the teaching of Sacred Scripture and theology at the Royal University.
Among his many philological, archaeological, and literary writings, the foremost place is held by the *Spicilegium Biblicum*, published in 3 vols. at Naples: a literal exegesis of Genesis (I: 1762); Exodus and other pericopes of the Old Testament (II: 1766); Gospels, Acts, and pericopes of St Paul (III: 1778; cf. Introd., I, pp. xvii ff.). Having obtained Calmet’s commentaries, as soon as they were published, he prefaced them with a true general introduction on the canon, etc.; in numerous excursuses he dealt at length with the most debated questions.
M. was the first to discover and assess the law of Hebrew parallelism, which he termed “epesegesis” (I, pp. 44 ff., 67, 168, 224 ff.; notes to Gen. 4, 23 ff.; 11, 4; 10 ff.; II, pp. 102 ff., 268; notes to Num. 23, 7; Is. 63, 1) already in the unpublished pamphlet *De poësi Hebraeorum* of 1740; whereas R. Lowth’s book, to which this discovery was attributed, only appeared in 1753. He advocated the correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (Jahweh).
His principal archaeological writings include: *Dissertatio historica de cathedralis Ecclesiae Neapolitanae semper unicae variis diverso tempore vicibus* (Naples 1751). M. was the first to make known the discovery, made in 1742, of the calendar carved on two marble slabs. *In vetus marmoreum S. Neapolitanae Ecclesiae Kalendarium commentarius* (3 vols., ibid. 1744–55). He also published the text of the *Actorum Bononiensium s. Ianuarii et soc. martyrum* (ibid. 1759). Other works: *Commentariorum in reg. Herculaneis Musei aeneas tabulas Heracleenses, pars I et II* (ibid. 1754–55); *Opuscula* (3 vols., ibid. 1771–1824).