Born Mar. 17, 1817, in Castel Baronia, near Avellino; died Dec. 26, 1888, in Rome. Italian jurist, diplomat, and statesman. Professor at universities in Turin, Naples, and Rome.
Mancini held the posts of minister of justice, of education, and of foreign affairs in the Italian government. He supported the national unification of Italy, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, the liquidation of the temporal power of the pope, the abolition of the Inquisition, and the nationalization of church property. Mancini was the founder of the 19th-century Italian doctrine of private international law (the national theory). Mancini argued that every man preserves his rights as an individual outside the country of his citizenship and that consequently the law of citizenship (lex patriae) is a basic principle of the branch of law known as conflict of laws; he held that every foreigner living abroad was to be judged by the laws of his own country. These principles were consistently followed in the Italian Civil Code of 1865, which was developed with Mancini’s participation. They can be found in the German Civil Code of 1896, the Japanese Civil Code of 1898, and The Hague conventions on international private law. Many scholars were Mancini’s followers, including I. Esperson and P. Fiore of Italy, A. Weiss of France, and F. Laurent of Belgium.