and citadel
date from the 16th and 17th centuries. A massive medieval tower serves
as a powder-magazine. The trade of Bonifacio, which is carried on
chiefly with Sardinia, is in cereals, wine, cork and olive-oil of fine
quality. Cork-cutting, tobacco-manufacture and coral-fishing are carried
on. The olive is largely cultivated in the neighbourhood and there are
oil-works in the town.

Bonifacio was founded about 828 by the Tuscan marquis whose name it
bears, as a defence against the Saracen pirates. At the end of the 11th
century it became subject to Pisa, and at the end of the 12th was taken
and colonized by the Genoese, whose influence may be traced in the
character of the population. In 1420 it heroically withstood a
protracted siege by Alphonso V. of Aragon. In 1554 it fell into the
hands of the Franco-Turkish army.

BONIFACIUS (d. 432), the Roman governor of the province of Africa who is
generally believed to have invited the Vandals into that province in
revenge for the hostile action of Placidia, ruling in behalf of her son
the emperor Valentinian III. (428-429). That action is by Procopius
attributed to his rival Aetius, but the earliest authorities speak of a
certain Felix, chief minister of Placidia, as the calumniator of
Bonifacius. Whether he really invited the Vandals or not, there is no
doubt that he soon turned against them and bravely defended the city of
Hippo from their attacks. In 432 he returned to Italy, was received into
favour by Placidia, and appointed master of the soldiery. Aetius,
however, resented his promotion, the two rivals met, perhaps in single
combat, and Bonifacius, though victorious, received a wound from the
effects of which he died three months later.

The authorities for the extremely obscure and difficult history of
these transactions are well discussed by E.A. Freeman in an article in
the _English Historical Review_, July 1887, to which the reader is
referred. But compare also Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, vol. iii. pp. 505-506, edited by J.B. Bury (London, 1897).

BONIN ISLANDS, called by the Japanese OGASAWARA-JIMA, a chain of small
islands belonging to Japan, stretching nearly due north and south, a
little east of 142 E., and from 26 deg. 35' to 27 deg. 45' N., about 500
m. from the mainland of Japan. They number twenty, according to Japanese
investigations, and have a coast-line of 174.65 m. and a superficies of
28.82 sq. m. Only t