BONIFACIO, a town at the southern extremity of Corsica, in the arrondissement of Sartene, near the strait to which it gives its name. It is one of the most picturesque and interesting places in the island, its white houses being built on the top of a white calcareous rock that can only be reached on foot or on horseback. It is well fortified, has a secure harbour, carries on some trade, and has coral fisheries. The rock is hollowed out into vast caves that stretch below the town. Bonifacio was founded in 833 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 in 1195 was taken by the Genoese, whose influence continues to affect the character of the population to this day. In 1421 it heroically withstood a protracted siege by Alphonso of Aragon; but in 1553 it fell into the hands of the Franco-Turkish array. Population in 1872, 3402. (See Gregorovius’s Corsica, vol. ii.; Lear, Joum. in Corsica, p. 62.)