A scholar and mechanical technician from Prato, he attended the University of Pisa, graduating with a degree in Letters and Science in 1812. Eager to deepen his scientific knowledge on the practical level, in order to close the technological gap existing between the backward Italian manufacturing system and the innovative European mechanical works, he obtained from Grand Duke Ferdinand III a grant to attend, starting in 1815, the Faculty of Natural Science at the Sorbonne in Paris, while comtemporaneously working in a factory to discover the secrets of the local textile industries. Returning to Prato in 1820, he set up a small workshop on the premises of the former convent of S. Anna, where, with the aid of a few workers, he managed to reconstruct some machines for processing cotton, utilising the knowledge he had gained during his stay in Paris. The positive outcome of these first experiments led Mazzoni to establish new mills for processing wool and hemp, whose innovative machinery won important recognition in the various editions of the Exposition of Tuscan Manufactories held in Florence. Called upon to occupy prestigious positions in various municipal institutions, he was named Gonfaloniere of the city of Prato in 1851 and, in this capacity, he worked for the creation of a trans-Apennine railway that, passing through Prato, would link Florence to Bologna.