Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/357

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336
PETRUS AUREOLUS—PETTY

the highest bidders, or conferring them on his followers. A plot was made to murder him, but he discovered the conspiracy in time, and his own father-in-law, who had been leader of the movement, was put to death. In 1498 he prevented the outbreak of war with Florence over the possession of Montepulciano, which had been a bone of contention between the two cities for over a hundred years. His attitude towards Cesare Borgia was exceedingly astute, at first he assisted him, and obtained from him with the favour of the French king the cession of Piombino; but having subsequently aroused the suspicions of Borgia, the latter attempted to suppress Petrucci by inviting him to the fatal meeting of Senigallia. The Sienese tyrant, however, did not fall into the trap, and although Borgia in 1502 obliged him to quit Siena, he returned two months later, more powerful than before Petrucci supported Pisa in the war against Florence, but eventually, through the intervention of the pope and of the king of Spain, he made peace with the latter city, to which he gave back Montepulciano in 1512. As a reward for this action Pope Julius II. created his nephew cardinal. During his last days Petrucci abdicated his authority in favour of his son Borghese. He died at San Quirico di Osenna on the 21st of, May 1512.

See Pecci, Memorie storico-critiche di Siena (Siena, 1755); U. G. Mondolfo, P. Petrucci signore di Siena, (Siena, 1899).


PETRUS AUREOLUS (Oriol), scholastic philosopher and monk of the Franciscan order, lived in the latter half of the 13th century, and died in Paris in 1321 just after his appointment as archbishop of Aix. He was one of the first to attack the realist doctrines of Duns Scotus, and is interesting mainly as the precursor of William of Occam in his revival of Nominalism. His ability earned for him the titles of Doctor Facundus and Doctor Abundans.


PETTENKOFEN, AUGUST VON (1821–1889), Austrian painter, born in Vienna, was brought up on his father's estate in Galicia. Having decided to give up the military career on which he had started, he devoted himself to painting, taking for his subjects the simple scenes of the life on the dreary Puszta. His paintings are treasured for their line qualities of colour, and for the sincerity with which the artist sets before us the uneventful melancholy life of Hungarian peasants and gipsies—without any theatrical pathos or forced humour. He was the inventor of the Pettenkofen box, an appliance for dissolving and redistributing cracked or discoloured varnish without friction or the dangerous use of chemicals. He died in Vienna in 1889.


PETTENKOFER, MAX JOSEPH VON (1818–1901), Bavarian chemist and hygienist, was born on the 3rd of December 1818 at Lichtenheim, near Neuburg. He was a nephew of Franz Xaver Pettenkofer (1783–1850), who from 1823 was surgeon and apothecary to the Bavarian court and was the author of some chemical investigations on the vegetable alkaloids He studied pharmacy and medicine at Munich, where he graduated M.D. in 1843, and after working under Liebig at Giessen was appointed chemist to the Munich mint in 1845. Two years later he was chosen extraordinary professor of chemistry in the medical faculty, in 1853 he received the ordinary professorship, and in 1865 he became also professor of hygiene. In 1894 he retired from active work, and on the 10th of February 1901 he shot himself in a fit of depression at his home on the Starnberger See, near Munich. In his earlier years he devoted himself to chemistry, both theoretical and applied, publishing papers on the preparation of gold and platinum, numerical relations between the atomic weights of analogous elements, the formation of aventurine glass, the manufacture of illuminating gas from wood, the preservation of oil-paintings, &c. The reaction known by his name for the detection of bile acids was published in 1844. In his widely used method for the quantitative determination of carbonic acid the gaseous mixture is shaken up with baryta or lime water of known strength and the change in alkalinity ascertained by means of oxalic acid. But his name is most familiar in connexion with his work in practical hygiene, as an apostle of good water, fresh air and proper sewage disposal. His attention was drawn to this subject about 1850 by the unhealthy condition of Munich.

Pettenkofer gave vigorous expression to his views on hygiene and disease in numerous books and papers; he was an editor of the Zeitschrift für Biologie from 1865 to 1882, and of the Archiv für Hygiene from 1883 to 1894.


PETTICOAT, an underskirt, as part of a woman's dress. The petticoat, i.e. "petty-coat" or small coat, was originally a short garment for the upper part of the body worn under an outer dress; in the Promptorium parvulorum the Latin equivalent is tunicula. It was both a man's and a woman's garment, and was in the first case worn as a small coat under the doublet and by women apparently as a kind of chemise. It was however, early applied to the skirt worn by women hanging from the waist, Whether as the principal lower garment or as an underskirt. In the middle of the 17th century the wide breeches with heavy lace or embroidered ends worn by men were known as "petticoat breeches," a term also applied to the loose canvas or oilskin overalls worn by fishermen.


PETTIE, JOHN (1839–1893), Scottish painter, was born in Edinburgh on the 17th of March 1839, the son of Alexander and Alison Pettie. In 1852 the family removed to East Linton, Haddingtonshire, and a portrait by the lad of the village carrier and his donkey overcame his father's objections to art as a career for his son. When sixteen he entered the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh, working under Robert Scott Lauder with W. Q. Orchardson, J. MacWhirter, W. M'Taggart, Peter Graham, Tom Graham and G. P. Chalmers. His first exhibits at the Royal Scottish Academy were "A Scene from the Fortunes of Nigel"—one of the many subjects for which he sought inspiration in the novels of Sir Walter Scott—and two portraits in 1858, followed in 1859 by "The Prison Pet." To the Royal Academy in 1860 he sent "The Armourers"; and the success of this work and or "What d'ye Lack, Madam?" in the following year, encouraged him to settle in London (1862), where he joined Orchardson. In 1866 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1874 received full academical honours in succession to Sir Edwin Landseer. His diploma picture was "Jacobites, 1745." Pettie was a hard and rapid worker, and, in his best days, a colourist of a high order and a brilliant executant. In his early days he produced a certain amount of book illustration. His Connexion with Good Words began in 1861, and was continued till 1864. With J MacWhirter he illustrated The Postman's Bag (Strahan, 1862), and Wordsworth's Poetry for the Young (Strahan, 1863). His principal paintings, in addition to those already mentioned, are "Cromwell's Saints" (1862), "The Trio" (1863); "George Fox refusing to take the Oath" (1864); "A Drumhead Courtmartial" (1865); "The Arrest for Witchcraft" (1866);"Treason" (1867, now in the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield); "Tussle with a Highland Smuggler" (1868); "The Sally" (1870); "Terms to the Besieged" (1872); "The Flag of Truce" (1873); "Ho! Ho! Old Noll" and "A State Secret" (1874); "A Sword and Dagger Fight" (1877); "The Death Warrant" (1879); "Monmouth and James II" (1882); "The Vigil" (1884, in the Chantrey Collection, National Gallery of British Art); "Challenged" (1885), "The Chieftain's Candlesticks" (1886); "Two Strings to Her Bow" (1887); "The Traitor" and "Sir Charles Wyndham as David Garrick" (1888), and "The Ultimatum" and "Bonnie Prince Charlie" (1892). Pettie died at Hastings on the 21st of February 1893. In 1894 a selection of his work was included in the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy. His portrait by himself is in the Tate Gallery.

John Pettie, R. A. (London, 1908), by his nephew Martin Hardie, gives the story of his life, a catalogue of his pictures, and fifty reproductions in colours.


PETTY, SIR WILLIAM (1623-1687), English statistician and political economist, born on the 26th of May 1623, was the son of a clothier at Romsey in Hampshire, and received his early education at the grammar school there. About the age of fifteen he went to Caen (Normandy), taking with him a little stock of merchandise, on which he traded, and so maintained himself whilst learning French, improving himself in Latin and Greek, and studying mathematics and other sciences. On his return to England he seems to have had for a short time a place