at Rome under Paggi, and afterwards under Vanvitelli, who took Piermarini with him to Naples as his chief assistant in the erection of the great palace of the Caserta. Some years later, Piermarini accompanied his master to Milan in order to superintend the alteration of the imperial palace; and eventually the sole direction of the work was transferred to him. From this time, 1769, till shortly before his death, Piermarini continued to reside at Milan, enjoying the full confidence of the archduke, who appointed him his architect and director of the public works; and, on the foundation of the academy of La Brera, first professor of architecture. During the thirty years of his residence at Milan, Piermarini directed nearly all the public improvements made in the city, and erected most of the new public buildings, besides many important private edifices. Of all his works the most important was La Scala theatre, one of the most magnificent structures of the kind in Europe. Among his other public buildings were the Cannobiana theatre, the Monte di Pietà, the Monte Napoleone, &c.; besides the new quarter of S. Redegonda, and several new streets. Of the palaces erected by him, the chief were the Belgioso, a spacious and splendid edifice; the Cusani; Sannazari; Litti, &c.; with others at Casano, Desio, and elsewhere. His last years were spent at Foligno, where he died, February 18, 1808.—J. T—e.
PIERRE. See Saint Pierre.
PIETRO DA CORTONA, the name by which Pietro Berrettini, architect and a celebrated painter both in oil and in fresco, is commonly known, from his birthplace Cortona, where he was born in 1596. He went early to Rome, and was the head of the school of painters known as Macchinisti or Machinists in Italy, from the vast dimensions and the merely ornamental design and effect of their great fresco paintings. Pietro da Cortona and his followers were the principal painters at Rome during the pontificates of Urban VIII. and Innocent X., chiefly through the patronage of Bernini, long all-powerful in matters of art at Rome. The only rival of Pietro was Andrea Sacchi who established an opposing school, in which careful study of the best masters and natural truth, attempted in vain to compete with the superficial but showy and attractive style of the Machinists, the followers of Pietro, of whom the principal were Giro Ferri and Giorgio Francesco Romanelli. The former, after the death of Pietro da Cortona, succeeded to his position as a species of pictorial dictator at Rome. Pietro died at Rome, May 16, 1669, and was buried in the church of San Martino, built by himself, and to which he bequeathed his large fortune. His principal works are the ceilings of the Pitti palace in Florence, and the frescoes of the Barberini palace at Rome. The Louvre possesses some good specimens of his easel pictures in oil.—(Passeri, Vite del Pittori, &c.)—R. N. W.
PIGAFETTA, Antonio, one of the earliest circumnavigators of the globe, was born at Vicenza some time before 1500, and joined the expedition of Magellan, who sailed from Seville in 1519 as a volunteer. He kept a journal, which forms the best record we have of this memorable expedition. He was present at the landing on the Philippine islands, where Magellan lost his life, and returned to Spain in the Victoria—the only ship which accomplished the circumnavigation, in September, 1522. A copy of his journal was presented to Charles V.; subsequently, at the request of Pope Clement VII., he wrote a more copious narrative, containing the first account given to Europeans of the Philippine and Molucca islands, and a vocabulary of their language. This narrative, however, was lost until the year 1800, when it was printed at Milan; but an abridgment of it was published in Paris, and a translation of this abridgment is inserted in Ramusio's Italian collection of voyages and travels, Venice, 1550.—F. M. W
PIGALLE, Jean Baptiste, a celebrated French sculptor, was born at Paris in 1714. He was a pupil of Lemoine, and completed his studies at Rome, where he remained three years. A statue of Mercury, executed shortly after his return to France, placed him among the leading sculptors of the day. It was purchased by the king, Louis XV., who commissioned a Venus as a companion, and presented both statues to Frederick the Great. Pigalle is said to have owed his rapid success to the patronage of Madame Pompadour, for whom he executed a statue of Louis XV., "Silence," and other works. His masterpiece was considered to be the monument to Marshal Saxe at Strasburg, executed by order of Louis XV. It is a huge allegory, in which the marshal is in his own costume, whilst Hercules, France, Genius, and a skeleton Death, form a pyramidal group. This strange and heathenish admixture of reality and fable was in accordance with the taste of the time, but that taste is now universally condemned, and this "masterpiece" is by the present generation looked upon as an utter absurdity. Another famous work of Pigalle's is the tomb of Comte d'Harcourt in Notre Dame, Paris. More pleasing, because more natural in design, are such works as his "Child with a Bird Cage." Pigalle reached the highest honours in his profession. He died chancellor of the Academy in 1785.—J. T—e.
PIGAULT-LEBRUN, Guillaume Charles Antoine, the most famous novelist of the imperial epoch, was born at Calais in 1753. His early life was one of much vicissitude. A merchant's clerk in London, a prisoner by lettre de cachet, a member of the gendarmerie d'élite, a struggling actor and dramatist, a lieutenant of dragoons—Pigault had been all these before the publication of "Un Enfant du Carnaval" in 1794 laid the foundation of his reputation. Eleven other romances followed before 1808, when he became secretary to Jerome, king of Westphalia. In 1811 he resumed the pen of the novelist, and only abandoned it in 1820 for that of the historian. Pigault died in 1835 at Celle, near St. Cloud. The charming gaiety and humour of his earlier romances can scarcely atone for their excessive laxity; but his later works, as pictures of manners and character, find few equals in contemporary literature.—W. J. P.
PIGHIUS, Stephen Vinand, nephew of Albert Pighius, was born at Kempen in 1520, and studied at Cologne. He went to Rome, where he remained eight years, and was the friend and librarian of Cardinal Granwell. He was tutor to Charles, prince of Juliers and Cleves, and canon and head master of a school. His fame rests upon his "Annales Magistratuum et Provinciarum S.P.Q.R. ab. Urbe condita," &c. Of this work he published one volume; the remainder was brought out by the learned jesuit Andreas Schottus. It contains a chronicle of Rome to the death of Vitellius, and comprises a vast collection of details He also wrote "Hercules Prodicius, an account of a journey to Italy," edited by Valerius Maximus; and left other works, some of which have been printed by Gronovius.—B. H. C.
PIGNA, the name given to Giambattista Nicolucci, from the sign of his father, a wealthy apothecary, born probably at Ferrara in 1530; died 4th November, 1575. He was in high favour with Alfonso II., duke of Ferrara, but, being devoted to study, refused all dignities. He was a philologist, poet, and historian. He published in 1553 four books of elegant Latin poems, and in 1570 an Italian history of the house of Este to about the end of the fifteenth century.—W. M. R.
PIGNOTTI, Lorenzo, historian and poet, born at Figline, between Florence and Arezzo, 9th August, 1739; died at Pisa, 5th August, 1812. His family impoverished and his father dead, Lorenzo was cared for, first, by an uncle, then by a cousin. He studied in the Pisan university, and for a while practised medicine in Florence; but returned to exercise more congenial functions in the university of Pisa, and died its honorary rector. He has left works in prose and verse, of which the chief are—"Storia della Toscana fino al Principato," 9 vols. 8vo; "La Treccia Donata," a poem in ten cantos, which, like Pope's inimitable Rape of the Lock, records the vicissitudes which befell a tress of hair; "Fables," often reprinted, and securing for their author an honourable place among fabulists.—C. G. R.
PILATO, Leonzio (Leo or Leontius Pilatus), an eminent Greek scholar and native of Calabria, flourished in the fourteenth century; died, struck by lightning in a storm at sea. Boccaccio, at once his patron and his pupil, having procured for him a stipend and admission among the Florentine professors, Leonzio opened the earliest Greek school in Italy, and subsequently translated the Odyssey into Latin. An industrious scholar, he aided in the revival of literature in Europe, and enjoyed the friendship of Petrarch; but his person and manners were unattractive, and his conduct was sometimes fickle.
PILATRE DE ROZIER, Jean-François, one of the earliest and most unfortunate of aeronauts, was born at Metz on the 30th of March, 1756, and was killed by a fall from a balloon near Boulogne, on the 15th of June, 1783. He was brought up at Metz to the business of an apothecary, but took an early opportunity of going to Paris in order to devote himself to scientific study. He maintained himself for a time by delivering popular lectures on science, and at length obtained the appointments of professor of chemistry at Rheims, and
