* PILS, Isidore Alexandre Augustin, French painter, was born at Paris, July 19, 1813. He studied under M. Picot and in the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1838 he carried off the grand prize of Rome by a picture of "St. Peter at the Gate of the Temple;" and the pictures he painted at Rome, and for some time after his return to Paris, were chiefly of a religious character. In 1854 he visited the East and the Crimea, and has since painted several battle-pieces which have won great applause in France. "The Landing of the French Troops in the Crimea" was one of the chief attractions of the Exposition of 1857. His "Battle of the Alma," painted for the government in 1861, and placed in the museum of Versailles, is the most attractive of the many French battle-pieces in the International Exhibition of 1862, and the largest picture in the building. M. Pils received a medal of the second class in 1846, and again in 1855; of the first class in 1857; a grand medal of honour in 1861, and the cross of the legion of honour in 1857.—J. T—e.
PINA, Ruy de, one of the earliest Portuguese historians, flourished in the latter part of the fifteenth century. He was Chronista Mor, or chief historiographer to John II. and Emmanuel his son. His chronicle of these reigns is perhaps the best work of the kind extant. It is found in Correa de Serra's collection of documents relating to the history of Portugal.—F. M. W.
PINAIGRIER, Robert, a celebrated French painter on glass, was born about 1490, as is supposed, in the neighbourhood of Tours. It is thought that he learned his art in Italy. He acquired celebrity by an allegorical design in a window in the church of St. Hilaire, Chartres, executed about 1520. He painted windows in other churches of the same city. At Paris he executed windows for the abbeys of St. Victor, St. Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, and various churches. Very little of his work remains uninjured. The best are the windows, illustrative of the history of Joseph, in the church of St. Médéric, Paris. He died about the middle of the sixteenth century, at Tours, where his children long continued the works with great credit.—J. T—e.
PINDAR, a celebrated lyric poet of ancient Greece, was the son of Daiphantus and Clidice, and born at Cynocephalæ, a village between Thebes and Thespia, about 518 b.c. The family to which he belonged were hereditary flute players, and he himself appears at first to have been intended for that profession—one of considerable respect at Thebes in those old times. At least we are informed that his father began to teach him the flute, and discovering that he possessed talents which fitted him for something higher, placed him under Lasos of Hermione, who instructed him in lyric poetry. The famous Corinna was, however, in all probability, the chief preceptress of Pindar. Plutarch distinctly tells us so, and informs as also that it was she who recommended the youthful poet to introduce mythical narratives into his odes, as the proper business of that kind of composition—an advice he afterwards closely followed. At a very early age Pindar commenced the career that was destined to be so illustrious, as a composer of choral odes for special occasions. He speedily reached the highest eminence, and throughout a protracted life he acquired and retained not merely wealth and fame, but the friendship of the greatest rulers in Greece and its various colonies. Honours were lavishly heaped upon him by cities, states, and tyrants; he received the franchise as a mark of reverence from Athens, Ægina, and Opus; and after his death his statue was erected at the former place. Poetry has seldom, during the poet's lifetime, been so justly and so magnificently rewarded. Pindar's decease occurred about 439 b.c. His wife was Megaclea, daughter of Lysitheus and Callina; and he had a son, Daiphantus, and two daughters, Eumetis and Protomache. Many of this great poet's works are lost, and the great majority of those we now possess belong to a single class—that of the epicinian or triumphal odes, in which he celebrates the victories achieved at the various public games. But it is not improbable that dithyrambic poetry was the composition in which he peculiarly excelled, if we may draw a conclusion from the fact that Horace places the dithyramb first in his celebrated enumeration of the kinds of poetry cultivated by Pindar—
" Sen per audaces nova dithyrambos
Verba devolvit."
His extant works are of a very high order of merit. There is in them a vivid and opulent pictorialism, and an impetuous sweep of lyric energy, that stamp them at once as proceeding from the hand of a master. Truly has the last of these characteristics been portrayed by the great Roman poet in lines that glow themselves with something of Pindaric fire—
" Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres
Quem super notas aluere ripas,
Fervet immensusque ruit profundo
Pindarus ore."
Doubtless, the lofty dignity which so many are inclined to consider as essential to the highest kind of lyrical poetry, is often lowered to an almost coarse jocoseness which impairs the general effect of his strains; but it must be remembered that the epicinian ode properly demanded the presence of both these features, and that without the merriment as well as the solemnity, such poems might be deemed imperfect. They were in their nature festal, besides being religious; and hence the seeming contradiction which has offended not a few. On the whole, we may place the works of Pindar among the noblest specimens of lyric poetry which the world has ever seen, and find no undue exaggeration in the language which, with a pardonable egotism, he ventures to apply to himself in one of the most beautiful of his odes,—Διος ὀρνιχα θεῖον ("The divine bird of Jove"). Few flights in the atmosphere of song are more eagle-like than those of the great Greek lyrist.—J. J.
PINDEMONTE, Ippolito, poet, born in Verona on the 13th of November, 1753; died in the same city on the 18th of November, 1828. His early success at college in knightly exercises and letters, his later home studies with his friends, Torelli and Pompei, his love of dancing, drawing, recitation, and poetical composition, must have fitted him to enjoy with a discriminating relish his subsequent residence in Rome (where he met with Monti and Angelica Kaufmann): in Naples, in Sicily, and in Malta, the head quarters of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, to which order he belonged. About the age of thirty the state of his health induced him to retire to a quiet country home at Aversa, where he composed his admired "Prose e Poesie Campestri;" the "Poesie," published in 1785; the "Prose," ten years later. In 1788, resuming his travels, he visited France, and made acquaintance, amongst other noted persons, with Marmontel, Delille, and Barthélemy. There also he renewed his friendship with Altieri, and by judicious criticisms earned from the tragic poet the title of sa blanchisseuse (his laundress). The revolution having induced him to quit France he removed to England, and in London studied English with William Parsons. Thence he proceeded to Germany and Switzerland; he stayed for some months at Marseilles, and about 1791 once more settled in Italy. Although Pindemonte attained the advanced age of seventy-five, his constitution was naturally delicate and unfitted him for an active career: whilst some have thought that the having, in his childhood, witnessed the sudden death of a servant who was waiting upon him, exerted a saddening influence on his mind. His compositions are numerous, including drama, discourse, dissertation, romance, translation, and poetry: in particular, the already-mentioned "Prose e Poesie Campestri;" "Epistole in Versi," which treat of political topics; "Dissertazione sull' educazione delle Donne Italiane;" "Sermoni," which satirize natives and foreigners; a translation of the Odyssey; "La Francia," a poem, written on occasion of the assembling of the states-general in 1789; a dissertation on English gardens; and his last work, "Elogi di Letterati," forming two volumes of biography.—C. G. R.
PINEDA, Juan de, a learned Spanish Franciscan, born in 1557. He was appointed counsellor to the court of the inquisition, and published, in 1631, "Index novus librorum prohibitorum." He also wrote "Monarchia Ecclesiastica, o Historia Universal del Mundo desde su Creation hasta estos Tiempos," 1620, the first attempt at a universal history in the Spanish language, written with some display of learning, but marked by the intolerance of the time. He was likewise the author of commentaries on the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.—F. M. W.
PINELLI, Bartolomeo, a celebrated Italian painter and engraver, was born towards the end of the eighteenth century. He resided for the most part at Rome, and there etched a large number of views of the environs of Rome; illustrations of ancient and modern history; Italian manners and costumes; groups of banditti, &c., which had a great run of popularity. He also executed many clever drawings in chalk and water-colours. His chief publications are "Raccolta di Costumi Pittoreschi," 1809, and a second series of 100 plates, 1816; "Istoria degli Imperatori," 100 plates, 1829; illustrations of Greek
