496 PICCOLOMINI PICHEGRU and " Piccinists," during which Paris was con- vulsed as if by a political revolution. Mar- montel modernized Quinault's drama of Ro- land, and with infinite labor went over the whole work with Piccini, who was up to this time totally ignorant of the French language. The composer, whose facility was attested by the production previous to this time of 300 operas, found little difficulty in setting the words to appropriate music, and, after a twelve- month of delays and difficulties of all kinds, Roland was performed with complete success. Piccini next produced Atys and Iphigenie en Tauride, the latter as a rival to Gluck's opera of the same name. He continued to compose with remarkable fertility, and after 1783 held the office of professor in the ecole de chant. In 1791 he was deprived of his pensions and employments, and returned to Naples. There he was suspected of sympathy with the doc- trines of the revolution, and was subjected for several years to constant persecution and sur- veillance. In 1798 he returned to Paris poor and enfeebled in health. With much difficulty he procured from Bonaparte the post of in- spector of music at the national conservatory in Paris, but died before he could enter upon its duties. As a musician Piccini is distin- guished for the purity and simplicity of his style, and for the richness of his invention. Few of his numerous productions, however, have permanently retained the high place as- signed them during his life. PICCOLOMINI, an Italian family, associated with the history of Siena and Amalfi. ^Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini in 1458 became pope as Pius II. His sister, Laodomia Todeschini, was the mother of Pius III., who died a few weeks after his election in 1503. Other prominent members of the family were Alessandro (1508- '78), a prelate of Siena, and one of the first scholars who used the Italian language in phil- osophical writings, and Francesco (1520-1604), a follower of Plato, teacher of philosophy at Siena and other places, and author of Uhiversa Philosophies de Moribus (Venice, 1583). PICCOLOMINI, Marietta, an Italian singer, a member of the preceding family, born in Siena in 1836. She appeared in 1855 at Florence in Lucrezia Borgia, and Verdi composed La Tra- viata for her. She was successful in London and the United States, but less so in Paris, and retired from the stage in 1861. PICCOLOMINI, Ottavio, an Austrian general, born in 1599, died in Vienna in 1656. He was a descendant of a sister of Pope Pius II. He early entered the Spanish army at Milan, served under the emperor Ferdinand II. against the Bohemians, and is said to have commanded at the battle of Ltitzen the cavalry regiment in an encounter with which Gustavus Adolphus lost his life (1632). He was subsequently ap- pointed to a high military command by Wal- lenstein, but when that general meditated trea- son he informed the emperor of the plot, and was ordered by Ferdinand to capture Wal- lenstein dead or alive. Before he could exe- cute this command the latter was assassinated (1634), and Piccolomini received part of the Wallenstein estate. During the remainder of the thirty years' war he held important com- mands against the Swedes. In 1635 he drove the French from the Netherlands, but was less successful against the Dutch. His victories over the Swedes led Philip IV. of Spain to ask his services, and he fought a second time with advantage at the head of the Spanish forces against the French and Dutch. In 1648 he was recalled and made marshal. Af- ter the peace of Westphalia he was sent to the convention of Nuremberg (1649), with full powers, and subsequently was made a prince of the empire, the king of Spain having rein- stated him in his hereditary fief of the duchy of Amalfi. He was childless, and his son Max, in Schiller's " Wallenstein," is a fiction. PICENFM, an ancient division of central Italy, bordering on the Adriatic, Umbria, and the territories of the Sabines and Vestini. It was traversed by spurs of the Apennines, and drained by the Truentus (Tronto) and other streams. Among the towns were Ancona, colonized by Greeks from Syracuse, Firmum (Fermo), Hadria (Atri), Auximum (Osimo), As- culum (Ascoli), and Interamna (Teramo). The original Umbrian inhabitants were conquered by the Picentes or Piceni, a Sabine people, who were subdued by the Romans in 268 B. 0. The Picentes joined in the social war and secured the right of franchise. PICHEGRU, Charles, a French general, born at Arbois, Feb. 16, 1761, died in Paris, April 5, 1804. He was teacher of mathematics at Bri- enne while Bonaparte was a student there, af- terward entered the artillery, and rose rapidly in the French revolutionary army. In 1793 he succeeded Hoche as commander of the armies of the Moselle and Rhine, and in 1794 took com- mand of the army of the north. After repeat- edly defeating the English and Dutch, he en- tered Amsterdam, Jan. 19, 1795, and organized the Batavian republic. He soon after resumed his command of the army of the Rhine, and agreed with the prince of Cond6 to exert him- self for the restoration of the monarchy, bril- liant rewards being offered to him in the name of the future king. His troops being now worsted by the Austrians, and the suspicions of the directory aroused, he was deprived of his command in 1796. Nevertheless, in the following year he succeeded in being elected to the council of 500, and became its president and the leader of the royalist party. He was arrested with other conspirators, Sept. 4 (18th Fructidor), 1797, and banished to Cayenne. In June, 1798, he escaped, and went to London and Berlin to intrigue against the French gov- ernment, in consequence of which he was ex- pelled from the latter city. Returning to Lon- don, he planned with Gadoudal the assassina- tion of Napoleon, and they secretly arrived in Paris in 1803 ; but they were both arrested,
