* 



I'KTKlt SIMON'. 



TALMA, GIACOPO. 



rom the Emprvas Catharine. She decorated him with titlco, and pave 

 him several lnaniti apiuiiiituivnta, Tim office of itutmctii .p tli 

 grand-duke* Alexander (afterwards emperor) end ConaUntine in the 

 natural and physical science* waa alo entrusted to him. After 

 remaining many year* at St. Petersburg, quietly cngaei-d in the pur- 

 suit* of literature and acience, in 1793 and 1794 he took advantage of 

 the conquett of the Crimea to travel through the southern provinces 

 of Russia. He waa so much delighted with the climate and pro- 

 ductions of the Crimea that he asked permission of the empress to 

 settle there, hoping to recruit his health. The empress acceded to bis 

 request in the most generous manner, giving him a handsome estab- 

 lishment and a liberal salary to support it. He went to live in the 

 Crimea in 1795, but found that the climate, instead of being as he 

 supposed temperate and equable, was in fact very variable and sickly. 

 The inhabitants too were barbarous, snd he was deprived of nil 

 society. His existence was thus rendered very uncomfortable. He 

 lived there however fifteen years, occupied in his researches in natural 

 history. At la-t he sold his property and quitted Russia. Pallas 

 arrived at Berlin in 1810, after forty-two years of absence : he sur- 

 vived his return a short period only, dying on the 7th of September 

 1811, at the age of seventy. 



Any analysts of the works of Pallas is impossible, for he spent his 

 whole life in the accumulation of facts, which he always related in 

 the simplest manner, leaving the easy task of drawing deductions 

 from them to others. All his writings, of which he left a prodinious 

 number, though written in a dry and uninteresting style, are full of 

 novelties and truths. " They have placed," says Cuvier, " the name 

 of their author in the first rank of naturalists, who are constantly 

 referring to and quoting from every page of them. They are also 

 read and consulted with equal interest by the historian, the geogra- 

 pher, and the student of languages or of nations." The following is a 

 brief notice of his principal works : 



' Klcnchju) Zoophytorum,' Svo, the Hague ; ' Miscellanea Zoologica,' 

 4to. Both these works appeared in 1766, and were interesting from 

 containing a great deal of information on those little-known classes of 

 animals which had been confounded under the name of worms. 

 Pallas showed that the presence or absence of a shell should not form 

 the primary basis of their distribution, but that the analogies of their 

 internal "tincture ought to be consulted. The ' Elenchus,' which is 

 principally confined to sponges, corallines, &o., is remarkable for the 

 clearness of the descriptions and the care bestowed on the synonyms. 

 The ' Miscellanea ' was partly reprinted, with many additions (but 

 with the omission of some of the most valuable parts relating to the 

 invertebrate animals), in the 'Spicilegia Zoologies,' the first four 

 numbers of which were published at Berlin in 1767. 



' Travel* through different Provinces of the Russian Empire,' pub- 

 lished in German, 3 vols. 4io, St. Petersb., 1771-76. This work 

 contains a great deal of valuable information, but is imperfect, from 

 having been hastily compiled, without access to books of reference, 

 during the author's travels. After Pallas returned to St. Petersburg 

 from his first expedition, be published several interesting papers 

 descriptive of the new and rare quadrupeds which he had met with in 

 Siberia. His account of the musk, the glutton, the ghibeline, and 

 the Polar bear may be particularly mentioned, which form the four 

 last parts of th 'Spicilegia Zoolox'ica,' and are exceedingly well 

 written, lie published a separate volume on the different rpecies of 

 Kodmlia that he discovered ; it ia entitled ' Nova; Species yuadru- 

 pedura ex Glirium Online,' 4 to, Erlang., 1778. The anatomy and 

 history of these animals are excellently described in this work, which 

 is altogether one of his best. Pallas became a botanist during his 

 travels, and undertook, by desire of the empress, a ' Flora Bossica,' 

 illustrated with magnificent plates, two volumes of which were pub- 

 lished at St Petersburg, in fol., 1784-85 ; no more appeared. 



The last great work which he wrote was a Fauna of the Russian 

 empire, which he intended to embrace all the animals found both in 

 European and Asiatic Russia. He worked at it till his death, and 

 completed the manuscript of the vertebrate animals, which was 

 printed in 3 vols. 4to, at St. Petersburg, in 1811, under the name of 

 ' Zoographia Rosso- Asiatics ;' but it was not published until 1831, in 

 consequence of the plates having been mislaid. Some naturalists 

 however managed to obtain copies of the text 



Plla may be said to have laid the foundation of modern geology 

 in a memoir containing ' Observations on the formation of Mountains,' 

 which was read to the Academy of St. Petersburg in 1777 before 

 Oustavus HI. of Sweden. "An attentive consideration of the great 

 mountainous chain* of Siberia led Pallas to the discovery of the general 

 law, which ha* since been completely verified, of the succession of the 

 three primitive enters of rook*, the granitic in the centre, the tchittout 

 on their aides, and the cakaretnu externally." (Cuvier.) Pallas ren- 

 dered further service to geology by his second memoir upon the fossil 

 bones of Siberia, published in the ' Novi Commentarii Acad. I'etr.' 

 Be here related (what wa at that time considered as an incredible 

 circumstance) the fact of having found tbe body of a rhinoceros entire, 

 with the kin and flesh on, imbedded in the frozen ground. The 

 probability and truth of this observation are placed beyond all doubt 

 by tl e well-known subsequent discovery of the body of an elephant ia 

 ma-s of ic" on tbe coast of Siberia. 



Palla* wrote a ' History of the Mongolian Nations,' 2 vols. 4to, in 



Gorman, Petersburg, 1776-1801, which is pcrliape the most classical 

 account that was ever written of any race of people. He not only 

 treats of th- origin and physical character of these people (all usually 

 denominated Tartan), of their manners aud government, but also of 

 their religion and language*. 



Pallas undertook, by command of the cmpr.-ss, a 'Comparative 

 Vocabulary ' of all the language* of tbe world, two volumes of which 

 were published at St. Petersburg in 1767-89 in 4 to. They contain 

 286 words in 200 language* of Alia and Europe. A third volume, 

 which never appeared, waa intended to embrace tbe language* of 

 Africa and America. The plan of this work (suggested by the 

 empress) was bad, for a simple vocabulary can never give any idea of 

 the mechanism and spirit of a language : it is however of considerable 

 value. 



Besides the works already mentioned, Pallas published, among many 

 others, 'Travels through the Southern Provinces of tho Russian 

 Empire, in the years 1793 and 1794,' 2 vols. 4to, Leipzig, 1801, in 

 German. There is an English translation of this work, and also of a 

 memoir by Pallas on the different kinds of cheep found in the Russian 

 dominions and among the Tartar hordes of Russia. The latter was 

 translated by James Anderson, the agriculturist. 



Pallas was a member of the Royal Society of London, of the Institute 

 of Prance, and of several other foreign academies, besides that of St. 

 Petersburg ; and he wrote many memoirs, which will be found in their 

 different ' Transactions.' 



PALLAVICI'NO, FERRANTE, was born at Parma in 1615. He 

 entered at an early age the Order of the Canons of St. Augustine, and 

 made bis TOWS ; but after a few years he found that he had acted 

 rashly, and that he waa totally uusuited for the life which he had 

 embraced. Having obtained his superior's permission to travel, he 

 repaired to Venice, where he led a life of licentiousness, and wrote 

 obscene books, which found a ready sale. He afterwards went to 

 Germany as chaplain to a nobleman, and returned to Venice just at 

 the time when war broke out between Edoardo Farnese, duke of 

 Parma, and Pope Urban VIII., on the subject of the duchy of Castro. 

 Pallavicino wrote in favour of his sovereign the duke, using violent 

 expressions against the popo and his nephews the Barberiui. One of 

 his pamphlets was entitled ' II Divorzio Celeste,' by which he intimated 

 that a divorce had taken place between the Church and its Divine 

 founder. Pallavicino now thinking he was no longer safe in Italy, 

 resolved to go to France ; but unfortunately for him, he was accom- 

 panied by a young Frenchman of insinuating address, who proved to 

 be a spy of the Barberiui, and who led him unawares into the papal 

 territory of Avignon, where he was immediately seized and led to 

 prison. He was tried for apostacy and high treason, and waa con- 

 demned aud beheaded ou the 5th of March 1644, at the early age of 

 twenty-nine years. (Poggiali, Menorie per la Storia Letttraria di 

 Piaccnza.) 



PALLAVICI'NO, SFORZA, son of the Marquis Alessandro Palla- 

 vicino of Parma, was born at Rome, November 20, 1607 ; studied in 

 the Roman College, and afterwards entered the order of the Jesuits. 

 He wrote a philosophical treatise, ' Del Bene ' (' On Happiness '), and 

 another treatise, ' Dello Stilo ' (' On Style in Written Composition '), 

 both of which are esteemed. But the work for which he ia best known 

 is the 'History of the Council of Trent* ('Istoria del Concilio di 

 Trento,' 3 vols. 4 to, Rome, 1664), written in defence of the see of 

 Rome against the charges and insinuations brought against it by the 

 celebrated Father Sarpi in his history of the same council. Both works 

 ought to be consulted and compared, in order to form a just opinion of 

 tho important transactions to which they refer. Pope Alexander VII. 

 mode Pallaviciuo a cardinal, and employed him in important affairs. 

 His last work waa on Christian perfection, 'Arto della Perfe/.iono 

 Criatiaua,' Cardinal Pallaviciuo died June 5, 1667. 



PALMA, GIA'COPO, called the Old, to distinguish him from his 

 great-nephew of the same name, was born at Serinalta, in the territory 

 of Bergamo (though Vasari saya at Venice), and is said to have been 

 a disciple of Titian. The dates both of his birth and death are not 

 precisely fixed. Vasari says he died at the age of forty-eight, some 

 years before the publication of his ' Lives of tho Painters ' in 156S. 

 He appear* to have been a companion and rival of Lotto, who waa 

 born in 1513. Palma'i manner ha* much resemblance to that of Titian, 

 whom he chiefly imitated in the softness, as he did Giorgione in the 

 brightness of hi* colouring, tho warm golden tone of which is extremely 

 pleasing. It apprara that he had a peculiar manner of laying ou his 

 colours, by which he gave tbe appearance of high finishing without 

 labour. Tbe painting* of Palma are highly esteemed (though some 

 writers deny him originality) for the noble taste of his composition, for 

 natural nud pleating expression, and tbo harmony of his colours. 



Vasari speaks with high commendation of a picture by Palma 

 representing the ship in which the body of St. Mark was brought 

 from Alexandria to Venice, exposed to the fury of a frightful storm. 

 Olher celebrated paintings of his are a ' Santa Barbara ' at Venice, 

 and a 'St. Jerome ' in the Zampieri palace at Bologna. The galleries 

 of Vienna, Munich, and Berlin posses* several of his works, and there 

 are some in England. 



PALMA, GIA'COFO, called the Young, was born at Venice in 1541. 

 He was the son of Antonio Palma, a pointer of some note in his day ; 

 but young Palma loon left the style of his father to study the works 



