PITRYNICHUS. 



HAZZI, JOSEPH. 



I 



pitoow of ach, adding hit own critical judgment of the menu of the 

 writer, nd of his statement*) and opinion*. In thU manner 1'hotiui 

 rerMwi more than fifty historians, a (till greater number of divine*, 

 bcaide* orator*. philosopher*, grammarians, rhetoricians, Ac., in all 

 279 work* which be had read ml examined. Fabririui ('Biblioth. 

 Gnrc*,' T. 85) gi* an accurate list of the work* noticed by Photius. 

 8, a (Jreek Lexicon, published by Hermann, 4to, Leipzig, 1808: 

 another edition by Person appeared after bit death, under the euprr- 

 inteodene* of Dobree, London, 1822; it U entitled turrtov roi HOT/M- 

 *>Xv AffMr an*;*',l E. Cod. Oaleano, doscripeit R. Porsnnus, 2 

 Tula. 8*0. 3, Epistle*,' fol., London, 1051. 4, 'Nomoeanon, being a 

 Collection of the AcU of the Council., to the Seventh (Ecumenical, 

 with the corresponding decrees of the Emperon concerning Kcclrsias- 

 tical Matter*,' Basel, 1652. 5, A treatise, ' Adversus Latinoi do Pro- 

 cessione Spiritus Sancti,' and other theological and controversial 

 works, aeveral of which are still unpublished: among others, one 

 against the Pauliciana, of which Montfaucon give* some fragments iu 

 hit ' Bibliotbeca Cotliniana.' 6, ' Ampbilochia, being Answers to 

 Questions relative to various Passages in the Scriptures, with an 

 Kx j option of the Epistles of St. Paul.' 



I'M KY'XU'HUS. Several persons of this name are mentioned by 

 Suidas and others. 



1'iiRYKicHus of Athens, the eon of Polypbradmon, was a disciple of 

 Theapis, and a writer of tragedy. He was upwards of twenty Tears 

 the contemporary of jEscbylus, and probably he was about so many 

 yean his senior. The title* of fourteen tragedies of Phrynicbus occur, 

 of which five have been supposed to be the productions of another 

 Phryuichu*, the son of Melantha* : but Bentley has clearly proved that 

 this fcuppotition is without any foundation, and that there wns only 

 one tragic poet of this name. 



Plirynichuii first exhibited B.C. 511, and he gained the prize for his 

 1 l'li uician Women,' B.C. 476, the subject of which was drawn from 

 contemporary history, bring the victories of Athena in the Persian 

 wars. It apixars from these dates that he was a dramatic writer 

 during thirty-five years, but we know not the time either of his birth 

 or his death. 



Phrynichus effected a great improvement in the tragedy which 

 Thespis bad introduced. He no longer sanctioned the ludicrous 

 diversion in which Bacchus and the Satyrs only were personated ; but 

 he derived the subjects of his plays from the graver parts of the mytho- 

 logy and history of his country. With the example of -cE*cbylus to 

 stimulate him, he made still further advances. One of his tragedies, 

 The Capture of Miletus,' referring to an event which took place B.C. 

 494, five years after ..-Kschylus won his first prize, is particularly men- 

 tioned by Herodotus (vi. 21). lie relates that the poet melted the 

 spectators into tears by his vivid picture of the sufferings of their 

 Ionian brethren. It may be presumed that his ' Phoonisate,' which 

 won the price B.C. 476, was marked by equal if not superior excellence. 

 Aristophanes, on several occasions brings in the name of Phtynichus 

 in such a way as to show that he was esteemtd a poet of no ordinary 

 powers. But Phryuichus did not invent the dialogue ; he had only 

 one actor, at least until Kschylus introduced the dialogue ; the choral 

 ode still constituted the chief part of the performance. The improve- 

 ment of first adding the dialogue and shortening the chorus is due to 

 .jKachylns ; Phrynichus first introduced female parts. No fragments 

 of Phrynicbus are extant. 



PUIIVNICHUS OF ATHENS, a comic poet, who flourished B.C. 430. 

 Ten comedies of his are mentioned by ancient writers. (Suidas; 

 Bent ley.) A few fragment* of this poet have been collected by Hertelius 

 and Orotius. He U once quoted by the Phrynichus who forms the 

 subject of the next article. 



PiniYMCUl'B (called Arrhabius by Photius; and by Suidas, the 

 Sophist of Bitbynia), flourished under the emperors M. Aurelius and 

 Commodua, from A.D. 170 to I'.iO. He has left a work entitled 'A 

 Selection of Attic Verbs and Nouns,' the object of which is to point 

 out the proper use of certain words, and of certain forms of words, as 

 alone authorised by the writer* of pun Attic diction. This work has 

 been several time* printed. The best edition is that of Lobeok, 8vo, 

 Leipzig, 1820, which contains the substance of all the annotations of 

 the preceding editions, and I* enriched with many original remarks. 

 A fragment of Herodian, the grammarian, upon the same subject, 

 accompanies the work of Phrynichus. 



PI AZZE'TTA, GIOVA'NN I BATTISTA, one of the most celebrated 

 of the later Venetian painters, was bom at Venice in 1682 or 1683, 

 and was first instructed in design by his father, Jacopo Piaxxetta, a 

 carver in wood. He was taught painting by Molinari, but be acquired 

 bis style in Bologna from the works of Spagnoletto and Guercino. 

 Piar./tta is one of the ' Naturalist ' school of painting, and he is one 

 of the darkest of those who are sometimes called Tenebroai :' they 

 generally painted on dark pounds. He died at Venice in 1754. 

 PiazzetU's picture* are doubtless much darkened through time : they 

 are distinguished by their strong contracts of light and sliade. II in 

 matUrpiec* b considered the 'Beheading of John the Baptist' at 

 Padua. He excelled in caricature. Many of his works have been 

 ugrav.d. (Zanetti, 2*Ua J'ittura Venouuta, Ac.; Lanzi, Storia 

 filiorica, *c.) 



PIAZZI, JOSEPH, was born at Ponte in the Valteline (Switzerland), 

 July 18, 1740. His education appears to have commenced at Milan, 



where he assumed the habit of the Theatins, and became an inmate 

 of the convent of St. Anthony. Here and at Turin he studied tnu 

 classics and mathematics under Tiraboaehi and Beoosria, and at Home 

 under Lesuenr and Jaoquier, the editor* of the Jesuits' edition of the 

 1 Principal.' He began to teach philosophy at Uenoa; but having 

 expressed himself too openly on certain theological point*, lie was 

 threatened with the persecution of the Dominicans, from which he 

 escaped by accepting the professorship of mathematics iu the new 

 University of Malta, conferred upon him by the Grand-Muter Pinto. 

 Upon his return to Italy he became professor of philosophy and 

 mathematics in the College of the Nobles at Ravenna, but here again 

 his religious opinions made him many enemies. Boon after the pub- 

 lication of two philosophical theses, which were deemed " too bold for 

 so young a divine," he found it expedient to retire, first to Cremona 

 and thence to Rome, where he was for some time reader of dogmatic 

 theology at Son Andre" della Valle. In 1780, at the recommendutiou 

 of Jacquier, he wa* appointed professor of the higher mathematics in 

 the Academy of Palermo, where, with the co-operation of the viceroy, 

 he founded an astronomical observatory. In 1787 he visited Paris, 

 where he made the acquaintance of Lalande, Jeaurat, Pingr^, Delambre, 

 and Bailly ; also of John Ca-siui, Mecbain. and Legendre, who were 

 at that time occupied in determining the difference of longitude 

 between the observatories of Paris and Greenwich, He next visited 

 England, where he became intimate with Maskelyne, Herschel, Viuce, 

 and more particularly with Kamsden, to whom he confided the con- 

 struction of the instrument* for bis new observatory. Much of his 

 time during his stay in England was passed at the Observatory of 

 Greenwich. Here, with Dr. Maskelyne, he observed the solar eclipse 

 of June 3, 1788 ; and the year following he communicated a paper to 

 the Royal Society ('Phil. Trans.,' voL 79, p. 65), containing the 

 observations of that eclipse by twelve other astronomers, and the 

 consequences thence deduced by himself relative to the longitudes of 

 the several observatories. At that time the longitude of the Dublin 

 Observatory was taken at 24' 58" ; Piazzi gives 25' 18-4", and expresses 

 his confidence that this is within two seconds of the truth : the. longi- 

 tude now given in the 'Nautical Almanac' is 25' 22". This paper is 

 understood to be his earliest production as an astronomer. Having 

 after much importunity obtained the completion of his instruments, 

 he returned with them to Sicily in the latter part of the year 

 and very soon after became one of the most active and accurate of 

 modern observers. The Observatory of Palermo was at that time the 

 most southern in Europe, that at Malta having been recently destroyed 

 by fire. In the course of the first ten years he determined the pooitiuna 

 of no less than 6748 stars. His first catalogue was published in 1803 

 under the title of ' Stellarum Inerrantium Positiones,' which was 

 deservedly honoured by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, and 

 acquired for its author the esteem and admiration of astronomer*. 

 It was while thus occupied that he discovered, January 1, 1801, the 

 first of the forty- two minor planets now (1856) known to be situated 

 between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and to which he gave the 

 name of Ceres Ferdinandea, out of compliment to bin patron the king 

 of Naples. Ferdinand would have commemorated the event by circu- 

 lating among the astronomers of Europe a gold medal bearing the 

 effigy of Piazzi ; but the latter suggested that the money would be 

 more usefully applied in the purchase of an equatorial, of which the 

 observatory was in need. 



In 1817 he was called to Naples to put into activity the new 

 observatory erected by Murat on the heights of Capo di Monte. He 

 was succeeded in the Observatory of Palermo by M. Cacciatore, to 

 whom he had previously confided the difficult tak of re-examining 

 Maakelyne'e thirty-six principal stars. The observations of Cacciatore, 

 which were extended to 120 stare, form the basis of Piazzi'* second 

 catalogue of 7646 star*, published in 1814. Speaking of this catalogue, 

 the council of the London Astronomical Society remark, in their 

 seventh annual report, that " it exceeds everything of the kind which 

 preceded it, and show* more powerfully than words can express what 

 may be effected by the talents and assiduity of one individual." 

 Piazzi was a member of the principal scientific societies of Italy, 

 France, and Germany. Of the Koyal Society of London he was elected 

 a fellow in 1804, at the same time with Baron Zaoh and Professor 

 Qauss. He died at Naples, July 22, 1826. His library and instru- 

 ments he bequeathed to the Observatory of Palermo, and a liberal 

 annuity in perpetuity, to be appropriated in succession to the education 

 and maintenance of young men who evince a marked partiality for 

 astronomical science. 



The preceding notice is chiefly drawn from an article in the 'Bulletin 

 des Science* ' for 1826, drawn up by De Angelis under the eye of the 

 Baron Zaob. The published works of Piazzi mentioned iu different 

 numbers of the ' Bulletin des Sciences,' are collected and appended to 

 a translation of the above article in Brewster's 'Journal for 1827 

 (vol. vi., p. ] 1)3). They are as under : 



1, 'Discourse on Astronomy,' Palermo, 1790; 2, ' Description of the 

 Observatory of Palermo,' in U books, of which four were publmln <l in 

 1792 and five in 1794; 3, 'On the Discovery of the Planet Cere*,' 

 Palermo, 1802; 4, 'Observations on the Obliquity of the Kcliptic,' 

 1804 ('Mem.Soc. Italian*,' tome XL) ; 6, 'On the Precession of the 

 Equinoxes,' 1804 ( Ephem. de Milan ') ; 6, ' On the Parallax of some 

 of the Fixed Stars' ('Mem. Soo. Italians,' xil); 7, 'On the Measure 



