PIKRRE, BERNARDIN DK ST. 



PIGNOTTI, LUK 



m 



favourite studies, and formed a valuable collection of book*. especially 

 rich in works upou art. There he died, February 18th, 1803. The 

 Academy of the Bnra, at Milau, honoured hi* memory with a mouu- 

 BMnt in the portico of their building. 



I'l KltKE, UBHABDM DK ST., was born in 1737. After studying 

 at rri be entered the department of civil engineers under the govern- 

 ment, or ' ponU et disuses' as.' M it is ityled in France. A reduction 

 however which took place tome time after left him unemployed, and 

 he eater*:! the army at military engineer ; but having quarrelled with 

 hi* superior, he wai disjoined from tho service, lie went to Malta 

 with the promise of a commission, but found himself disappointed. 

 He next visited Russia, where he obtained a situation as engineer in 

 the liustiau service, in which he remained some time, and executed 

 several surreys, lie drew up the project of a colony of foreigners, to 

 be established on the eastern bank of the Caspian Sea, with a republican 

 government, under the protection of Russia ; and presented his plan 

 to the favourite Orlov, who told him coldly that such plans coulil not 

 suit the policy of Russia. Becoming weary of that country, ho went 

 to Poland, with the iutention of fighting against the Ruscians ; but a 

 love intrigue which he bad at Warsaw detained him there fur about 

 a year without duing anything. From Poland ho went to Dresden 

 and Berlin, and at last returned to France, when the Baron de Breteuil 

 procured him a commission as engineer in the Isle of France, or 

 Mauritius, on the understanding that ho was to proceed to the island 

 of Madagascar to endeavour to realise there his favourite plan of a 

 republican colony. While on the voyage he found out that his 

 companions, inrtead of being intent on establishing liberty on the 

 Madagascar coast, were proceeding thither for the purpose of procuring 

 a supply of slavue. lie quarrelled with them, and having landed in 

 the laic of France, he lived two years there ; after which ho returned 

 to Paris, where he became acquainted with D'Alouibert, Mademoiselle 

 d'Kupinasae, and other literary characters, who encouraged hitti to 

 publish a narrative of his voyage. From that time his career as a 

 literary man began. He afterwards wrote his pretty story of ' Paul 

 and Virginia,' one of the best works of its kind in the French language, 

 and which has established his rank among French writers. His other 

 works are : 1,' Etudes de la Nature; 1 2, ' La Chaumiere Indienne;' 

 8, 'Harmonics de la Nature;' 4, 'A Narrative of his Journey to 

 Russia ; ' 5, ' Kssais sur J. J. Rousseau,' besides several plays. He had 

 a situation under the government, when the revolution broke out and 

 again reduced him to poverty. The principles of the revolution were 

 however in accordance with his own theories of government, but when 

 the reign of terror came he was in some danger, especially as he 

 ventured publicly to profess his belief in God. At hist he found a 

 protector in Joseph llonaparte, brother of the victorious general of the 

 army of Italy, who generously assigned him a pension. Napoleon 

 himself showed him kindness ; he gave him the cross of the Legion 

 of Honour, with a pension, and placed his son in a lyceum and his 

 daughter in tho imperial school of Ecouen. He died in 1S14. 



Bernardin do St. Pierre was a kind of visionary for the greater part 

 of his life, and his writings bear the stamp of his character. There is 

 a good edition of his collected works in 2 vols. 4 to, with his biography, 

 ' (Kuvres de J. H. Bernardin do St. Pierre, mises en ordre par L. Aim<5 

 Martin,' Paris, 183C. 



Bernardin de St Pierre must not be confounded with CHARLES ABflfe 

 DR ST. PIERRE, a philanthropist of tho early pait of tho 18th century, 

 known for his project of a perpetual peace, which he laid before the 

 diplomatists assembled at Utrecht, ' Projet de Paix 1'erpetuelle,' 

 Utrecht, 1718; also a 'Projet pour perfcctionuer 1'Kilucation,' and 

 numerous other works, which Cardinal Duboia used to call the dreams 

 of an honest man, but come of which however have been tince 

 acknowledged to be susceptible of being realised, 



PKrAFKTTA, ANTONIO, was born at Viceuza, in the latter part 

 of the 16th century, of a patrician family, and applied himself to the 

 study of mathematics and geography. Being highly interested in the 

 discoveries; which were then being mode by Spanish and Portuguese 

 expedition!, he set out for Spain in tho suite of the papal nuncio to 

 that country. Finding that an expedition was going to set out from 

 Seville under the direction of Magalhaens, he asked and obtained of 

 the Kmperor Charles V. permission to join it as a volunteer. The 

 expedition sailed from San Lucar in September 1619. [MAIJAI.I 

 Plgafetta, being a volunteer on board, and having no obligatory duties 

 to |*rfonn, wrote day by day a journal of tho voyage. Being gifted 

 with a robust frame and healthy constitution, be bore the hardships 

 and escaped the diseases which destroyed mot of the crow. He wan 

 present at the landing on the Philippine Islands, where Magallmens 

 lost hi* life, and was wounded in the affray. He returned to Spain in 

 the admiral ship Victoria, the only one that remained out of the Qve 

 which had nailed together. He landed at Seville in September 1622, 

 having performed in the course of three years the first voyage round 

 the globe. After repairing to church with his travelling cumpanious 

 mn procession and b-irefooted to thank Uod for their safe return, 

 Pignf vtta wrnt to Valladolid, where be presented a copy of his journal 

 to( -harleii V. 



Pigafetta afterwards returned to Italy, and, at the request of Pope 

 Clement VII., he wrote a more elaborate narrative of his voyage, with 

 description of the strange countries he had visited, and short 

 vocabularies of the languages of the Philippine and Molucca Islands. 



This narrative he dedicated to the Grand-Matter of Rhodes, LI -la 

 Adam, and he sent a manuscript copy to the Princess Louisa of Savoy, 

 from which a French abridgment was made by a certain Fabro, and 

 published at Paris without date. Of this abridgment, Ramusio inserted 

 an Italian translation in the first volume of bis ' Raccolta di Naviga- 

 zioni e Viagt?i,' fol , Venice, 1650. At last Amoretti discovered in th 

 Ambroaian Library at Milan a complete copy of Pigafette's original 

 narrative, which he published, ' Primo Viaggio intorno al (ilobo,' 4to, 

 Milan, 1800, with plates, drawn from the maps and sketches which 

 accompanied tho manuscript. Pigafetla's was the first account that 

 Euro pt ana had of the Ulauds in the Pacific Ocean. Of Pigafetta'i 

 personal history after his return to Italy nothing is known, except that 

 lie was made a knight of the Order of St. John. 



P1UALLE, JEAN BAPTISTK, a celebrated French sculptor, was 

 the son of a carpenter, and was born at Paris in 1714. He was tho 

 pupil of Robert la Lorrain and the elder I.emoyue, and studied three 

 years in Rome. On his return to Paris ho attracted great notice and 

 obtained a permanent reputation for a statue of Mercury. The king 

 (Louis XV.) purchased the statue, and the Royal Academy of Painting 

 and Sculpture elected Pigalle a 'member. Louis XV. order.' I th<> 

 sculptor to make a Venus as a companion to this Mercury, which how- 

 ever was considered unequal to it, and the king presented them both to 

 Frederick the Ureat of Prussia : they are still at Sans Souci. Another 

 celebrated work by Pigalle is the statue of Louis XV. at Rhoims ; but 

 his masterpiece is the great allegorical monument of the Marecbal de 

 Saxe, or Moritx von Sachscn, who commanded the French at Fontenoy, 

 in tho church of St. Thomas at Strasbourg, commenced, by the order 

 of Louis XV., in 1765, and finished in 1776. It is a group of five 

 figures against a pyramid, which proclaims the glories of the marshal : 

 the idea is singular the marshal is represented in his own costume, 

 and crowned with laurel, entering a tomb ; on one side is Death, as a 

 skeleton; on the other, Hercules mourning; an impersonation of 

 France is endeavouring to restrain the marshal and avert death ; a 

 weeping Genius U also in attendance, with an inverted torch : many 

 military trophies are introduced as accessaries. The marshal is most 

 elaborately modelled. It has been several times engraved. 



Pigalle was much employed by Madame Pompadour, and his great 

 success is said to be originally owing to her patronage. There is no 

 great work by Pigalle in Paris: the tomb of the Couita d'Harconr, . in 

 Notre Dame, is the principal. Among his smaller works, a figure of a 

 child holding a cage from which a bird has escaped, obtained him 

 great applause. He is considered one of the best sculptors of the 

 1Mb, century, though big taste cannot be called classical. He died in 

 1785, as chancellor of the ancient Academy of Painting and Sculpture. 

 The bronze equestrian statue of Louis XV., by Bouchardon, which was 

 in the Place Louis XV., and was destroyed by the populace in 17'.'-, 

 was finished aud put up by I'igalle. 



PI'QHIUS, STK'PHAN US VINAND, was born in 1520, at Kempen 

 in the province of Overyasel, in the Netherlands. He was nephew, on 

 his mother's side, of Albert Pighius, a learned controversialist of the 

 16th century, who lived at Rome, and wrote against the Lutherans. 

 Stephen Viuand, after studying in his native country and at Cologne, 

 entered the ecclesiastical profession, and repaired to Home, wh 

 was well received on account of his uncle's reputation (his uncle being 

 then dead), in honour of whom he added the name of Pighius to his 

 paternal name of Viuand. He spent eight years at Home in studying 

 antiquities, examining monuments, copying inscriptions, Ac. Thii 

 labour was preparatory to the great work which he afterwards wrote 

 on the Roman annals. On his return to the Netherlands he was 

 made librarian to Cardinal Uranvelle, after whose death he was 

 appointed by the Duku of Cloves preceptor to his son, with whom he 

 travelled through Italy about 1675. The young man however died at 

 Rome, and Pighius returned to his native country, and retired to the 

 town of Xanten, of which he was a canon. He died in 1(104, alter 

 publishing the first volume of his great work ' Annales Romanoruui,' 

 leaving the manuscript of the remainder to the Jesuit Andreas Schutt, 

 who published' the two following volumes. Tho full title of tho work 

 is ' Aunales Magistratuuui et Provinciaruin S.P.Q.R. ab Urbo Coudita, 

 ex Auctorum Antiquitaturnque variis Muuuuicutis suppletl ; in 

 Reipublicto Mutationes, Potestatum ac Imperioruin Successlones, Aota, 

 Lega, liella, Clades, Victoria), Manubhc atque Triuuiphi, iiecnon 

 iulustria Stemmata Familiarumquo Prupogines ad Aunos et Tempora 

 sua rcducuntur,' 3 vols. folio, Antwerp, 1615. l'ighiu gives a chronicle 

 of Rome year after year, from tho building of the city, to the death of 

 Vitellitin, A.D. 69, the names of the consuls, tribunes, censors, tcdrtci, 

 qutcstora, praters, pro consuls, proprietor*, and other governors of the 

 provinces, wherever their name* con bo ascertained from ancient 

 writers or monuments. He also notices briefly the principal event* 

 of each je;ir, carefully quoting his authorities. Wherever an inscription 

 bears upon a fact, he transcribes it He also mentions the titles of the 

 [iiiiii'ipal laws aud lenatus couaultus, under their respective years. It 

 is altogether a work of va-t research and erudition, which cost the 

 author more thau twenty years' labour. His chronology has been 

 found faulty, as most Roiuau chronologies are. Pighius also published 

 a good edition of Valerius Maxitnus, with valuable notes, Antwerp, 

 1685. 



riiiXOTTI, LORENZO, was born in 1739, at Figlini in the Val 

 d'Arno. He studied medicine at Pisa, where ho took his degree of 



