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PIROLI, TOMMASO. 



PISANO. 



842 



by a freedom and spirit that can otherwise hardly be preserved. The 

 same circumstance also accounts for that astonishing rapidity of exe- 

 cution which enabled him to produce, within less than forty years, 

 about two thousand engravings, most of them of very large dimensions 

 and full of detail 



It is true he was not wholly without help from other hands, for all 

 his children (three sons and two daughters) were brought up by him 

 to assist him in his labours ; and he had likewise several pupils, among 

 others Piroli [PlEOLi, TOMMASO.] Still such aid must have been 

 comparatively inconsiderable, since it is evident from the peculiar 

 manner and spirit which pervade his works, and which were never 

 caught by any of his scholars, that his plates must have been executed 

 chiefly by his own hand. The following is a list of his principal 

 works : ' Architectura Romana,' 208 plates, 4 vols., atlas folio ; 

 ' Fasti Consulares Triumphalesque Eomanorum ;' ' Antichita d'Albano,' 

 35 plates; ' Campus Martius,' &c., 54 plates; ' Magtnficenza dei Romani,' 

 44 plates; ' Vedute di Roma,' 2 vols., 130 plates of modern buildings 

 at Rome; 'Collection of Candelabra, Vases,' &c.; 'Collection of 

 Chimney-pieces,' a series of most splendid designs ; ' Carceri d'lnven- 

 zioue,' 16 plates, filled with exceedingly wild but most picturesque 

 conceptions ; 'A Collection of Ancient Statues and Busts,' 350 subjects; 

 ' The Trajan and Antonine Columns ;' ' Antiquities of Herculaneum 

 and Pompeii.' A complete set of his works (comprising many not 

 here enumerated) amounts to no fewer than twenty-nine folio volumes, 

 many of which are of unusually large dimensions, some of them being 

 on double elephant paper, and the plates opening to ten feet in length. 

 Their contents afford on almost inexhaustible mine of antiquity, both 

 aa regards architecture aud sculpture; and indeed his ' MagniQceuza ' 

 alone, containing ;n it does many specimens and fragments of ancient 

 architecture till then little known, and so different from the usual 

 routine examples of the orders, would alone have sufficed for his fame. 

 Several of these, and other specimens of ancient art engraved by 

 him, such aa vases, candelabra, &c., have been since copied in later 

 works, yet even where they have been correctly and tastefully 

 delineated, they are very far inferior to the same subjects as touched 

 by I'irane.-i. 



In addition to his other numerous and extensive labours, he executed 

 one or two of the plates in the ' Works ' of Robert Adam, the English 

 architect, where their superiority to the rest manifests itself very 

 strongly. Piranesi did not execute much an a practical architect: 

 the wonder is, that he should have found time to accept any profes- 

 sional engagements of the kind. Nevertheless he did so, and among 

 the churches which he was employed by Clement XIII. to repair or 

 rebuild, are those of Santa Maria del Popolo aud the priory of Malta. 

 It is in this last-mentioned edifice that a monument by Angolini, a 

 life-sized statue of him, has been erected to his memory. Pirauesi 

 died at Rome, November 9, 1778. 



PIKOLI, TOMM A'SU, a distinguished Italian designer and engraver, 

 was born at Rome in 1750. He was the pupil of Qiambattista Pirauesi. 

 Among Piroli's numerous prints, mostly etched in outline, and many 

 in the chalk manner, the following are the most interesting : The 

 Prophet* and Sibyls of Michel Angelo in the Cappella Sistina, in large 

 slightly-shaded outlines; a copy of Metz's prints from the Last Judg- 

 ment in the same chapel ; the story of Cupid and Pysche, from the 

 frescoes of Raflaello, in the Farnesina ; the frescoes of Masaccio in the 

 Brancacci Chapel at Florence, and the original editions of Flaxmau's 

 outlines to Homer, Hesiod, jEschylus, and Dante, which were first 

 published at Rome. His drawing is correct and his line firm. There 

 are also several sets of engravings, after remains of ancient art, by 

 Piroli, some of which were published at Rome and at Paris, by Francesco 

 and Pietro Piranesi, sons of Oiambattista Piranesi. He died at Rome 

 in 1824. 



PIRO'N, ALEXIS, born at Dijon, in 1689, studied the law, took 

 his d< grees, and practised as an advocate in his native town, but he 

 afterwards forsook the bar, and lived for a time in gay and dissipated 

 society. Being distressed in his circumstances, he repaired to Paris, 

 and employed himself as a copyist, and afterwards wrote for the stage. 

 He produced several light comedies and farces, which succeeded very 

 well, but he failed in his attempt to write tragedy. At fifty years of 

 age he composed his drama ' La Mdtromanie,' the best of his works, 

 which established his reputation as a writer. He had been himself in 

 his youth seized by a kind of mania for writing verse, and was there- 

 fore a competent judge on the subject. Pirou had much ready wit 

 and a great facility for repartee, and his epigrams were very celebrated 

 in hii time. He wrote also tales, odes, and other light poetry, most 

 of them grossly licentious, according to the prevailing taste of his age, 

 which was that of the reign of Louis XV. : before his death however 

 he had expressed bis regret at the publication of some of his more 

 obscene odes, which had proved a bar to his being received among the 

 members of the Acade'mio Francaise. Piron may be considered as 

 a representative of his time and country, witty, thoughtless, and 

 lic'M.tioua. He had however some attractive personal qualities, and he 

 found friends among a higher order of men. Montesquieu obtained 

 for Piron a pension from the king of 1000 livres; the Count of Livry, 

 Uaurepas, the Duke of Nevcrs, aud other noblemen also patronised 

 him. He married at a mature age a woman of mature years, ami lived 

 very happy with her till her death. I 'iron's sight waa very weak, and 

 a fall which be had in the park of the Count of Livry hastened his 



death in 1773. His works were collected without discrimination, and 

 published by Rigoley de Juvigny, 7 vols. 8vo. 



PISA, LEONARD OF, or LEONARDO FIBONACCI (a corruption 

 of Jttius Honaccii), was the son of one Bonacci,. a merchant of Pisa, 

 and was born some time in the 12th century. He states that his 

 father was employed for the merchants of his own city at the custom- 

 house of an African port, and there made him study arithmetic ; he 

 afterwards travelled in Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Provence, and from 

 the various systems of numeration which he saw learnt to value the 

 superiority of the Indian method, which was probably that which his 

 father had taught him. His inattention to matters of commerce, and 

 preference for mathematical pursuits, procured for him, from his 

 countrymen, the contemptuous epithet of 'Bigollone.' His 'Liber 

 Abbaci ' was first written in 1202, and with additions in 1228, when it 

 was dedicated to Michael Scott. The ' Practica Geometriae ' was 

 written in 1220. Commandine intended to have published the latter, 

 and Bernard the former, but neither effected his purpose, and, with 

 the exception of the parts which Pacioli afterwards used [PACIOLI, 

 LUCAS], and the extensive citations in the notes of M. Libri's second 

 volume of his ' Histoire des Sciences Math, eu Italic,' nothing of 

 Fibonacci's has appeared. There was also a work on square numbers, 

 of which the manuscript is known to have existed at Florence in 1768, 

 but cannot now be found. 



The ' Liber Abbaci ' is a work on arithmetic and algebra. M. Libri 

 is of opinion that no Christian writer can be shown to have introduced 

 the Arabic or Indian numerals into any part of Christendom before 

 the publication of this treatise. Such manuscripts as exist, and which 

 seem to have a prior date, are thought by him to have been written 

 either by Jews or by Spanish Christians among the Moors. Dr. Pea- 

 cock ('Encycl. Metrop.,' Arithmetic) had arrived at the conclusion 

 that Fibonacci's works were the earliest in which these figures can bo 

 traced. It is remarkable that their writer was only known by name 

 in the middle of the last century, when the manuscripts of which we 

 now speak were discovered at Florence by Tozzetti. But the inten- 

 tions of Commandine and Bernard show that they were known at an 

 earlier period. 



The fifteenth chapter of the 'Liber Abbaci,' which contains the 

 treatise on algebra, has been cited in full by M. Libri Any one who 

 will compare it with Dr. Rosen's translation of Mohammed ben MUSA 

 will see a resemblance which tends to confirm the general supposition 

 (which also, according to Cardan, may be inferred from the express 

 words of Fibonacci himself) that the Arabic work just named was 

 that from which algebra was made European, though there is every 

 appearance of the avowed translations of it being posterior to Fibo- 

 nacci. But the latter must either have known other works, or have 

 been an original investigator of great merit. Several things known 

 to the Hindoos, but not mentioned by Ben Musa, arc contained in his 

 writings. He may have come to these by himself; but it is also 

 certain that the name of the Hindoos is frequently mentioned in the 

 manuscripts of the time as that of a nation excelling in these branches 

 of study. A close analysis of the writings of Fibonnaci would 

 probably settle whether he is to be considered as haviug himself 

 enlarged the boundary of the science, or as nothing but the compiler 

 of Oriental works. His merit is great either way. The influence of 

 his writings was long felt in Italy, which became from his time the 

 great school of arithmetic. 



PISA'NO is the name of several distinguished artists of Pisa in the 

 13th century, namely, Giunta, Niccola, Giovanni, and Andrea Pisauo. 

 Of two of these artists, Niccola aud his son Giovanni, some account 

 has already been given under NIOCOLA DI PISA. 



GIUNTA PISANO is the earliest known Tuscan painter. Niccola was 

 a sculptor, and Giuuta appears to have preceded him for a time, 

 though he was eventually much surpassed by him in design ; aud as 

 they were contemporaries, the name of Niccola accordingly takes the 

 lead in the list of celebrated Tuscan artists. Giunta may have been 

 born about 1180 or 1190. He is said to have learned painting about 

 1210, from some Greek artists, who were then engaged probably at 

 Pisa, a tradition which is disputed by some Italian historians of art, 

 who suppose that Pisa had at that period its uative artists. The arts 

 were very active at Pisa, owing to the construction of the cathedral 

 there, which was commenced iu 1003. 



Giunta appears to have attained considerable reputation, for Frat' 

 Elia of Cortona, general of the Minorites, invited him about 1235, or 

 sooner, to Assisi, to execute some works there in the upper church of 

 San Francesco. There are still some remains of the paintings of Giuuta 

 in this church, around the window behind the altar. He painted also a 

 Crucifixion in 1236, in which he introduced the portrait of Frat' Elia. 

 The painters of this time were acquainted with some excellent water- 

 colour medium, for another Crucifixion at Assisi, with other figures, 

 painted upon a wooden cross in thu church of Sauta Maria degli 

 Angeli, by Giuuta, is remarkably solid in impasto and unaffected by 

 water; it was painted probably about 1236, and has the following 

 inscription upon it, according to the restoration suggested by Lanzi : 

 "/ituta Pisanus Juntini me fecit." Lanzi assumes Giunta di 

 Giustiuo to be the name, from the occurrence of this name iu an old 

 manuscript mentioned by Morroua iu his 'Pisa Illustrata,' Other 

 existing works ascribed to Qiunta arc a Crucifixion in San Ranieri 

 at Pisa, a picture (a panel) of Saints in the chapel of the Campo Santo, 



