563 



PIRACY, LITERARY PISA. 



der no national flag, and attacks the subjects of all 

 nations alike ; the privateer acts under a commis- 

 sion from a belligerent power, according- to certain 

 maritime laws. The only instances in which pri- 

 vateering has been recognised by any nation as un- 

 lawful, is contained in the treaty of the United States 

 of America with Prussia, in 1785. The Barbary 

 powers, notwithstanding some doubts which formerly 

 existed, have been regarded, for a century past, as 

 lawful powers, and not as pirates. They have all 

 the insignia of regular nations, and are competent to 

 maintain the European relations of peace and war. 



PIRACY, LITERARY. See Copyright and Lit- 

 erary Property. 



PIRAEUS. See Athens. 



PIRANESI, a celebrated architect, engineer, and 

 antiquary, was born at Venice, probably about 171 1, 

 although one account says in 1721. He passed the 

 greater part of his life at Rome. His earliest work, 

 published in 1743, consists of designs of his own, in 

 a grand style, and is adorned with views of Rome. 

 His other works are, Antichita Romane, or Roman 

 Antiquities, in 220 plates, witli descriptions in Ital- 

 ian (4 vols., folio) ; Fasti Consulares Triumphales- 

 fue Romanorum ; Del Castello dell' Acquit Giulia 

 (21 folio plates) ; Antichitd cTAlbano e di Castel 

 Gandolfo (55 plates) ; Campus Martins Antiquai 

 Urbis (54 plates) ; Archi Trionfali Antichi Tempj 

 ed Amfiteatri (31 plates) ; Trofei d'Ottaviano Augus- 

 ta (10 plates) ; Delia Magnificenza ed Architettura 

 de 1 Romani (44 plates) ; Architecture Diverse (27 

 plates) ; Carceri d' Invenzione (16 plates ;) and about 

 130 views of Rome in its present state. His inven- 

 tions display much grandeur and fertility ; but his re- 

 presentations of real objects are not always faithful, 

 on account of the scope which he gave to his imagi- 

 nation. He died in 1778. Two sons, Francis and 

 Peter, settled at Paris, continued his works, now 

 amounting to 23 vols. folio. 



PIRITHOUS; in fabulous history, son of Jupiter and 

 Dia, wife oflxion, king of the Lapithae, and friend of 

 Theseus. He married Dejaniraof Hippodamia, daugh- 

 ter of Adrastis, a prince of the Lapithae, by whom he 

 had Polypoetes. His marriage is famous for the battle 

 of the Lapithae and Centaurs, occasioned bythe attempt 

 of a drunken Centaur (Eurythion) to do violence to the 

 bride, and which resulted in the expulsion of the 

 Centaurs from Pelion. After the death of his wife, 

 Pirithous went to Athens, and, with Theseus, who 

 had also lost his wife, carried on" Helen from Sparta. 

 Having reached Athens, they cast lots for her, on 

 condition that he who was successful should aid the 

 other in procuring a wife. She fell to Theseus, 

 whom Pirithous required to aid him in the rape of 

 Proserpine, wife of Pluto. The. two friends, there- 

 fore, descended into the infernal regions, but having 

 sat down to rest, they were unable to rise again. 

 Theseus was afterwards set free by Hercules, but 

 Pirithous remained in the infernal world, loaded with 

 300 chains, or, according to some, was torn in pieces 

 by Cerberus. 



PIRON, ALEXIS, a celebrated French wit, poet, 

 and dramatist, born at Dijon, in 1689, was the son 

 of an apothecary. He took his degrees in the faculty 

 of law at Besangon, and was about to be admitted 

 to practice, when his parents experienced a reverse of 

 fortune, which obliged him to relinquish his design. 

 He remained some time at Dijon, leading a life of 

 dissipation, in the midst of which his literary efforts 

 were confined to the production of a few satirical 

 epigrams. At length he became clerk to a financier, 

 whom he quitted to go to Paris, where he was em- 

 ployed as a copyist, with a salary of forty sous a day. 

 This irksome situation he soon relinquished ; and it 

 was with difficulty that he obtained the payment of 



his pitiful salary. He was next engaged to write for 

 the Theatre of the Comic Opera, and his first piece 

 was Arlequin Deucalion, composed in two days. His 

 success induced him to persevere, and after writing 

 several pieces, he produced in 1738 his chef-d'oeuvre, 

 Metromanie, a comedy, which Laharpe characterizes 

 as excelling in plot, style, humour, and vivacity almost 

 every other composition of the kind. Piron after- 

 wards wrote Fernand Cortes, a tragic drama, and 

 some other pieces, acted at the theatre de la Foirc. 

 In the latter part of his life he made repeated at- 

 tempts to gain admission into the French academy ; 

 but the satirical effusions in which he had indulged 

 himself had made him so many enemies among the 

 academicians, that he was finally rejected. He re- 

 venged himself for his disappointment by calling the 

 academy Les invalides du bel esprit, and composing 

 the humorous epitaph, 



Ci-git Piron, gui nefutrien, 

 Pas meme acudemicien.* 



The king, however, at the solicitation of Montes- 

 quieu, gave Piron a pension of 1000 livres. His 

 death took place Jan. 21, 1773. His ban mots were 

 collected and published in one volume 18mo - and 

 his Poesies Diverses were printed at Neufchatel, 

 1775, and 1793, 8vo. His works entire form seven 

 volumes octavo, in the edition of Rigoley de Juvigny, 

 1776. 



PIROUETTE, in dancing ; a rapid circumvolu- 

 tion upon one foot, which, on the stage, is repeated 

 by the dancers many times in succession. In riding 

 it is the sudden, short turn of a horse, so as to bring 

 his head where his tail was. 



PISA, one of the most ancient and beautiful cities 

 of Italy, in the grand-duchy of Tuscany, stands in a 

 fertile plain, about eight miles from the entrance of 

 the Arno into the sea. The air is tolerable healthy 

 and mild. Instead of the 1 50,000 inhabitants, which 

 it formerly contained, the city now numbers scarcely 

 17,000. Silence and solitude reign here, as in the 

 other great cities of Italy, which have finished their 

 part in history. The Arno divides the city into two 

 nearly equal parts, connected by three bridges. The 

 two great quays (lungarno) are adorned with edifices 

 in the noblest style, whose fortified appearance re- 

 calls the warlike days of the republic. The streets 

 are mostly wide, straight, and well paved ; but the 

 grass growing between the stones, is a melancholy 

 mark of depopulation. Among the eighty ecclesias- 

 tical buildings, the cathedral, built in the eleventh 

 century by a Greek architect, strikes one with awe, 

 and contains many remarkable monuments. Behind 

 the cathedral stands the celebrated leaning tower, 

 built in the twelfth century, by a German of the name 

 of William ; its inclination amounts to about fifteen 

 feet from the perpendicular. It is a round tower of 

 marble, consisting of eight rows of pillars, one above 

 another, and is 168 fee.t in height. It has been 

 doubted, whether this beautiful tower has actually 

 sunk, or whether it was designedly built with its pre- 

 sent inclination. Opposite the cathedral stands the 

 battisterio, or baptistery, which is of the same age, 

 round, and adorned with pillars. It was built by Dioti 

 Salvi. Between the twoistheCampoSanto,oneof the 

 greatest wondersof art in Italy. Itis an oldchurch-yard 

 the earth of which the Pisans brought from Jerusalem, 

 surrounded by Gothic halls, the walls of which are 

 painted in fresco by the most celebrated early artists, 

 among whom are Memmi, Orcagna, &c. But all are 

 eclipsed by the inimitable paintings of BenozzoGozzoli. 

 Carlo Lasanio, superintendent of the Campo Santo, 

 has published fine engravings of these pictures, Pit- 



Here lies Piron, who was nothing 

 Not even an Academician. 



