P I c 
876 
when liis comedy entitled Amor Cojlanlc was recited 
before that prince. He wrote two other comedies, 
L'Aleffand.ro and L’OrtenJio ; and tranflated the 13th book 
of Ovid’s Metamorphofis, and the fixth book of Virgil’s 
Eneid, into Italian verfe, and printed a collection of 100 
Sonnets. A tranflation of Ariftotle’s Poetics, with 
annotations, further proved his attachment to poetry. 
One of his juvenile works was La Rafuclla, ofj'ia Dialogo 
della Creanza delle Donne, firft printed in 1739, in which 
he indulged a licentious vein unfuitable to the gravity of 
his fubfequent purfuits. This was probably owing to 
his intimacy with Peter Aretine, with whom he was at 
that time in habits of correfpondence. The work has 
been tranflated into French. About 1540 he went to 
Padua, where he was aggregated to the Academy degli 
Infiaminati, and engaged to read lectures in it on moral 
philofophy. The fruits of his ftudy.on this topic was a 
work entitled L'ljlitutione di tulla la Vita dell ’ Uomo nato 
nobile e in citta libera, which, after being fome time handed 
about in MS. was publilhed by a printer at Venice in 154a. 
Although it acquired the author great reputation, it 
brought him under a charge of plagiarifm from Sperone 
Speroni, two of whole manufcript dialogues were inferted 
in it without acknowledgment. The bed excufe to 
be made for this circumftance is that Piccolomini was 
not himfelf the publifher. At length, in 1560, he gave an 
edition of the work in a new form, under the title of 
Dell’ Iftitutione Morale, lib. xii. He did not confine his 
ferious itudies to morals; but wrote works on natural 
philofophy and aftronomy, by which he obtained a high 
character for learning, though for the mod part he trod 
in the deps of the ancient maders. By the order of duke 
Francefcode Medici, he wrote a book on the reformation 
of the calendar undertaken by Gregory XIII. He alfo 
paraphrafed the Mechanics of Aridotle, and added to it 
a “ Treatife on the Certainty of the Mathematical 
Sciences,” both in Latin. In Italian he gave Paraphrases 
of Ariftotle’s Rhetoric and Xenophon’s Oeconomics. 
He redded feveral years at Padua and Rome; and at an 
advanced age retired to Sienna, where he poftefied a villa 
and fine garden. In 1574, Gregory XIII. nominated 
him to the titular archbilhopric ot Patras, and made him 
coadjutor of the archbifhop of Sienna. He died in 1578, 
and was interred in the cathedral of that city. A funeral 
oration and many poems were publifhed to his honour. 
PICCOLOM'INI (Francis), of the fame family with 
the preceding, and a celebrated peripatetic philofopher, 
was born at Sienna in the year 1520. He was one of the 
learned Italians who endeavoured to reftore the philofo¬ 
phy of the Stagyrite to its purity, by freeing it in a great 
meafure from the quibbles and fubtleties of the fcholaltics: 
but, in common with his other contemporaries who en¬ 
gaged in the famecaufe, fo high was the reverence which 
he entertained for the authority of Ariftotle, that he 
thought it neceifary to follow him implicitly as his guide, 
and he appears to have been more folicitous to know what 
that philofopher taught than to difcover what reafon dic¬ 
tates. However, the general impreflion was in favour of 
this mode of philofophizing during the period in which 
he flourifhed ; and he taught the doftrines of his mailer, 
with very perfualive eloquence, and great reputation, in 
the univeriities of Sienna, Perufia, and Padua, in the lat¬ 
ter of which he filled the philofophical chair for forty 
years. In 1601, he withdrew from the labours of his pro- 
fefforfliip, and returned to his native city, where he died 
in 1604, when he was about 84 years of age. He was the 
author of, 1. Univerfa de Moribus Philofophia in X. Gra- 
dus redadla, &c. 1583, folio; to which he annexed a 
fupplemental treatile “ Concerning the Method of dif- 
criminating Truth from Falfehood in Moral Philofophy.” 
This work drew him into a philofophical controverfy 
with the famous James Zabarella, whom he excelled in fa¬ 
cility of exprefiion and neatnefs of diction, but to whom 
he was much inferior in weight of argument. 2. Natures 
Jotius uniyerfi Scientist perfe&a et Philofophica, V. parti- 
P I c 
bus abfoluta. 3. Comment, in Libros Ariftot. Phyficor. 
de Cxlo, de Ortu, et Interim, &c. 4. De Arte definendi 
et eleganter difeurrendi Liber fingularis, &r. Landi's Hijl. 
de la Lit. de l'Italic. 
PICCOLOM'INI (James), whofe proper name was ^ 4 ?n- 
manali, took that of Piccolomini in honour of his patron 
Pius II. He was born in a village near Lucca in 1422. 
He became bifhop of Mafia, afterwards of Frefcuti ; a car¬ 
dinal in 1461; and died in 1479, at the age of 37, of an 
indigeftion of figs. He left 8000 piftoles in the banker’s 
hands, which pope Sixtus IV. claimed, and of which he 
gave a part to the Hofpital of the Holy Ghoft. His 
works, which confift of fome Letters, and a Hiltory of 
his own Time, were printed at Milan, in 1521, in folio. 
His Hiltory, entitled Commentaries, commences the 18th 
of June, 1464, and ends the 6th of December, 1469. 
They may very properly be confidered as afeauel of Pope 
Pius II’s Commentaries, which end with the year 1463. 
See Pius II. 
PICE, J\ A money of account and copper coin in the 
Ealt Indies. At Calcutta and in Bengal, 12 pice =2 1 
anna, and 16 annas 2= 1 current rupee. 
The double and (ingle pice are copper coins, with a 
mixture of tin or lead, at Bombay; the (ingle pice being 
4 reas ; and the double pice, or fuddea, being 8 reas, the 
rea being-j-J-gth of the quarter, and the quarter Jth, of 
the rupee. At Anjengo, on the Malabar coaft, accounts 
are kept in fanams, pice, and budgerooks ; a fanam being 
“12 pice, or 16 vis, and 1 pice 2= 4 budgerooks. A fi¬ 
ver rupee is worth 7 old fanams, or 6 new ones, called 
gallon fanams. All thefe are real coins. At Scindy, the 
coins are filver rupees of 16 annas, or 48 copper pice. At 
Surat, accounts are kept in rupees of 16 annas, or 64 pice. 
Here are alfo pezas, or pice, of copper, or lead, 64 of 
which are reckoned to 1 filver rupee. Sixty padens, a 
fort of bitter almonds from Pcrfia, pafs for 1 pice. Pice 
is alfo a weight in the Ealt Indies. See Maund. 
PICE'A. See Pinus. 
PICENDA'CA, in ancient geography, a town of India, 
in the interior cf the country belonging to the people 
called Arvari. Ptolemy . 
PICEN'TIA, (Strabo, Pliny;) the capital of the Picen- 
tini, whofe territory, called Ager PicerUinus, a fmall difi- 
tridt, lay on the Tufcan Sea, from the Promontorium Mi- 
nervae, the fouth boundary of Campania on the coaft, to 
the river Silarus, the north boundary of Lucania, exten¬ 
ding within-land as far as the Samnites and Hirpini, 
though the exaft termination cannot be affigned. The 
Greeks commonly confound the Picentini and Picentes ; 
but the Romans carefully diftinguifh them. The former 
with no more than two towns that can be named,Silernum 
and Picentia; the fituation of both doubtful : only Pliny 
(ays the latter (food withinland, at fome diftance from the 
fea. (Sil. Ital. viii. 583.)—Now thought to be Bicenza, 
in the Principato Citra of Naples. 
PICE'NUM, (Ca;far, Pliny, Florus ;) Piccnvs Ager, 
(Cicero, Salluft, Livy, Tacitus;) Ager Picentium, (Varro.) 
A territory of Italy, lying to the eaft of Umbria, from 
the Apennine to the Adriatic ; on the coaft: extending 
from the river Aelis on the north, as far as the Prsetu- 
tiani to the fouth. In the upper or northern part of 
their territory the Umbri excluded them from the Apen¬ 
nine, as far as Camerinum; but in the lower or fouthern 
part they extended from the Adriatic to the Apennine. 
A very fruitful territory, and very populous. Picentes, 
the people; different from the Picentini on the Tufcan 
Sea, though called fo by the Greeks; but Ptolemy cails 
them Piceni, as do alfo Pliny, and Sil. Ital. viii. 425.— 
Their territory at this day is fuppofed to form the great- 
eft part of the March of Ancona. 
PICHA'NA, a town of South America, in the province 
of Cordova: 130 miles north-weft of Cordova. 
PICHERI'E, a town of France, in the department of 
the Aude : nine miles eaft of Carcafionne. 
PICH'FORD, a village in the county of Salop, on the 
fouth- 
