The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 352

was imprisoned.

PINKERTON, JOHN, a Scottish antiquary and historian, born in Edinburgh; was an original in his way, went to London, attracted the notice of Horace Walpole and Gibbon; died in Paris, poor and neglected (1758-1826).

PINKIE, a Scottish battlefield, near Musselburgh, Midlothian, where the Protector Somerset, in his expedition to secure the hand of Mary Stuart for Edward VI., defeated and slaughtered a Scottish army 1547.

PINTO, MENDEZ, a Portuguese traveller; wrote in his "Peregrinicam"

an account of his marvellous adventures in Arabia, Persia, China, and j.a.pan, extending over a period of 21 years (1527-1548), of which, amid much exaggeration, the general veracity is admitted (1510-1583).

PINTURICCHIO, Italian painter, born at Perugia; was a.s.sistant to Perugino (q. v.) when at work in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, did frescoes and panel paintings, one of the "Christ bearing the Cross" (1454-1513).

PINZEN, the name of two brothers, companions of Christopher Columbus, and one of whom, Vicente Yanez, discovered Brazil in 1500.

PIOZZI, HESTER, a female friend of Johnson under the name of Mrs.

Thrale, after her first husband, a brewer in Southwark, whose home for her sake was the rendezvous of all the literary celebrities of the period; married afterwards, to Johnson's disgust, an Italian music-master, lived with him at Florence, and returned at his death to Clifton, where she died; left "Anecdotes of Johnson" and "Letters"; was auth.o.r.ess of "The Three Warnings" (1741-1821).

PIPE OF PEACE, a pipe offered by an American Indian to one whom he wishes to be on good terms with.

PIRaeUS (36), the port of Athens 5 m. SW. of the city, planned by Themistocles, built in the time of Pericles, and afterwards connected with the city for safety by strong walls, which was destroyed by the Spartans at the end of the Peloponnesian War, but restored, to fall afterwards into neglect and ruins.

PIRANO (9), a seaport of Austria, on the Adriatic, 12 m. SW. of Trieste; has salt-works in the neighbourhood, and manufactures gla.s.s, soap, &c.

PIRITHOUS, king of the Lapithae and friend of Theseus, on the occasion of whose marriage an intoxicated Centaur ran off with his bride Hippodamia, which gave rise to the famous fight between the Centaurs and the Lapithae, in which Theseus a.s.sisted, and the former were defeated; on the death of Hippodamia, Pirithous ran off with Persephone and Theseus with Helen, for which both had to answer in the lower world before Pluto; Hercules delivered the latter, but Pluto would not release the former.

PIRKE ABOTH (i. e. sayings of the Fathers), the name given to a collection of aphorisms in the manner of Jesus the Son of Sirach by 60 doctors learned in the Jewish law, representative of their teaching, and giving the gist of it; they inculcate the importance of familiarity with the words of the Law.

PIRNA (11), a town in Saxony, on the Elbe, 11 m. SE. of Dresden; has sandstone quarries in the neighbourhood which employ 8000 quarrymen.

PISA (38), on the Arno, 49 m. by rail W. of Florence, is one of the oldest cities in Italy; formerly a port, the river has built up the land at its mouth so that the sea is now 4 m. off, and the ancient trade of Pisa has been transferred to Leghorn. There are a magnificent cathedral, rich in art treasures, a peculiar campanile of white marble which deviates 14 ft. from the perpendicular, known as the leaning tower of Pisa, several old and beautiful churches, a university, school of art, and library. Silks and ribbons are woven, and coral ornaments cut. In the 11th century Pisa was at the zenith of its prosperity as a republic, with a great mercantile fleet, and commercial relations with all the world.

Its Ghibelline sympathies involved it in terrible struggles, in which it gradually sank till its fortunes were merged in those of Tuscany about 1550. The council of Pisa, 1409, held to determine the long-standing rival claims of Gregory XII. and Benedict XII. to the Papal chair, ended by adding a third claimant, Alexander V. Pisa was one of the twelve cities of ancient Etruria.

PISANO, NICOLA, Italian sculptor and architect of Pisa; his most famous works are the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa, and that for the Duomo at Siena, the last being the fountain in the piazza of Perugia (1206-1278).

PISGAH, a mountain range E. of the Lower Jordan, one of the summits of which is Mount Nebo, from which Moses beheld the Promised Land, and where he died and was buried.

PIs.h.i.+N (60), a district of South Afghanistan, N. of Quetta, occupied by the British since 1878 as strategically of importance.

PISIDIA, a division of ancient Asia Minor, N. of Pamphilia, and traversed by the Taurus chain.

PISISTRATUS, tyrant of Athens, was the friend of Solon and a relative; an able but an ambitious man; being in favour with the citizens presented himself one day in the Agora, and displaying some wounds he had received in their defence, persuaded them to give him a bodyguard of 50 men, which grew into a larger force, by means of which in 560 B.C. he took possession of the citadel and seized the sovereign power, from which he was shortly after driven forth; after six years he was brought back, but compelled to retire a second time; after 10 years he returned and made good his ascendency, reigning thereafter peacefully for 14 years, and leaving his power in the hands of his sons Hippias and Hipparchus; he was a good and wise ruler, and encouraged the liberal arts, and it is to him we owe the first written collection or complete edition of the poems of Homer (600-527 B.C.).

PISTOIA (20), a town of N. Italy, at the foot of the Apennines, 21 m. NW. of Florence, with palaces and churches rich in works of art; manufactures iron and steel wares.

PISTOL, ANCIENT, a swaggering bully and follower of Falstaff in the "Merry Wives of Windsor."

PISTOLE, an obsolete gold coin of Europe, originally of Spain, worth some 16s. 2d.

PIT'AKA' (lit. a basket), the name given to the sacred books of the Buddhists, and const.i.tuting collectively the Buddhistic code. See TRIPITAKA.

PITAVAL, a French advocate, compiler of a famous collection of _causes celebres_ (1673-1743).

PITCAIRN ISLAND, a small volcanic island 2 m. long and 1 broad, solitary, in the Pacific, 5000 m. E. of Brisbane, where, in 1790, nine men of H.M.S. _Bounty_ who had mutinied landed with six Tahitians and a dozen Tahitian women; from these have sprung an interesting community of islanders, virtuous, upright, and contented, of Christian faith, who, having sent a colony to Norfolk Island, numbered in 1890 still 128.

PITCAIRNE, ARCHIBALD, Scottish physician and satirist, born at Edinburgh; studied theology and law, and afterwards at Paris, medicine; he practised in Edinburgh, and became professor at Leyden; returning, he acquired great fame in his native city; in medicine he published a treatise on Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood; being an Episcopalian and Jacobite, he wrote severe satires on all things Presbyterian, e. g. "Babel, or the a.s.sembly, a Poem," 1692 (1652-1713).

PITHOM, a town of Rameses, one of the treasure-cities built by the children of Israel in Lower Egypt, now, as discovered by M. Naville, reduced to a small village between Ismailia and Tel-el-Kebir.

PITMAN, SIR ISAAC, inventor of the shorthand system which bears his name, born at Trowbridge, Wilts.h.i.+re; his first publication was "Stenographic Sound-Hand" in 1837, and in 1842 he started the _Phonetic Journal_, and lectured extensively as well as published in connection with his system (1813-1897).

PITRe, GIUSEPPE, eminent Italian folk-lorist, born at Palermo, after serving as a volunteer in 1860 under Garibaldi, and graduating in medicine in 1866, threw himself into the study of literature, and soon made the folk-lore of Italy, the special study of his life, and to which he has devoted himself with unsparing a.s.siduity, the fruits from time to time appearing princ.i.p.ally in two series of his works, one in 19 vols.

and another in 10 vols.; _b_. 1841.

PITRIS (i. e. Fathers), in the Hindu mythology an order of divine beings, and equal to the greatest of the G.o.ds, who, by their sacrifice, delivered the world from chaos, gave birth to the sun and kindled the stars, and in whose company the dead, who have like them lived self-sacrificingly, enter when they lay aside mortality. See Rev. vii.

14.

PITACOTTIE, ROBERT LINDSAY OF, proprietor in the 16th century of the Fifes.h.i.+re estate name of which he bore, was the author of "The Chronicles of Scotland," to which Sir Walter Scott owed so much; his work is quaint, graphic, and, on the whole, trustworthy.

PITT, WILLIAM. See CHATHAM, EARL OF.