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 PIBUSH

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PICCOLOMINI

called attention to the apparent gap between these two, so that the placing of this new body within that space caused great excitement among astronomers. Piazzi proposed the name of Ceres Ferdinandea, in honour of his king. Over 600 of these so-called plane- toids have since been located within the same space. The king desired to strike a gold medal with Piazzi's effigy, in com- memoration, but the astronomer requested the priv- ilege of using the money for the pur- pose of a much- needed equatorial telescope. In 1812 he received the commission to re- form the weights and measures of .Sicily in accord- ance with the metric system. In 1817 as director- general of the ob- servatories of the Two Sicilies he was charged with the plans of the new observatory which Murat was es- tablishing in Naples. He was a member of the Acad- emies of Naples, Turin, Gottingen, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, foreign associate of the Institute of Milan etc. Besides the numerous memoirs published in the proceedings of the various academies, the following works may be mentioned: "Delia specola astronomica di Palermo libri quatro" (Palermo, 1792); "SuU' orologio Itahano e I'Europeo" (Palermo, 1798); "Delia scoperta del nuovo planeta Cerere Ferdi- nandea" (Palermo, 1802); " PrEecipuarum stellarum inerrantium positioncs mediae ineunte seculo XIX ex observationibus habitis in specula Panormitana at 1793 ad 1802" (Palermo, 1803, 1814); "Codicemetrico siculo" (Catane, 1812); "Lezioni di astronomia" (Palermo, 1817; tr. Westphal, Berlin, 1822); "Ragg- naglio dal reale osservatorio d'Napoli" (Naples, 1821).

Wolf, Geschichte der Aslnnomie (Munich, 1877); Mainebi. L'Astronomo Giovanni Piazzi (Milan, 1871); Cosmos (Paris, 2 March, and 15 June, 1901); Kneller, Das Christenium (Frei- burg, 1904), 75-80.

William Fox.

Pibush, John, Venerable, EngUsh martyr, b. at Thirsk, Yorkshire; d. at St. Thomas's Waterings, Camberwell, 18 February, 1600-1. According to Gillow he was probably a son of Thomas Pibush, of Great Fencott, and Jane, sister to Peter Danby of Scotton. He came to Reims on 4 August, 1580, received minor orders and subdiaconate in Sept., and diaconate in Dec, 1586, and was ordained on 14 March, 1587. He was sent on the English mission on 3 Jan., 1588-9, arrested at Morton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, in 1593, and sent to London, where he arrived before 24 July. The Privy Council com- mitted him to the Gatehouse at Westminster, where he remained a year. He was then tried at the Gloucester Assizes under 27 Ehz., c. 2, for being a priest, but not sentenced, and was returned to Glouces- ter gaol, whence he escaped on 19 February (1594- 5). The next day he was recaptured at Matson and taken back to Gloucester gaol, whence he was sent to the Marshalsea, London, and again tried under the same statute at Westminster on 1 July, 1595. He was sentenced to suffer the penalties of high treason at St. Thomas's Waterings, and in the meantime was to be returned to the Marshalsea. However, by the end of the year he was in the Queen's Bench prison, where he remained for more than five years. The sentence was carried out after one day's notice.

Knox, Douay Diaries (London. 1878), 169, 179. 198. 212. 214, 222; Pollen, Acts of the English Marli/rs (London. 1891), 335-6; EngUsh Martyrs, ISSj-WOS (London Cath. Rec. Soc. 1908). 337- 40; Gillow, Biht. Diet. Bng, Cath. s. v.; Challoner. Missionary Priests, I, n. 123; Dabent, Acts of the Privy Council (London, 1890-1907), xxiv, 421.

John B. Wainewhight.

Picaxd, Jean, astronomer, b. at La Fleche, 21 July, 1620; d. at Paris, 12 Oct., 1682. He was a priest and prior of Rille in Anjou. As a pupil of Gassendi he observed with him the solar eclipse of 25 Aug., 1645. In 1655 he succeeded his master as professor of astron- omy at the College de France. His principal achieve- ment was the accurate measurement of an arc of a meridian of the earth, the distance from Sourdon, near Amiens, to Malvoisine, south of Paris, in 1669- 70. His result, 57060 toises (a toise = about 6-4 ft.) for the degree of arc, has been found to be only 14 toises too small. He applied telescopes and microm- eters to graduated astronomical and measuring in- struments as early as 1667. The quadrant he used had a radius of 38 inches and was so finely graduated that he could read the angles to one quarter of a min- ute. The sextant employed for determining the me- ridian was 6 feet in radius. In 1669 he was able to ob- serve stars on the meridian during day-time and to measure their position with the aid of cross-wires at the focus of his telescope. In order to make sure that his standard toise should not be lost, like those used by others before him, he conceived the idea of comparing it with the length of the simple pendulum beating seconds at Paris, and thus made it possible to reproduce the standard at any time.

Picard is regarded as the founder of modern as- tronomy in France. He introduced new methods, im- proved the old instruments, and added new devices, such as the pendulum clock. As a result of Picard's work, Newton was able to revise his calculations and announce his great law of universal gravitation. The discovery of the aberration of light also became a possibility on account of Picard's study of Tycho Brahe's observations. In 1671 he received from Bar- tholinus at Copenhagen an exact copy of Tycho's records and then went with Bartholinus to the Island of Hveen in order to determine the exact position of Tycho's observatory at Uranienborg. He was modest and unselfish enough to recommend the rival Italian astronomer Cassini to Colbert and Louis XIV for the direction of the new observatory at Paris. Cassini, on the contrary, proved envious, ignoring Picard's insistent recommendat ions of a mural circle for accurate meridional observations, until after the latter's death.

Picard was among the first members of the Acad- emy. He also started the publication of the annual " Connaissance des temps" in 1679 (Paris, 1678), and continued the same until 1683. Since then it has been published continuously. His "Mesure de la terre" was brought out in 1671, Paris.

Wolf, Geschichte der Aslronomie (Munich, 1879); DEL.1MBRE, Hist, de Vastr. mod., II (Paris, 1S21), 567-632.

William Fox.

Ficcoloinini, Alessandro, litterateur, philosopher, astronomer, b. 13 June, 1508; d. 12 March, 1578. He passed his youth in the study of literature and wrote several comedies ("Amor costante", "Alessandro", "Ortensio"), translated into Italian verse Ovid's "Metamorphoses", part of the "^neid", Aristotle's "Poetics" and "Rhetoric", composed a hundred sonnets (Rome, 1549), and other rhyme. He repu- diated in later years "Raffaello" or "Dialogo della creanza donne" as too licentious. In 1540 hebecame professor of philosophy at Padua, where he wrote "Istituzione di tutta la vita dell' uomo nato nobile e in citta, libera", "Filosofia naturale" in which he followed the theories of ancient and medieval phi- losophers, while in his "Trattato della grandezza della terra e dell' acqua" (Venice, 1558), he combatted