Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/91

Rh P I C P I E 81 philosophy and theology. He remained a year in Rome, but the disputation he proposed was never held. He was an object of envy to many for the range of attainments, which earned him the title of the Phoenix of his age, and detractors found it easy to fix on his conclusions a suspicion of heresy. The pope prohibited the little book in which they were contained, and Pico had to defend the impugned theses in an elaborate Apologia. His personal orthodoxy was, however, finally vindicated by a brief of Alexander VI., dated 18th June 1493. The suspected theses included such points as the following : that Christ descended ad inferos not in his real presence but quoad e/ectum ; that no image or cross should receive latreia even in the sense allowed by Thomas ; that it is more reasonable to regard Origen as saved than as damned ; that it is not in a man s free will to believe or disbelieve an article of faith as he pleases. But perhaps the most startling thesis was that no science gives surer conviction of the divinity of Christ than &quot;magia&quot; (i.e., the knowledge of the secrets of the heavenly bodies) and Kabbalah. Pico was the first to seek in the Kabbalah a proof of the Christian mysteries, and it was by him that Reuchlin was led into the same delusive path. Pico had been up to this time a gay Italian nobleman ; he was tall, handsome, fair-complexioned, with keen grey eyes and yellow hair, and a great favourite with women. But his troubles led him to more serious thoughts ; he burned his amorous verses and gave himself wholly to sacred letters, publishing as the first fruits of his studies, in his twenty-eighth year, the Heptaplus, a mystical exposition of the creation. Next he planned a great sevenfold work against the enemies of the church, of which only the section directed against astrology was completed. After leaving Rome he again lived a wandering life, often visiting Florence, to which he was drawn by his friends Politian and Marsilius Ficinus, and where also he came under the influence of Savonarola. It was at Florence that he died in 1494. Three years before his death he parted with his share of the ancestral principality, and gave much of his wealth to the poor. He was now increasingly absorbed in ascetic exercises and religious meditation, and designed, when certain literary plans were completed, to give away all he had and wander barefoot through the world preach ing Christ, or perhaps to join the preaching friars. But these plans were cut short by a fever which carried him off just at the time when Charles VIII. was at Florence. Pico s attainments and the beauty of his character and piety produced a profound impression on his contemporaries, bat his works, published by his nephew Giov. Fran. Pico, with a biography, at Bologna in 1496, and more than once reprinted, cannot now be read with much interest. The man himself, however, is still interesting, partly from his influence on Reuchlin and partly from the spectacle of a truly devout mind in the brilliant circle of half-pagan scholars of the Florentine renaissance. PICTON, SIR THOMAS (1758-1815), general under Wellington in the Peninsular War, was the younger son of Thomas Picton, of Poyston, Pembrokeshire, where he was born in August 1758. In 1771 he obtained an ensign s commission in the 12th regiment of foot, but he did not join until two years afterwards. The regiment was then stationed at Gibraltar, where he remained until he was made captain in the 75th in January 1778, when he returned to England. The regiment was shortly after wards disbanded, and in 1794 he embarked for the West Indies without an appointment, on the strength of a slight acquaintance with Sir John Vaughan, who made him his aide-de-camp and gave him a captaincy in the 17th foot. Shortly afterwards he was promoted major. Under Sir Ralph Abercromby he took part in the capture of St Lucia and St Vincent. After the reduction of Trinidad he was made governor of the island, and in October 1801 he was gazetted brigadier-general. Resigning the governorship of Trinidad in 1803, he took part in an expedition against St Lucia and Tobago, and he held the governorship of the latter island until forced to resign it by public clamour in England. En 1807 he was put upon his trial for applying torture to a female slave in Trinidad to extort confession respecting a robbery, and a general verdict of guilty was returned. A new trial was, however, granted, and after protracted litigation the court, on 10th February 1810, ordered &quot; the defendant s recognizance to be respited until they should further order.&quot; Previous to this he had taken part in the capture of Flushing, of which in 1809 he was made governor. At the special solicitation of Wellington he was named to the command of a division of the army in Spain, and during the Peninsular campaign he was placed in the post of honour, and so distinguished himself that he seven times received the thanks of the House of Commons. The capture of Badajoz was effected chiefly through his daring self-reliance and penetration in convert ing what was intended to- be only a feint attack into a real one. At the battle of Quatre Bras on the 16th June 1815 he was dangerously wounded, and at Waterloo on the 18th, while repulsing with impetuous valour what Wellington denominated &quot; one of the most serious attacks made by the enemy on our position,&quot; he was struck dead by a ball on the temple. A public monument was erected to his memory in St Paul s Cathedral. See Robinson, Life of Sir Thomas Picton, 2d ed., London, 1836. PICTOR, FABIUS. See FABIUS PICTOR; also LIVY, vol. xiv. p. 728-29. PICTS. See SCOTLAND. PIEDMONT (Italian, Piemonte ; Low Latin, Pedemons and Pedemontium a region of northern Italy, bounded N. by Switzerland, W. by France, S. by Liguria, and E. by Lombardy. Physically it may be briefly described as the upper gathering-ground and valley of the river Po, enclosed on all sides except towards the Lombard plain by the vast semicircle of the Pennine, Graian, Cottian, Maritime, and Ligurian Alps. In 1859 it was divided into the four pro vinces of Alessandria, Cuneo, Novara, and Torino (Turin), which still remain as provinces of the kingdom of Italy. In 1858 its population was 2,738,814. The name of Lombardy was used as inclusive of the upper valley of the Po as late as 1091, when the house of Savoy lost most of its Italian possessions by the death of Adelaide ; but in the time of Thomas I. (1177-1233), duke of Savoy, while the name Savoy was applied more especially to the ducal territory on the French side of the Alps, that of Piedmont came into use as a collective term for the territory on the Italian side. Thomas II. of Savoy, count (not Thomas II., count of Savoy, as he is often wrongly called^, son of Thomas I., obtained (1255) part of Piedmont as an appanage from his brother Amadeus IV., and was appointed imperial vicar in Piedmont by Frederick II. ; and, though he was afterwards obliged to renounce all the concessions he had received alike from pope and emperor, his son Thomas III. became the founder of the line which bore the title &quot;Princes of Achaia and Morea, and lords of Pied mont.&quot; Louis, the last of these lords, dying in 1418, left his possessions to Amadeus VIII. PIERCE, FRANKLIN (1804-1869), fourteenth president of the United States, was descended from an old yeoman family of New England, and was born at Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 23d November 1804. His father, Ben jamin Pierce, served through the revolutionary war, after wards attaining the rank of major-general, and became governor of his State. The son entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1820. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was in the class below him, and was his intimate friend, mentions as his most notable characteristic at this time his &quot; fascination of manner, which has proved so magical in winning him an unbounded popularity. &quot; The same charac teristic remained with him through life, and was the chief XIX. ii