Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/92

Rh 82 P I E P I E cause of his success. His abilities did not greatly impress his classmates, and, although he took at length a good position, he was not distinguished for scholarship. After leaving college in 1824 he studied law with Judge Wood- bury at Portsmouth, and afterwards in the law school at Northampton, Mass., and with Judge Parker at Amherst, and came to the bar in 1827. His first appearance as a pleader was a failure, but this only incited him to redoubled perseverance and determination. From the first he was a zealous supporter of the Democratic party, and he took an active part in promoting the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency. In 1829 he was elected by his native town to the State legislature, of which he was speaker in 1832-33. In the latter year he was chosen a member of Congress, and in 1837 he was elected to the senate of the United States. He displayed no striking oratorical gifts, but as a member of the judiciary and other committees gained general respect. In 1842 he resigned his seat in the senate, and returned to the practice of the law. His reputation at the bar was very high, his success being largely due to his power of identifying himself with his client s cause, and his strong personal influence over a jury. In 1846 he was offered the position of attorney-general of the United States, but declined it. On the outbreak of the Mexican War he joined as a volunteer one of the companies raised in Concord. He was soon after appointed colonel of the 9th regiment, and in March 1847 brigadier-general. At the battle of Contreras on the 19th of August he was severely injured by the fall of his horse. At the close of the war in December 1847 he resigned his commission. In 1850 he was president of the convention for revising the constitution of New Hampshire. In 1852, as candi date of the Democratic party, he was elected president of the United States by 254 electoral votes against 42 given to General Scott. The special feature of his inaugural address was the support of slavery in the United States, and the announcement of his determination that the Fugi tive Slave Act should be strictly enforced. This was the keynote of his administration, and pregnant with vital consequences to the country. From it came during his term the Ostend conference and &quot; manifesto, &quot; the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and the troubles in Kansas and Nebraska, which crystallized the opposing forces into the Republican party, and led later to the great rebellion. President Pierce, surrounded by an able cabinet, among them Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War, firmly adhered throughout his administration to the pro-slavery party. He failed, notwithstanding, to obtain re-nomination, but was succeeded by James Buchanan, March 4, 1857, and retired to his home in Concord, N. H., after spending some years in Europe. During the war of 1861-65 his sympa thies were wholly with the South, but, with the exception of delivering a strong speech at Concord in 1863, he took no very active part in politics. He died 8th October 1869. Among several lives of General Pierce, published during his candidature for the presidency, special mention may bo made of that by his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. PIERO (or PIETRO) DE FRANCESCHI (1415- 1492), a leading painter of the Umbrian school. This master is generally named Piero della Francesca (Peter, son of Frances), the tradition being that his father, a woollen- draper named Benedetto, had died before his birth. This is not correct, for the mother s name was Romana, and the father continued living during many years of Piero s career. The painter is also named Piero Borghese, from his birthplace, Borgo San Sepolcro, in Umbria. The true family name was, as above stated, Franceschi, and the family still exists under the name of Martini-Franceschi. Piero first received a scientific education, and became an adept in mathematics and geometry. This early bent of mind and course of study influenced to a large extent his development as a painter. He had more science than either Paolo Uccello or Mantegna, both of them his con temporaries, the former older and the latter younger. Skilful in linear perspective, he fixed rectangular planes in perfect order and measured them, and thus got his figures in true proportional height. He preceded and excelled Domenico Ghirlandajo in projecting shadows, and rendered with considerable truth atmosphere, the harmony of colours, and the relief of objects. He was naturally therefore excellent in architectural painting, and, in point of technique, he advanced the practice of oil-colouring in Italy. The earliest trace that we find of Piero as a painter is in 1439, when he was an apprentice of Domenico Veneziano, and assisted him in painting the chapel of S. Egidio, in S. Maria Novella of Florence. Towards 1450 he is said to have been with the same artist in Loreto ; nothing of his, however, can now be identified in that locality. In 1451 he was by himself, painting in Rimini, where a fresco still remains. Prior to this he had executed some exten sive frescos in the Vatican ; but these were destroyed when Raphael undertook on the same walls the Liberation of St Peter and other paintings. His most extensive ex tant series of frescos is in the choir of S. Francesco in Arezzo, the History of the Cross, beginning with legendary subjects of the death and burial of Adam, and going on to the entry of Heraclius into Jerusalem after the overthrow of Chosroes. This series is, in relation to its period, remarkable for effect, movement, and mastery of the nude. The subject of the Vision of Constantino is particularly vigorous in chiaroscuro ; and a preparatory design of the same composition was so highly effective that it used to be ascribed to Giorgione, and might even (according to one authority) have passed for the handiwork of Correggio or of Rembrandt. A noted fresco in Borgo San Sepolcro, the Resurrection, may be later than this series ; it is preserved in the Palazzo de Conservator!. An important painting of the Flagellation of Christ, in the cathedral of Urbino, is later still, probably towards 1470. Piero appears to have been much in his native town of Borgo San Sepolcro from about 1445, and more especially after 1454, when he finished the series in Arezzo. He grew rich there, and there he died, and in October 1492 was buried. Two statements made by Vasari regarding &quot; Fiero dclla Franccsca &quot; are. open to much controversy. He says that Fiero became blind at the age of sixty, which cannot be true, as he continued paint ing some years later ; but scepticism need perhaps hardly go to the extent of inferring that he was never blind at all. Vasari also says that Fra Luca Facioli, a disciple of Fiero in scientific matters, defrauded his memory by appropriating his researches without acknowledgment. This is hard upon the friar, who constantly shows a great reverence for his master in the sciences. One of Facioli s books was published in 1509, and speaks of Fiero as still living. Hence it has been propounded that Piero lived to the patriarchal age of ninety-four or upwards ; but, as it is now stated that he was buried in 1492, we must infer that there is some mistake in relation to Pacioli s remark perhaps the date of writing was several years earlier than that of publication. Piero was known to have left a manuscript of his own on perspective; this remained undiscovered till a recent date, when it was foimd by E. Harzen in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, ascribed to some supposititious &quot; Fietro, Pittore di Bruges.&quot; The treatise shows a knowledge of perspective as dependent on the point of distance. In the London National Gallery are four paintings attributed to Piero de Franceschi. One of them, a profile of Isotta da Kirnini, may safely be rejected. The Baptism of Christ, which used to be the altarpiece of the Priory of the Baptist in Borgo San Sapolcro, is an important example; and still more so the Nativity, with the Virgin kneeling, and five angels singing to musical instruments. This is a very interesting and characteristic specimen, and has indeed been praised somewhat beyond its deservings on aesthetic grounds. Piero s earlier style was energetic but unrefined, and to the last he lacked selectness of form and feature. The types of his visages are peculiar, and the costumes (as especially in the Arezzo series)