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 534 PINZON PIORRY the influence of the Pinzons that crews could be collected for them. Martin Alonso com- manded the Pinta on this voyage. In the sub- sequent cruising in search of the imaginary island of Babeque, he deserted Columbus in the latter part of November, 1492, and went in search of it himself. He stopped at a river in Hispaniola (Hayti), now called Porto Caballo, but which for a long time was designated as the river of Martin Alonso. From here he carried off four men and two girls with the intention of selling them in Spain as slaves, but was afterward forced to restore them to their home by Columbus, with whom he fell in during the following January, attributing his parting com- pany with the admiral to stress of weather. On the return voyage they were again separa- ted by a storm, and Pinzon was driven into the port of Bayonne. Not doubting that Co- lumbus had perished in the tempest, he wrote to the sovereigns, giving information of the discovery, and asking permission to come to court and deliver his account in person. He arrived in Palos on the evening of the same day with the admiral, and found that the latter had had a triumphant reception. He landed in private, and received not long after a let- ter from his sovereign forbidding him to ap- pear at court. Soon after he died. II. Vicente Yaflez, who had commanded the Nifia in the first expedition of Columbus, in consequence of the general license given by the Spanish sovereigns to make voyages of discovery, fitted out an armament of four caravels, manned principally by his friends and relatives, and on Nov. 13, 1499, sailed S. W. from Palos. After going about 700 leagues, he crossed the equinoctial line and lost sight of the north star. On Jan. 28, 1500, land was descried; it was Cape St. Augustine. Pinzon was thus the first European to cross the equator in the western ocean, and the first discoverer of Bra- zil. He took formal possession of the coun- try for the Castilian crown ; but being reso- lutely met by warlike natives, he sailed N. W., and reached the mouth of the Amazon. Pur- suing his course, he passed the mouth of the Orinoco, and in the latter part of June reached Hispaniola. In July two of the caravels were sunk with their crews in a terrific hurricane. Pinzon arrived in Palos about the end of Sep- tember, after a disastrous voyage, which had swallowed up all his fortune. On Sept. 5, 1501, royal permission was given him to col- onize and govern all the country he had dis- covered from Cape St. Augustine to a little north of the Amazon, but he never availed himself of the grant. In 1506, and again in 1508, he started jointly with Juan Diaz de So- lis on voyages to discover a passage from the Atlantic to a southern ocean, discovering Yu- catan in the former voyage, and advancing as far as the 40th degree of S. latitude in the latter. III. Francisco Martin, the third brother, accompanied the first expedition of Colum- bus, as pilot of Martin Alonso's vessel, the Pinta. Charles V. raised the Pinzon family to the rank of hidalgos. PIOMBINO, a town of Italy, in Tuscany, prov- ince of Pisa, separated by the strait of Piom- bino from the island of Elba; pop. about 3,000. It is situated on a peninsula which shelters the small harbor of Porto Vecchio, and is fortified. It was formerly the capital of the principality of Piombino (area, 130 sq. in., pop. about 25,000), which was originally a fief of the emperors of Germany, who at the end of the 14th century gave it to the Appiani fam- ily, and in 1631 to Spain. In 1634 it reverted to the Ludovisi family, and in 1681, by mar- riage of the heiress, to the Buoncompagni fam- ily. Ferdinand IV., king of the Two Sicilies, who had become suzerain of the principality, ceded it in 1801 to Napoleon, who gave it to his sister filisa, princess of Lucca and Piombi- no. The Buoncompagni-Ludovisi family was reinstated in 1815, under the suzerainty of the grand duke of Tuscany; and in 1860 it was incorporated with the dominions of Vic- tor Emanuel. PIOMBO, Fra Sebastiano del, an Italian paint- er, whose family name was Luciano, born in Venice in 1485, died in Rome in 1547. He studied under Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione, and visited Rome, where Michel Angelo gave him valuable advice, and set him up as a com- petitor of Raphael. His " Raising of Laza- rus," which is said to include several groups and figures invented, if not designed, by Michel Angelo, was at all events intended to rival the " Transfiguration " of Raphael. He excelled most in portraiture. Clement VII. appointed him keeper of the papal seals, from which he was called Piombo (lead), the substance used in sealing bulls. His office obliged him to as- sume the monk's habit, whence he was styled Frate or Fra. He is said to have originated painting upon walls with oil colors, having in- vented a composition which prevented the colors from becoming dark. PIORRY, Pierre Adolphe, a French physician, born in Poitiers, Dec. 31, 1794. He took his degree in 1816, after serving as surgeon in the French army in Spain, became a physician to hospitals in Paris in 1827, and clinical profes- sor at the faculty in 1840, at the Charit6 in 1846, and at the H6tel-Dieu in 1864; and in 1866 he retired with a pension. His Traite sur la percussion mediate won the Montyon prize in 1828. This work explains his invention of a new mode of percussion with a plate of ivory or metal, from which he anticipated great im- provements in medical practice ; but his theo- ries found numerous and influential opponents. His other principal works are : De Vheredite dans les maladies (1840) ; Traite de medecine pratique et de pathologic iatrique ou medicale (9 vols., 1841-'51) ; Memoire sur la curabilite et le traitement de la pthisie pulmonaire (1860) ; La medecine du Ion sens (1864; 2d ed., 1867); and Traite de plessimetrisme et d 1 ovganogra- 2>hisme (1866).