Pisano, Niccolo
(c. 1220-c. 1278) Italian sculptor He began his career in Apulia, at a time when Emperor Frederick II was encouraging artists there to take a renewed interest in classical motifs, and he then moved to Pisa, probably shortly before 1250. His first known work there was the hexagonal pulpit in the baptistery (c. 1260), on which the relief scenes from the life of Christ are composed along the lines of the scenes on the antique sarcophagi in the Camposanto. Between 1265 and 1268 Niccolo produced an even more magnificent octagonal pulpit for Siena cathedral, although in this work the influence of French Gothic predominates over the classicizing impulse in his Pisan sculptures. His last major commission, in which he was assisted, as on the Sienese pulpit, by his son Giovanni pisano, was the fountain (c. 1275) for the former Piazza dei Priori (now Piazza IV Novembre), Perugia. Besides Giovanni, Niccolo’s followers included Fra Guglielmo da Pisa (1256-c. 1312), who carved the pulpit of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia, and the Arca di San Domenico, Bologna, and Arnolfo di Cambio (died c. 1302), who was an architect as well as a sculptor, working in Florence and Rome.
Pistorius, Johann, the Younger
(1546-1608) German physician and theologian
Pistorius was born at Nidda, the son of Johann Pistorius the Elder (1503-83), one of the first Catholics to convert to Lutheranism. He studied theology, law, and medicine at Marburg and Wittenberg and in 1575 became court physician to Charles II, margrave of Baden-Durlach. He became disillusioned with Luther’s doctrines and after a brief period as a Calvinist he returned to the Catholic faith. He published polemical religious works in Latin and in German, edited collections of the works of early German and Polish historians, and produced a volume of cabbalistic texts and studies, Artis cabalistica (1587).
Pius II
(1405-1464) Pope (1458-64); Italian humanist and historian
Aenea Silvio Piccolomini was born at Corsignano, near Siena, the eldest of 18 children of an impoverished aristocratic family. His extensive knowledge of classical literature came largely from private study, though he was for a time a pupil of Francesco filelfo in Florence. He attended the Council of basle (1432) with the cardinal of Fermo, then traveled in Germany and to Scotland. He was crowned poet laureate by Emperor frederick iii (1442) and worked in the emperor’s chancery for the following 13 years, though not exclusively as Eugenius IV made him a papal secretary in 1445, overlooking his previous service to the antipope Felix V. His rise through the ecclesiastical hierarchy was steady; he became bishop of Trieste (1447) and of Siena (1450) and was made cardinal in 1456. He was elected pope with the help of Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope alexander vi, and assumed the name Pius in reference to Virgil’s hero "pius Aeneas." At the Congress of Mantua (1459) he was active in organizing a crusade against the Turks to avenge the fall of Constantinople (1453). He died at Ancona, where he had gone to assemble his fleet for this expedition.
Pius wrote a history of the Council of Basle and an autobiography (Commentarii), as well as more secular works. The Commentarii gives a frank picture of his attitudes and motivations. His letters, a precious source of information, are models of humanistic Latin. His career is the subject of frescoes by pinturicchio in the Piccolomini library of Siena cathedral (see Plate XII). Pius was also important for the stimulus he gave to classical studies in northern Europe; in 1459 he signed the foundation charter for the university of Basle, which thus began its existence as a center of humanistic learning. He also encouraged humanists to join the college of papal secre-taries—platina was one employed in this way—but he demanded rather stricter standards of Christian conduct than his predecessor, nicholas v. Pius Il’s works were published in folio at Basle in 1551, and his other lasting monument was his model city of pienza. The translation of the Commentarii into English by Florence A. Gragg was published in an abridged version under the title Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II (1960).
Pius IV
(1499-1565) Pope (1559-65) Born Giovanni Angelo de’ Medici in Milan, he was educated at Pavia and Bologna where he studied philosophy and medicine and took a doctorate in law. He became an archbishop in 1545 and cardinal in 1549. After being elected pope in 1559 he reconvened the Council of trent for its final and most important session (1562-63). Pius produced a new Index of Forbidden Books (1564) and prepared a new edition of the Roman Catechism. He was a patron of michelangelo and oversaw the erection of many public buildings.
Pius V, St.
(1504-1572) Pope (1566-72) Born Michele Ghislieri near Alessandria, Italy, he became a Dominican and in 1528 was ordained priest. He became bishop of Nepi and Sutri in 1556 and a cardinal in 1557. As pope he was a resolute reformer, implementing the recommendations of the Council of trent, revising the liturgy, and reorganizing the papal household. Pius instigated the Christian alliance that in 1571 won the decisive naval battle against the Turks at lepanto, and he also successfully halted the advance of the Reformation in Italy and Spain, but had little success in England. He excommunicated elizabeth i (1570), forbidding English Catholics to give her their allegiance, which caused widespread anti-Catholic feeling there (see recusancy). He was canonized in 1712.
Pizarro, Francisco
(c. 1471-1541) Spanish soldier, conqueror of Peru
Born in Trujillo, Estremadura, Pizarro was illegitimate and illiterate. He went to Darien in 1509 and accompanied balboa on his expedition to the Pacific (1513) before settling in Panama. In 1522 Pizarro and Diego de Almagro were commissioned to claim Peru for Spain. Their first expedition (1524-25) was abortive, but the following year, sailing down the west coast of South America, they reached the Isla del Gallo. Pizarro then continued to the Peruvian coast with about 12 men. Returning to Spain (1528), Pizarro appealed to the emperor, who appointed him governor of Peru (New Castile) in 1529. In 1531 he marched with 183 men, including his two brothers, to Ca-jamarca, where he seized the Inca Atahuallpa, extorting a huge ransom. Reinforced by Almagro, Pizarro murdered Atahuallpa in 1533 and entered the Inca capital at Cuzco. He founded Lima in 1535, but soon afterwards territorial disputes broke out between Pizarro and Almagro. The latter was defeated and executed (1538), but his supporters then conspired and assassinated Pizarro at Lima.
plague
An infectious disease transmitted by rat fleas, especially in overcrowded or insanitary conditions. In 1348 three galleys brought bubonic plague to Genoa from the East. The Black Death, as it became known, spread with great rapidity and fearsome mortality throughout Europe. By 1350 the first wave of the disease had worked itself out, killing about a third of Europe’s population—some 25 million deaths, including one and a half million in England alone. At frequent intervals over the following three centuries the plague returned, bringing with it disruption and death. At Venice, for example, some 20 epidemics of bubonic plague are recorded between 1348 and 1630. The impact on society was considerable. The decline in the market and the labor shortage resulting from the Black Death were largely to blame for the economic depression of the late 14th century. The safest strategy, open only to the rich and powerful, was flight and isolation. Of those who stayed in the towns and were forced back on their own or other’s remedies, many died. In the face of panic and desperation there was little room for any medical orthodoxy to emerge. While a few physicians, such as fracastoro, began to suspect that the disease spread by contagion, the majority attributed the epidemic outbreaks to astrological, theological, or meteorological conditions, against which they were helpless.
Plantin press
The printing house founded in Antwerp by Christophe Plantin (c. 1520-89). Plantin was a Frenchman who had worked in Caen and Paris before settling in Antwerp as a bookbinder in 1548. The first book from his press, Giovanni Bruto’s La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente (1555) has a parallel text in Italian and French. It was followed by about 1500 others, including liturgical, scientific, and medical books, classics, dictionaries, Waghenaer’s navigational guide Spieghel der Zeevaerdt (1584-85) (see waggoners), and the Antwerp Polyglot Bible or Biblio regia (1568-73) subsidized by Philip II of Spain and edited by arias montano. By 1576 Plantin had 16 presses at work. He also published books produced by other printers. His illustrated books, among them many herbals, used the products of a team of draftsmen led by Pieter van der Borcht, reproduced at first in woodcuts and later in engravings. The Plantin stock of pictures was used by other printers too; for example, the second edition of gerard’s Herball (1633) drew its illustrations from this source, though even the first (1597) had a dragon tree based on a Plantin orginal. Type was also carefully chosen and arranged, with Robert granjon among the designers commissioned.
Plantin was driven from Antwerp by the Spanish attack of 1576. He remained in exile until 1585, leaving the press in the hands of his sons-in-law Francis Raphelengius (who in 1585 succeeded Plantin as printer to the university of Leyden) and Jan Moretus, whose descendants kept the press going until 1876. In that year the city of Antwerp bought the archives, library, presses, and other material to found the Musee Plantin-Moretus, which encapsulates the history of printing.
Plat, Hugh (Hugh Platt)
(1552-c. 1611) English horticulturist
Plat was a renowned gardener who devoted much of his time to writing. His Jewell House of Art and Nature (1594) contained many "rare and profitable inventions," including how to pump water into kitchens, preserve food, manure pastures, and make garments "sufficient against all rainie weather." Delightes for Ladies (1600) was a popular collection of herbal recipes and helpful tips for householders. Plat was the first to suggest means of protecting and cultivating exotic plants. For his experimental efforts, all aimed at increasing agricultural productivity, he was knighted (1605) by James I.
Plateresque
A style of architecture and ornament in Spain during the early Renaissance. Meaning "silversmithlike," the word plateresco was apparently first used in an architectural context in reference to the facade of Leon cathedral by the humanist writer Cristobal de Villalon in 1539. The salient feature of plateresque decoration is the richness of its detail, a feature that it shared with much contemporary metalwork. Heraldic shields, pilasters, roundels, and trellis patterns were carved, usually in low relief, on surfaces with little reference to an overall structural unity, except that imposed by the presence of strong horizontal lines, as on the portal of the university library at Salamanca.
The plateresque is generally regarded as being divided into two phases. The first, often known as Gothic-plateresque, was in the ascendant in the last two decades of the 15th century and the first two of the 16th; it combined traditional Spanish features with others imported from the Netherlands and Germany. Exponents included Juan guas and Enrique de egas. The Capilla del Con-destable (1482-94) at Burgos, designed by Simon de colonia (whose family, as the name suggests, came from Cologne), is a prime example of the early plateresque style. Another name for this style is Isabelline, in acknowledgment of the impetus given to its development by the patronage of Queen Isabella (see ferdinand ii and isabella i).
The second phase, often called Renaissance-plateresque, entailed the rejection of the more ornate features of the first phase as the influence of the Italian High Renaissance reached Spain. The architectural theorist Diego de Sagredo encouraged the change of emphasis with his publication of Medidas del Romano (1526), which promoted Vitruvian canons. Examples of this phase include the facades of the universities of Salamanca (completed 1529) and Alcala de Henares (1541-53), Diego de riano’s Ayuntiamento at Seville, and the chancel screen of Toledo cathedral (1548) by Francisco Villalpando. The pla-teresque style was also utilized in Mexico and other Spanish possessions in the New World, for example, in the facade of San Domingo cathedral and in the ruined cathedral of Antigua, Guatemala (both 1540s).
Platina, II (Bartolommeo Sacchi)
(1421-1481) Italian humanist and biographer
Called after his birthplace, Platina, near Cremona, he studied at Mantua after a military career, then moved to Florence to perfect his knowledge of Greek. During the five years he spent at Florence he formed a close friendship with the Medici. In 1467 he became secretary to Cardinal Gonzaga. As a leading member of the roman academy he was closely associated with its founder Pom-ponius leto. When Pope Paul II suppressed the academy in 1468, Platina, along with other leading figures, was imprisoned and tortured. After his release he became Vatican librarian (1475-81) under Sixtus IV His works include biographical studies of the popes and ethical treatises on true and false goodness and on true nobility. The first anniversary of Platina’s death was commemorated with ceremonies described by Jacopo Volterrano.
Plato
(c. 427-348 bce) Greek philosopher From about 407 he was the pupil of Socrates in Athens, and after Socrates’ death he traveled abroad before returning to Athens to found his Academy. This was the model for the platonic academy in Quattrocento Florence, where discussion was based upon the understanding of the methods of Plato’s school obtained from his dialogues. Greek manuscripts of these began to reach the West from Constantinople around 1400, and Marsilio ficino translated the entire corpus into Latin. Among the dialogues were many that raised matters of key interest to later philosophers: for example, the Theaetetus on the nature of knowledge, the Timaeus on the nature and origin of the universe, the Phaedo on Socrates’ views on death and the immortality of the soul, the Symposium on the nature of love, the Phaedrus on true rhetoric, the Meno on the teaching of virtue, and the Laws on legislation for a new state.
The Platonic theory of Ideas, developed in the Republic, deals with the relationships between the unseen eternal world and the phenomenal world; the supreme Idea of the Good was particularly assimilable by Christian philosophers.
In the understanding of medieval and Renaissance scholars, Platonism often merged with Neoplatonism, the elaboration of Platonic thought in the later antique world by plotinus and his followers (see neoplatonism, renaissance; platonism, renaissance).
Platonic Academy
An informal body of scholars and humanists first assembled in Florence around Cosimo de’ medici after the Council of Florence (1439). The main influence was Gemistos plethon, who had come to Florence to represent the Eastern Orthodox Church at that council. Subsequent leading members of the academy were Marsilio ficino, who translated the dialogues of Plato, politian, Cristoforo landino, and pico della mirandola. alberti, michelangelo, and Luigi pulci were all at one time or another members of this or successor associations (see orti oricellari). The main preoccupation of the 15th-century academicians was the reconciliation of Christian and pagan philosophy; the method used was mysticism rather than exact reasoning, and the allegorical approach derived more from medieval exegesis than from the approaches that were being developed for contemporary literary criticism.
Platonism, Renaissance
To the Middle Ages the main classical philosopher was Aristotle. His works circulated in Latin translations, many of them translated from Arabic versions. The late 13th-century Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas achieved a fusion of Christian and Aristotelian ideas that became the basis for subsequent theological training. The emphasis was on logic and on an appeal to the subtleties of the intellect. As part of the general reaction against medieval ideas, the Renaissance inevitably turned to plato as a challenge to the dominance of Aristotle (see aristotelianism, renaissance).
There were two important problems associated with the study of Plato in the Renaissance. The earliest Platon-ists were Greeks from Constantinople, whose adherence to the Orthodox Church (in schism since the 11th century) made their ideas suspect to traditionalists in Western Christendom. Furthermore it was difficult to make direct contact with Platonic texts because the founder of Platonic studies in Italy, Gemistus plethon, was himself strongly influenced by Neoplatonic ideas. The mysticism inherent in some, though not the most characteristic, parts of Platonic philosophy appealed to Renaissance thinkers. They saw it as the major difference from the rationalism of Aristotle and it seemed to offer a greater possibility of reconciliation with Christianity. Moreover it made a powerful appeal to the emotions.
The influence of Plethon can be seen in his disciples ficino and pico della mirandola. Their approach was uncritical and eclectic; their admiration for Plethon blinded them to the many absurdities and inconsistencies in his system. They failed to see that Platonic theology was only a background to Plato’s ethical, political, and educational theories, and they were thus prevented from using these theories as a starting point for their own speculations. The allegorizing which was so characteristic of Byzantine Platonism struck a responsive chord in men who were already familiar with the method as used by Christian exegetes.
The contribution of the Renaissance to the serious study of Plato is now only of historical importance. The willingness of scholars to accept the amalgam of Near Eastern theosophy and Neoplatonic mysticism as authentic Platonism made it almost impossible to develop any serious discussion of Plato’s ideas (see neoplatonism, renaissance). The most lasting contribution the Renaissance Platonists made was in the sphere of translation. Even after the aldine press’s publication of Marcus Musu-rus’s editio princeps of Plato (1513), the Latin translation (1482) made by Ficino in 1477 continued to circulate, and the availability of a complete Plato in the original and in accurate translation increased the accessibility of authentic texts.
Platter family
Two generations of a Swiss family from Basle, comprising Thomas Platter the Elder (1499-1582) and his physician sons, Felix (1536-1614) and Thomas the Younger (1574-1628). They are remarkable for their autobiographical records, starting with the elder Thomas’s memoir (Lebensbeschreibung), written for Felix’s benefit. It describes his impoverished youth and early struggles before he became a printer (1536-44) and finally headmaster (1544-78) of the Latin school in Basle, and gives an interesting account of day-to-day life during the Reformation there. Felix achieved his father’s thwarted ambition to study medicine, and kept journal notes covering his boyhood and his student life at Montpellier, though he did not write up his own Lebensbeschreibung until 1609. Settling (1557) in Basle to practice medicine, he wrote detailed records of outbreaks of plague there to 1611. Felix encouraged his half-brother, the younger Thomas, to keep a journal of his travels (1595-1600) after he had completed his medical studies, and this lively account of experiences in Spain, France, Flanders, and England contains much interesting detail, including seeing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Globe in London on September 21, 1599.
Plautus, Titus Maccius
(c. 254-184 bce) Roman comic playwright
Twenty of his plays, which are largely based on earlier Greek comedies, have survived. They have a background of Roman middle-class life and generally feature a number of stock characters: the young lovers (whose romance is complicated by the girl’s being a slave until it is discovered that she is really of free birth), a devious slave who promotes their interests, a braggart soldier, a miserly or lecherous old man, and a grasping pimp. Eight of Plautus’s plays were known in the 14th century, and Nicholas cu-sanus found a manuscript with 12 more in Cologne in 1425. The staging of Plautine comedies began in earnest in Ferrara, in 1486, under the patronage of the Este family. Meanwhile translations and imitations of Plautus began to proliferate, and, with terence, he can be accounted the founder of the modern tradition of comedy.
Pleiade
A group of seven French poets of the 16th century. They were Pierre ronsard, Joachim du bellay, Remy belleau, Jean-Antoine de baif, Pontus de tyard, Etienne jodelle, and either Peletier du Mans or Jean daurat (according to some scholars Daurat became a member of the Pleiade after the death of Peletier; others reject his membership altogether). The name was originally applied to seven tragic poets of the third century bce and is ultimately derived from the seven stars of the constellation known as the Pleiades. Originally known as the "Brigade," the group was formed by Ronsard with some of Daurat’s other students at the College de Coqueret; the name "Pleiade" was adopted in 1556. Its principal aims, set out in Du Bellay’s manifesto Defense et illustration de la langue franqaise (1549), involved the reform of French poetry and the French language through imitation of the linguistic and stylistic techniques of classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, notably the odes of Pindar and Horace, the epics of Virgil and Homer, and the sonnets of petrarch, and through the revival of archaisms, the adoption of dialect words and technical terms, and the coining of neologisms.
Plethon, George Gemistus
(c. 1355-1450) Greek philosopher
Plethon was born in Constantinople and became the leader of the Platonic school of philosophy at Mistra. Brought to the Council of florence (1438) by Emperor John Palaeologus, he vigorously opposed the prevailing Aristotelianism of the Italians. In Florence he became an inspiration to the circle of humanists around Cosimo de’ medici. Plethon (the name is a synonym for Gemistus— both mean "full"—and also close to Plato in pronunciation) developed a philosophical system that owed much to the Neoplatonism of Alexandria. He emphasized the mystical side of Plato’s teaching and evolved a system in which Greek mythology fused with Greek logic. This blend struck a chord in the Florentines; his followers regarded him as the reincarnation of Plato. Some time before 1441 Plethon returned to Greece where his ideas were attacked by gennadius, who accused him of paganism. In 1455 Plethon’s body was exhumed and reburied in the tempio malatestiano at Rimini by Sigismondo malatesta. Plethon’s influence on ficino and pico della mirandola was fundamental in determining the mystical character of Florentine Platonism.
Plotinus
(c. 205-c. 262) Egyptian-born philosopher He settled around 244 at Rome, where he included among his disciples the Greek philosopher Porphyry, who later edited his Enneads. His profoundly mystical nature strongly influenced his interpretation of Platonic philosophy, and he is hailed as the founder of Neoplatonism. A Latin translation with commentary was published (1492) by Marsilio ficino, but the Greek text was not printed until 1580.
Plutarch
(c. 46-c. 120) Greek biographer and moral philosopher
Plutarch exercised a major influence on two Renaissance literary genres: on biography through his Parallel Lives of Greek and Roman notables and on the prose treatise through his Moralia. The Lives appealed to the Renaissance emphasis on the individual and the Moralia to the prevailing interest in ethics. Lost to the Middle Ages, Plutarch’s works first became accessible to humanists through epitomes and through the Latin translations of Leonardo bruni, guarino da verona, and others, and these texts, of variable accuracy, became the basis for subsequent vernacular versions. The translations of the Lives into French (see amyot, jacques) and English (see north, thomas) were enormously influential in their respective countries, and montaigne and Francis bacon were indebted to the Moralia in their development of the essay form. The editiones principes of the Greek texts were the work of the aldine press, the Moralia appearing in 1509 and the Lives in 1519.
Podesta
An administrator responsible for law and order in an Italian city. If conditions were right, an opportunist official could turn this post into the basis for the acquisition of permanent power.
Poesy (poesia)
In art, a painting of a mythological or arcadian character, created purely for aesthetic pleasure and without ideological or symbolic content. The most famous paintings of this kind are probably the "Poesy" series painted in the 1550s by titian for Philip II of Spain, depicting eight scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
