belt-line electric railway connects Pittston with Avoca, Nanticoke, Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre. Two bridges connect the city with the borough of West Pittston (pop., 1910, 6848). Pittston is in the midst of the richest anthracite coal region of the state, and fire-clay also abounds in the vicinity. In 1905 the value of the factory products was $1,474,928 (47·8% more than in 1900). Pittston, named in honour of William Pitt, earl of Chatham, was one of the five original towns founded in the Wyoming Valley by the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut; it was first settled about 1770 and was incorporated as a borough in 1803. It was chartered as a city in 1894.
PITYRIASIS VERSICOLOR (Gr. πίτυρίασις, scurf, from
πίτυρον, bran), a skin disease, consisting of patches of brownish
discolorations of various sizes and shapes, mostly on the front
of the body, and often attended with itching, especially after
heating exercise. The pigmentation seems to radiate from the
orifices of hair-follicles. The epidermis is in a scaly condition
over the patch, and among the débris of the epidermic cell there
may be seen minute oval spores due to a vegetable parasite
the Microsporon furfur. The disease is mostly one of adult age,
found all over the world, and not associated in any special way
with poor general health. The treatment consists of rubbing
in an ointment of potassium sulphide or one of the mercurial
ointments, or using sulphur-soap habitually.
PIURA, the northernmost maritime department of Peru
bounded north by the Gulf of Guayaquil, N.E. by Ecuador,
by the departments of Cajamarca and Lambayeque, and W. by
the Pacific. Area, 14,849 sq. m.; pop. (1906, estimate), 154,080—both
totals exclusive of the province of Tumbes, or Tumbez
(area, about 1980 sq. m; pop., in 1906, about 8000), which
has been administratively separated from the department for
military reasons. The department belongs partly to the arid
coastal plain that extends from the Gulf of Guayaquil southward
nearly to Valparaiso, and partly to a broken mountainous region
is
belonging to the Western Cordilleras. The coastal zone
traversed by the Tunibes, Chira and Piura rivers, which have
their sources in the melting snows of the higher Andes and flow
westward across the desert to the coast. The valleys of the
Chira and Piura are irrigated and maintain large populations
Rough cotton, called “vegetable wool,” and tobacco are the
principal products, and are also produced in the valley of the
Tumbes and in some of the elevated mountain districts. On
the upland pastures cattle have long been raised, and goat-breeding
has been added in modern times. Mules also are reared.
Petroleum is an important product, and there are wells at
number of places along the coast, from Tumbes to Sechura, the
most productive being those of Talara and Zorritos. There are
sulphur deposits in the Sechura desert, and salt is manufactured
at some places on the southern coast. The making of Panama
hats from the fibre of the “toquilla” palm is a household
industry. The capital is Piura (est. pop. 9100 in 1906), on the
Piura river, about 35 rn (direct) E S.E. of Paita, and 164 ft.
above sea-level It was founded by Pizarro in 1531 under the
name of San Miguel, at a place called Tangarara, nearer Paita
but the present site was afterwards adopted. A railway (60 m.
long) by way of Sullana connects with the port of Paita, an
an extension of 6 m. runs S.S.E. to Catacaos. Other towns of
the department, with their estimated populations in 1906, are:
Tumbes, or Tumbez (2300), the most northern port of Peru, on
the Gulf of Guayaquil, celebrated as the place where Pizarro
landed in 1531; Paita, Sechura (6450), on Sechura Bay in the
southern part of the department, with exports of salt and sulphur,
Sullana (5300), an inland town with railway connexions in the
fertile Chira valley, Moiropon (3800) on the upper Piura; Huancabamba,
the centre of a tobacco district in the mountain
and Tambo Grande (6100) and Chulucanas (4600), both in the
fertile Piura valley above the capital.
PIUS, the name of ten popes.
Pius I, pope from about 141 to 154. He was the brother of Hermas, author of the Shepherd.
Pius II. (Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini, known in literature as Aeneas Silvius), pope from 1458 to 1464, was born on the 18th of October 1405, at Corsignano (afterward called Pienza after him), near Siena. His family, though poor, was noble, and claimed to trace descent from Romulus. The eldest of eighteen children, he had to work on the farm with his father, until a priest taught him the rudiments of letters, which enabled him, at the age of eighteen, to go as a poor student to Siena, dividing his time between severe humanistic studies and a life of sensual. pleasure. He was attracted to Florence by the teaching of Filelfo. His father urged him to become a lawyer, but he accepted the position of secretary to Domenico Capranica, bishop of Fermo, and went with him to the council of Basel, where he stayed several years (1431–1435), changing masters whenever he could improve his position. As secretary of the bishop of Novara he became engaged in a conspiracy against Pope Eugenius IV.; his master was caught and imprisoned, and Aeneas only saved himself by a hasty flight. He was next (1435) employed as secretary of Cardinal Nicholas Albergati (d. 1443) at the congress of Arras, where peace was made between France and Burgundy. From here he took a long journey to Scotland and England, on a secret diplomatic mission; he had numerous adventures, in one of which he nearly lost his life. In 1436 he was back at Basel, and, although a layman, obtained a seat in the council and exercised considerable influence. In order to control it better Eugenius tried to get the council to move to Florence; a minority agreed and seceded; the majority, however, stayed where they were and took vigorous measures against the pope, culminating in his deposition on the 25th of June 1438. Aeneas took an active part in the council; and though he still declined to take orders, he was given a position on the conciliar conclave which elected Amadeus of Savoy as pope under the title of Felix V. In return for his services Felix made Aeneas papal secretary.
A new period of his career opened in 1442, when he was sent by the council to take part in the diet of Frankfort-on-Main. Here he met Frederick III. of Germany, who made him poet laureate and his private secretary. He ingratiated himself with the chancellor, Kaspar Schlick, at Vienna, one of whose adventures he celebrated in Lucretia and Eurialus, a novel in the style of Boccaccio. At this period he also wrote his witty but immoral play, Chrisis. In 1446 he took orders as subdeacon, and wrote that he meant to reform, “forsaking Venus for Bacchus,” chiefly on the ground of satiety, and also, as he frankly wrote, because the clerical profession offered him more advantages than he could secure outside it.
Aeneas was useful to Frederick as a diplomatist, and managed to give all parties the impression that he was the devoted advocate of each. During the struggle between pope and council he induced Frederick to be neutral for a while. He took an important part in the diet of Nuremberg (1444), and being sent on an embassy to Eugenius in the following year he made his peace with the pope. At the diet of Frankfort (Sept. 1446) Aeneas was instrumental in changing the majority of the electors from their hostile position towards pope and emperor into a friendly one. He brought the good news to Eugenius shortly before his death (Feb. 7, 1447), and made friends with the new pope, Nicholas V., by whom he was made bishop of Siena. He was an agent of Frederick in making the celebrated concordat of Vienna (also called concordat of Aschaffenburg) in February 1448. His services to pope and emperor brought him the titles of prince of the empire and cardinal, positions which he used rather unscrupulously to get as many lucrative benefices into his hands as possible. Those in Germany brought him two thousand ducats a year.
The death of Calixtus III. (who succeeded Nicholas V.) occurred on the 5th of August 1458. After a hot fight in the conclave, in which it seemed that the wealthy French cardinal, Guillaume d’Estouteville, archbishop of Rouen and bishop of Ostia, would be elected, the intrigues of Aeneas and of his friend Rodrigo Borgia (later the notorious Alexander VI.) gave the victory to the cardinal of Siena, who took the title Pius II., with a reminiscence of Virgil’s “pius Aeneas.” The humanists hailed his election with joy, and flocked around to secure a share
