his Radical sympathies tended to a serious weakening of the navy and to destruction of discipline. A somewhat violent controversy resulted, in the course of which M. Pelletan’s indiscreet speeches did him no good; and he became a common subject for ill-natured caricatures. On the fall of the Combes ministry he became less prominent in French politics.
PELLICANUS, CONRAD (1478–1556), German theologian,
was born at Ruffach in Alsace, on the 8th of January 1478. His German name, Kürsner, was changed to Pellicanus by his mother’s brother Jodocus Gallus, an ecclesiastic connected with
the university of Heidelberg, who supported his nephew for sixteen
months at the university in 1491–1492. On returning to Ruffach,
he taught gratis in the Minorite convent school that he might
borrow books from the library, and in his sixteenth year resolved
to become a friar. This step helped his studies, for he was sent
to Tubingen in 1496 and became a favourite pupil of the guardian
of the Minorite convent there, Paulus Scriptoris, a man of
considerable general learning. There seems to have been at
that time in south-west Germany a considerable amount of
sturdy independent thought among the Franciscans; Pellicanus
himself became a Protestant very gradually, and without any
such revulsion of feeling as marked Luther’s conversion. At
Tubingen the future “apostate in three languages” was able
to begin the study of Hebrew. He had no teacher and no
grammar; but Paulus Scriptoris carried him a huge codex of
the prophets on his own shoulders all the Way from Mainz. He
learned the letters from the transcription of a few verses in the
Star of the Messiah of Petrus Niger, and, with a subsequent hint
or two from Reuchlin, who also lent him the grammar of Moses
Kimhi, made his way through the Bible for himself with the help
of Jerome’s Latin. He got on so well that he was not only
a useful helper to Reuchlin but anticipated the manuals of the
great Hebraist by composing in 1501 the first Hebrew grammar
in the European tongue. It was printed in 1503, and afterwards
included in Reysch’s Margarita philosophica. Hebrew remained
a favourite study to the last. Pellican’s autobiography describes
the gradual multiplication of accessible books on the
subjects, and he not only studied but translated a vast mass of
rabbinical and Talmudic texts, his interest in Jewish literature
being mainly philological. The chief fruit of these studies is
the vast commentary on the Bible (Zurich, 7 vols., 1532–1539),
which shows a remarkably sound judgment on questions of the
text, and a sense for historical as opposed to typological exegesis.
Pellicanus became priest in 1501 and continued to serve his order at Ruffach, Pforzheim, and Basel till 1526. At Basel he did much laborious work for Froben’s editions, and came to the conclusion that the Church taught many doctrines of which the early doctors of Christendom knew nothing. He spoke his views frankly, but he disliked polemic; he found also more toleration than might have been expected, even after he became active in circulating Luther’s books. Thus, supported by the civic authorities, he remained guardian of the convent of his order at Basel from 1519 till 1524, and even when he had to give up his post, remained in the monastery for two years, professing theology in the university. At length, when the position was becoming quite untenable, he received through Zwingli a call to Zurich as professor of Greek and Hebrew, and formally throwing off his monk’s habit, entered on a new life. Here he remained till his death on the 6th of April 1556.
Pellicanus’s scholarship, though not brilliant, was really extensive; his sound sense, and his singularly pure and devoted character gave him a great influence. He was remarkably free from the pedantry of the time, as is shown by his views about the use of the German vernacular as a vehicle of culture (Chron. 135, 36). As a theologian his natural affinities were with Zwingli, with whom he shared the advantage of having grown up to the views of the Reformation, by the natural progress of his studies and religious life. Thus he never lost his sympathy with humanism and with its great German representative, Erasmus.
Pellicanus’s Latin autobiography (Chronicon C.P.R) is one of the most interesting documents of the period. It was first published by Riggenbach in 1877, and in this volume the other sources for his life are registered. See also Emil Silberstein, Conrad Pellicanus; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Studiums der hebr. Sprache (Berlin, 1900).
PELLICIER, GUILLAUME (c. 1490–1568), French prelate
and diplomatist, was educated by his uncle, the bishop of
Maguelonne, whom he succeeded in 1529. In 1536 he had
the seat of his bishopric transferred to Montpellier. Appointed
ambassador at Venice in 1539, he fulfilled his mission to the
entire satisfaction of Francis I., but on the discovery of the
system of espionage he had employed the king had to recall him
in 1542. Returning to his diocese, he was imprisoned in the
château of Beaucaire for his tolerance of the Reformers, so he
replaced his former indulgence by severity, and the end of his
episcopate was disturbed by religious struggles. He was a
man of wide learning, a humanist and a friend of humanists,
and took a keen interest in the natural sciences.
See J. Zeller, La Diplomatie française . . . d’après le correspondance de G. Pellicier (Paris, 1881), and A. Tausserat-Radel, Correspondance politique de Guillaume Pellicier (Paris, 1899).
PELLICO, SILVIO (1788–1854), Italian dramatist, was born
at Saluzzo in Piedmont on the 24th of June 1788, the earlier
portion of his life being passed at Pinerolo and Turin under
the tuition of a priest named Manavella. At the age of ten
he composed a tragedy under the inspiration of Caesarotti’s
translation of the Ossianic poems. On the marriage of his twin
sister Rosina with a maternal cousin at Lyons he went to reside
in that city, devoting himself during four years to the study of
French literature. He returned in 1810 to Milan, where he
became professor of French in the Collegio degli Orfani Militari.
His tragedy Francesca da Rimini, was brought out with success
by Carlotta Marchionni at Milan in 1818. Its publication was
followed by that of the tragedy Eufemio da Messina, but the
representation of the latter was forbidden. Pellico had in the
meantime continued his work as tutor, first to the unfortunate
son of Count Briche, and then to the two sons of Count Porro
Lambertenghi. He threw himself heartily into an attempt to
weaken the hold of the Austrian despotism by indirect
educational means. Of the powerful literary executive which gathered
about Counts Porro and Confalonieri, Pellico was the able
secretary—the management of the Conciliatore, which appeared
in 1818 as the organ of the association, resting largely upon him.
But the paper, under the censorship of the Austrian officials,
ran for a year only, and the society itself was broken up by the
government. In October 1820 Pellico was arrested on the
charge of carbonarism and conveyed to the Santa Margherita
prison. After his removal to the Piombi at Venice in February
1821, he composed several Cantiche and the tragedies Ester d’Engaddi and Iginia d’Asti. The sentence of death pronounced
on him in February 1822 was finally commuted to fifteen years
carcere duro, and in the following April he was placed in the
Spielberg at Brünn. His chief work during this part of his
imprisonment was the tragedy Leoniero da Dertona, for the
preservation of which he was compelled to rely on his memory.
After his release in 1830 he commenced the publication of his
prison compositions, of which the Ester was played at Turin
in 1831, but immediately suppressed. In 1832 appeared his
Gismonda da Mendrizio, Erodiade and the Leoniero, under the
title of Tre nuovi tragedie, and in the same year the work which
gave him his European fame, Le Mie prigioni, an account of
his sufferings in prison. The last gained him the friendship
of the Marchesa di Barolo, the reformer of the Turin prisons,
and in 1834 he accepted from her a yearly pension of 1200 francs.
His tragedy Tommaso Moro had been published in 1833, his
most important subsequent publication being the Opere inedite
in 1837. On the decease of his parents in 1838 he was received
into the Casa Barolo, where he remained till his death, assisting
the marchesa in her charities, and writing chiefly upon religious
themes. Of these works the best known is the Dei Doveri degli
uomini, a series of trite maxims which do honour to his piety
rather than to his critical judgment. A fragmentary biography
of the marchesa by Pellico was published in Italian and English
after her death. He died on the 31st of January 1854, and was
