Pighius, Albert

, a Dutch divine and mathematician, was born at Campen in Overyssell, towards the close of the fifteenth century, and was educated at Louvain. He acquired considerable distinction by his publications against Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, and Calvin, and was much esteemed, as indeed he deserved, by popes Adrian VI. Clement VII. and Paul III for, even by the confession of the catholic historians, he was most blindly attached to the powers, privileges, and usurpations of the Romish pontiffs. He died at Utrecht, where he was provost of the church of St. John the Baptist, Dec. 29, 1542, leaving many works; the most considerable among which is entitled “Assertio Hierarchiae Ecclesiastical,” Colog. 1572, folio. His mathematical treatises, which do him most credit, were, “De Ratione Paschalis celebrationis,” 1520; “De Æquinoctiorum Solstitiorumque inventione” a defence of the Alphonsine tables, and “Astrologiae Defensio” against the pretenders to prognostics, and annual predictions. ¹