Pignorius, Laurence

, another learned Italian, was born at Padua Oct. 12, 1571, and after being educated among the Jesuits, became confessor to a nunnery, | and parish priest of St. Lawrence, to which a canonry of Treviso was added by cardinal Barberini. He was in habits of intimacy with many of the most illustrious men of his time, and collected a valuable library and cabinet of antiquities. He died of the plague in 1631. He distinguished himself by deep researches into antiquity, and published the “Mensa Isiaca,” and some other pieces, which illustrate the antiquities and hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, and gained him the reputation of a man accurately as well as profoundly learned. He was also skilled in writing verses, consisting of panegyrics, epitaphs, and a long poem inscribed to pope Urbao VIII. It must be remembered to the honour of Pignorius, that the great Galileo procured an offer to be made to him, of the professorship of polite literature and eloquence in the university of Pisa; which his love of studious retirement and his country made him decline. He wrote much, in Italian, as well as in Latin. G. Vossius has left a short but honourable testimony of him and says, that he was “ob eximiam eruditionem atque humanitatem mini charissimus vir.” ¹