Pighius, Stephen Vinand

, nephew to the preceding, was born at Campen in 1520;. and, when grown up, went to Rome, where he spent eight years in the study of Roman antiquities, of which he acquired a knowledge that was not exceeded by any of his time. He then returned to Germany, and was taken into the family of the cardinal de Granvelle, who made him his librarian. He published an early, but not very correct eaition of Valerius iYlaximus, in 1567, 8vo. Afterwards he became preceptor to Charles, prince of Juliers and Cleves, and was to have attended him to Rome: but in this he was disappointed by the death of the prince, whose loss he deplored in a panegyric, entitled “Hercules Prodicus;” for which the prince’s father, William, made him canon of the church, and head master of the school, at Santen. He died at Santen in 1604, aged eighty-four.

His “Annales, seu Fasti Romanorum magistratuum et provinciarum,” which are drawn up in a more correct and copious manner, than even those of Sigohius and Onuphrius Panvinius, he commended to his friends upon his death-bed and Andreas Schottus published them at Plantin’s press, 1615, in 3 vols. folio, with this character “I have really found, and hope I shall prove to others, that | it is not possible to have a better commentary upon Tally’s historical work, Livy, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Dion Cassius, Florus, and all the writers of Roman affairs, than these Annals of Pighius.” Vossius also bestows the highest encomiums upon the author, and pronounces him, “Vir de Valerio Maximo, de annalibus suis Romanis, de uni versa antiquitate Romana, prseclare meritus.” ¹