PHRYGIAN CAP, a cap worn by the Phrygians, and worn in modern times as the symbol of freedom.

PHRYNE, a Greek courtesan, celebrated for her beauty; was the model to Praxiteles of his statue of Venus; accused of profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries, she was brought before the judges, to whom she exposed her person, but who acquitted her of the charge, to preserve to the artists the image of divine beauty thus recognised in her.

PHTAH, a god of ancient Egypt, worshipped at Memphis; identified with Osiris and Socaris, and placed by the Egyptians at the head of the dynasty of the kings of Memphis.

PHYLACTERIES, strips of vellum inscribed with certain texts of Scripture, enclosed in small cases of calf-skin, and attached to the forehead or the left arm; originally connected with acts of worship, they were eventually turned to superstitious uses, and employed sometimes as charms and sometimes by way of ostentatious display.

PHYSIOCRATIC SCHOOL, a school of economists founded by Quesney, who regarded the cultivation of the land as the chief sources of natural well-being, and argued for legislation in behalf of it.

PIACENZA (35), an old Italian city on the Po, 43 m. by rail SE. of Milan; has a cathedral, and among other churches the San Sisto, which contains the Sistine Madonna of Raphael, a theological seminary, and large library; it manufactures silks, cottons, and hats, and is a fortress of great strategical importance.

PIA-MATER, a membrane which invests the brain and the spinal cord; it is of a delicate vascular tissue.

PIARISTS, a purely religious order devoted to the education of the poor, founded in 1599 by a Spanish priest, and confirmed in 1617 by Paul V., and again in 1621 by Gregory XV.

PIAZZI, Italian astronomer; discovered in 1801 a planet between Mars and Jupiter, which he named Ceres, and the first of the planetoids recognised, as well as afterwards catalogued the stars (1746-1826).

PIBROCH, the Highland bagpipe; also the wild, martial music it discourses.

PICADOR, a man mounted on horseback armed with a spear to incite the bull in a bull-fight.

PICARDY, a province in the N. of France, the capital of which was Amiens; it now forms the department of Somme, and part of Aisne and Pas-de-Calais.

PICCOLOMINI, the name of an illustrious family of science in Italy, of which AEneas Silvius (Pope Pius II.) was a member; also Octavio I., Duke of Amalfi, who distinguished himself, along with Wallenstein, in the Thirty Years’ War at Luetzen in 1632, at Nordlinger in 1634, and at Thionville in 1639; was one of the most celebrated soldiers that had command of the imperial troops (1599-1656).

PICHEGRU, CHARLES, French general, born at Arbois, in Jura; served with distinguished success in the army of the Republic on the Rhine and in the Netherlands, but sold himself to the Bourbons, and being convicted of treason, was deported to Cayenne, but escaped to England, where in course of time he joined the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal against the First Consul, and being betrayed, was imprisoned in the Temple, where one morning after he was found strangled (1761-1804).