PITHOU, PIERRE, a Frenchman of great literary eminence, was descended from an ancient and noble family in Normandy, and born at Troyes in 1539. His taste for literature early showed itself, and his father cultivated it to the utmost. He first studied at Troyes, and was subse-
quently sent to Paris, where he became the scholar and friend of Turnèbe. Having finished his pursuits in languages and the belles lettres, he was removed to Bourges, and placed under Cujas to study the civil law. On the removal of Cujas to Valence, Pithou followed him, and continued to profit by his lectures until the year 1560. In 1563 Pithou published his Adversaria Subseciva, a work highly applauded by Turnèbe, Lipsius, and other learned men, and which laid the foundation of that extensive fame which he subsequently acquired. Soon after this, Henri III. advanced him to some considerable posts, in which, as well as at the bar, he acquitted himself most creditably. Pithou, being a Calvinist, narrowly escaped being involved in the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572; a circumstance which seems to have frightened him out of his religion, which he soon afterwards abjured in favour of the Catholic faith. He died upon his birthday in the year 1596.
Pithou published a great number of works upon law, history, and classical literature; and he gave several new and correct editions of ancient writers. He was the first who made the world acquainted with the Fables of Phœdrus, and the little anonymous poem entitled Pervigilium Veneris, from manuscripts in his possession. He published his master Cujas' Observations on the Roman Law, accompanied with remarks and annotations of his own. We are also indebted to him for the discovery of the laws of the Visigoths, which he published in 1579. His principal writings on the canon law are,—Corpus Juris Canonici, 1687, 2 vols. folio; Codex Canonum vetus ecclesiasticum, in folio; Gallicæ Ecclesiæ in schismatico Status, in 8vo; and A Treatise on the Liberties of the Gallican Church. Pithou also published an edition of the Capitularies, a series of French annalists, from the eighth to the thirteenth century; Memoirs of the Counts de Champagne and de Brie; the Historical Fragments of St Hilarius, containing curious particulars respecting the Council of Rimini; and the writings of several ancient doctors of the Gallican Church, of which several had until then remained inedited. We are likewise indebted to him for editions, from the best manuscripts, of several ancient geographers, the Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem, the works of Salvian, the works of Juvenal and Persius, Petronius, and the moral distichs attributed to Cato.