or Pivot, a foot or shoe of iron or other metal, usually conical or terminating in a point, whereby a body, intended to turn round, bears on another fixed at rest, and performs its revolutions. The pivot usually bears or turns round in a sole, or piece of iron or brass hollowed to receive it.

PIUS II. (Æneas-Sylvius Piccolomini), was born on the 18th of October 1405, at Cortigni in Sienese, the name of which he afterwards changed into that of Pienza. His mother Victoria Forteguerra, when she was with child of him, dreamed that she should be delivered of a mitred infant; and as the way of degrading clergymen at that time was by crowning them with a pater mitre, she believed that Æneas would be a disgrace to his family. But what to her had the appearance of being a disgrace, was a prefiguration of the greatest honours. Æneas was carefully educated, and made considerable proficiency in the belles lettres. After having finished his studies at Sienna, he went in 1431 to the council of Bale with Cardinal Capranica, surnamed De Fermo, because he was entrusted with the government of that church. Æneas was his secretary, and was then only 26 years of age. He afterwards acted in the same capacity to some other prelates, and to Cardinal Albergati. The council of Bale honoured him with different commissions, in order to compensate him for the zeal with which he defended that assembly against Pope Eugene IV. He was afterwards secretary to Frederic III, who decreed to him the poetical crown, and sent him ambassador to Rome, Milan, Naples, Bohemia, and other places. Nicolas V. advanced him to the bishopric of Trielet, which he quitted some time after for that of Sienna. At last, after having distinguished himself in various negotiations, he was invested with the Roman purple by Calixtus III., whom he succeeded two years after on the 27th of August 1458. Pius II. now advanced to the holy see made good the proverb, Honores mutant mores. From the commencement of his pontificate, he appeared jealous of the papal prerogatives. In 1460 he issued a bull, "declaring appeals from the pope to a council to be null, erroneous, detestable, and contrary to the sacred canons." That bull, however, did not prevent the procurator-general of the parliament of Paris from appealing to a council in defence of the Pragmatic sanction, which the pope had strenuously opposed. Pius was then at Mantua, whither he had gone in order to engage the Catholic princes to unite in a war against the Turks. The greater part of them agreed to furnish either troops or money; others refused both, particularly the French, who from that moment incurred his holiness's aversion. That aversion abated under Louis XI. whom he persuaded in 1461 to abolish the Pragmatic sanction, which the parliament of Paris had supported with so much vigour.

The following year, 1462, was rendered famous by a controversy which took place between the Cordeliers and Dominicans, whether or not the blood of Jesus Christ was separated from his body while he lay in the grave. It was also made a question whether it was separated from his divinity. The Cordeliers affirmed that it was, but the Dominicans were of an opposite opinion. They called each other heretics; which obliged the pope to issue a bull, forbidding them under pain of censure to brand one another with such odious epithets. The bull which his holiness published on the 26th of April, retracting what he had written to the council of Bale when he was its secretary, did not redound much to his honour. "I am a man (says he), and as a man I have erred. I am far from denying that a great many things which I have said and written may deserve condemnation. Like Paul, I have preached through deception, and I have persecuted the church of God through ignorance. I imitate the blessed Augustin, who having suffered some erroneous sentiments to creep into his works, retracted them. I do the same thing; I frankly acknowledge my ignorances, from a fear lest what I have written in my younger years should be the occasion of any error that might afterwards be prejudicial to the interests of the holy see. For if it be proper for anyone to defend and support the eminence and glory of the first throne of the church, it is in a peculiar manner my duty, whom God, out of his mercy and goodness alone, without any merit on my part, has raised to the dignity of vicar of Jesus Christ. For all these reasons, we exhort and admonish you in the Lord, not to give credit to those writings of ours which tend in any degree to hurt the authority of the apostolic see, and which establish opinions that are not received by the Roman church. If you find, then, anything contrary to her doctrine either in our dialogues, in our letters, or in any other of our works, despise these opinions, reject them, and adopt our present sentiments. Believe me rather now that I am an old man, than when I addressed you in my earlier days. Esteem a sovereign pontiff more than a private person; except against Anacrus Sylvius, but receive Pius II." It might be objected to his holiness, that it was his dignity alone which had made him alter his opinion. He anticipates that objection, by giving a short account of his life and actions, with the whole history of the council of Bale, to which he went with Cardinal Capranica in 1431; "but (says he) I was then a young man, and without any experience, like a bird just come from its nest." In the mean time, the Turks were threatening Christendom. Pius, ever zealous in the defence of religion against the infidels, forms the resolution of fitting out a fleet at the expense of the church, and of passing over into Asia himself, in order to animate the Christian princes by his example. He repaired to Ancona with a design to embark; but he there fell sick with the fatigue of the journey, and died on the 16th of August 1464, aged 59 years. Pius was one of the most learned men of his time, and one of the most zealous pontiffs; but being of an ambitious and pliant disposition, he sometimes sacrificed to that ambition. His principal works are, 1 Memoirs of the council of Bale, from the suspension of Eugenius to the election of Felix. 2. The history of the Bohemians, from their origin to the year 1458. 3. Two books on cosmography. 4. The history of Frederic III., whose vice-chancellor he had been. This performance was published in 1785 in folio, and is believed to be pretty accurate and very particular. 5. A treatise on the education of children. 6. A poem upon the passion of Jesus Christ. 7. A collection of 432 letters, printed at Milan, 1473, in folio, in which are found some curious anecdotes. 8. The memoirs of his own life, published by John Gobelin Peronne his secretary, and printed at Rome in 4to in 1584. There is no doubt of this being the genuine production of that pontiff. 9. Historia rerum ubique gestarum, of which only the first part was published at Venice in 1477 in folio. His works were printed at Heidelberg in 1700, in folio, at the beginning of which we find his life. That verse of Virgil's Aeneid (lib. i. v. 382.) which begins thus,

Sum pium Aeneas,

and the end of the following verse,

fama super aethera notus,

have been applied to him.

Pius IV. (John Angel Cardinal de Medicis), of a different family from that of Florence, was born at Milan in 1499. He was son to Bernardin Medechini, and brother of the famous Marquis de Marignan, Charles Vth's general. He raised himself by his own merit, and filled several important offices under Popes Clement VII and Paul III. Julius III. who had entrusted him with several legations, honoured him with a cardinal's hat in 1549. After the death of Paul IV. he was advanced to St Peter's chair on the 25th of December 1559. His predecessor had rendered himself detestable to the Romans, who treated his memory with every mark of indignity, and Pius IV. commenced his pontificate by pardoning them. He did not, however, extend the same clemency to the nephews of Pope Paul IV.; for he caused Cardinal Caraffa to be strangled in the castle of St Angel, and his brother, the Prince de Palliano, to be beheaded. His zeal was afterwards directed against the Turks and heretics. In order to stop, if possible, the progress of these last, he renewed the Council of Trent, which had been suspended. He knew well (says Abé de Choisy), that that council might make some regulations which would have the effect to lessen his authority; but on the other hand, he perceived that great inconveniences might result from its not being assembled; and "in the main (said he to his confidents) it is better to feel evil for once than to be always in dread of it." In 1561 he dispatched nuncios to all the Catholic and Protestant princes, to present them with the bull for calling that important assembly. An end was, however, put to it by the industry of his nephew, S. Charles Borromeus, in 1563; and, on the 26th of January the year following, he issued a bull for confirming its decrees. In 1565 a conspiracy was formed against his life by Benedict Acolti, and some other visionaries. Those madmen had taken it into their head that Pius IV. was not a lawful Pope, and that after his death they would place another in St Peter's chair, with the title of Pope Angelicus, under whom errors might be reformed, and peace restored to the church. The conspiracy was discovered, and the fanatic Benedict put to death. This pontiff died a lit- tle time after, on the 9th of December 1565, aged 66 years, carrying to the grave with him the hatred of the Romans, whom his severity had exasperated. He was a man of great address, and very fruitful in his resources. He adorned Rome with several public edifices; but these ornaments tended greatly to impoverish it. If he was the instrument of raising his relations in the world, it must be allowed, at least, that the greater part of them did him honour.

Pius V. (S. Michael Ghisleri), born at Bofchi or Bosco, in the diocese of Forlizon, on the 17th of January 1504, was, according to Abbé de Choisy, son to a senator of Milan. He turned a Dominican friar. Paul IV. informed of his merit and virtue, gave him the bishopric of Sutri, created him cardinal in 1557, and made him inquisitor-general of the faith among the Milanese and in Lombardy; but the severity with which he exercised his office obliged him to quit that country. He was sent to Venice, where the ardour of his zeal met with still greater obstacles. Pius IV. added to the cardinal's hat the bishopric of Mondovi. After the death of that pontiff, he was advanced to St Peter's chair in 1566. The Romans expressed but little joy at his coronation; he was very sensible of it, and said, "I hope they will be as sorry at my death as they are at my election;" but he was mistaken. Raised by his merit to the first ecclesiastical preferment in Christendom, he could not divest himself of the severity of his character; and the situation in which he found himself rendered, perhaps, that severity necessary. One of his first objects was to repress the luxury of the clergy, the pride of the cardinals, and the licentious manners of the Romans. He caused the decrees of reformation enacted by the Council of Trent to be put in execution; he prohibited bull-baiting in the Circus; he expelled from Rome the women of the town; and allowed the cardinals to be prosecuted for their debts. The errors which overflowed the Christian world gave him great uneasiness. After having employed gentle and lenient measures in the reclaiming of heretics, he had recourse to severity, and some of them ended their days in the flames of the inquisition. He particularly displayed his zeal for the grandeur of the Holy See in 1568, by ordaining that the bull In caena domini, which was published at Rome every year on Maundy Thursday, and which Clement XIV. suppressed, should be published likewise throughout the whole church. That bull, the work of several sovereign pontiffs, principally regards the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical and civil power. It anathematizes those who appeal from the decrees of popes to a general council; those who favour the appellants; the universities which teach that the pope is subject to a general council; the princes who would restrain the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or who exact contributions from the clergy. It was rejected by all the sovereign states, excepting a very few. In 1580, some bishops having endeavoured to introduce it into their dioceses, the parliament caused their temporalities to be seized upon, and declared those guilty of high treason who should imitate the fanaticalism of those prelates. Pius V. for some time meditated an expedition against the Turks. He had the courage to make war on the Ottoman empire, by forming a league with the Venetians and Philip II. king of Spain. This was the first time that the standard of the two keys was seen displayed against the crescent. The naval armies came to an engagement, on the 7th of October 1571, in Lepanto Bay, in which the confederate Christian princes obtained a signal victory over the Turks, who lost above 30,000 men, and near 200 galleys. This success was principally owing to the Pope, who exhausted both his purse and person in fitting out that armament. He died of the gravel six months after, on the 30th of April 1572, aged 68. He repeated often, in the midst of his sufferings, "O Lord! increase my pains and my patience." His name will forever adorn the list of Roman pontiffs. It is true that his bull against queen Elisabeth, and his other bull in favour of the inquisition, with his rigorous prosecution of heretics both in France and Ireland, prove that he had more zeal than sweetness in his temper; but in other respects he possessed the virtues of a saint, and the qualities of a king. He was the model of the famous Sixtus Quintus, to whom he gave an example of amassing in a few years such savings as were sufficient to make the Holy See be regarded as a formidable power. Sultan Selim, who had no greater enemy than this pope, caused public rejoicings to be made at Constantinople for his death during the space of three days. The pontificate of Pius is also celebrated for the condemnation of Baius, the extinction of the order of Humilis, and the reformation of that of the Cistercians. He was canonized by Clement XI. in 1712. There are extant several of his letters, printed at Antwerp in 1640, in 4to. Felibian, in 1672, published his Life, translated from the Italian of Agatio di Somma; but we cannot vouch for the fidelity of the translation.