Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/126

114 Pis the sixteenth letter of our alphabet. In the original Phoenician form (see ALPHABET) it was not un like a crook. In Greece it became angular (n), and later the downward strokes were made equal in length (II), though in the old Corinthian the rounded form still occurs, closely resembling the Phoenician type. In old Latin the angular form is found, as in Greece, but also the form with which we are familiar, with the bottom of the curve joined to the straight line. The old guess that P was at first a rude sketch of a mouth must be abandoned unless we are pre pared to credit the Phoenicians with having so far anticipated Mr Melville Bell s "visible speech." The sound it denotes is a closed labial, differing from I as a surd from a sonant ; it is heard only when the lips open; there is then a percussion as the breath escapes, which constitutes the sound. The difference between breath and voice can be easily seen in the production of the two sounds, p and b. When the lips are closed as they must be closed (exactly in the same way) for each of the sounds if we then try to articulate p, no effort can produce any kind of sound till the lips open ; the chordae vocales do not vibrate, and there is therefore nothing in the mouth but mere breath. But if we make as though we would sound 6, "while still keeping the lips shut, a certain dull sound is quite audible, produced by the vocalized breath (or voice) within the mouth ; and the action of the top of the larynx in producing this sound may be distinctly felt. Of course this sound is not a b ; that does not come till the lips part. It is noteworthy how very small is the number of pure English words which begin with^>. Such words correspond to words which began with b in Greek, Latin, and other members of the parent Aryan speech ; and these are equally few. Nearly all the w r ords which we have in English beginning w r ith p are therefore borrowed, such as " pain," "pair," "police," which came to us from France; others are scientific terms, oftenest modelled upon the Greek. The reason of this deficiency of words in the parent language commencing with b is not easy to find. The Latins denoted the sound of Greek <f> by the double symbol ph ; this is a p followed by a slight breathing, not so strong as an h ; thus " philosophia " was pro nounced not as we now pronounce it, but rather like "p hilosop hia." But this sound eventually passed into the/-sound, and it is so written in Italian (e.g., " filosofia ") ; French and English have kept the old spelling, but not the sound. So here, as elsewhere, we have quite unneces sarily two symbols, ph and/, expressing the same sound. PACCHIA, GIROLAMO DEL, and PACCHIAROTTO (or PACCHIAROTTI), JACOPO. These are two painters of the Sienese school, whose career and art-work have been much misstated till late years. One or other of them produced some good pictures, which used to pass as the performance of Perugino ; reclaimed from Perugino, they were assigned to Pacchiarotto ; now it is sufficiently settled that the good works are by G. del Pacchia, while nothing of Pacchiarotto s own doing transcends mediocrity. The mythical Pacchiarotto who worked actively at Fon- tainebleau has no authenticity. Girolamo del Pacchia, son of a Hungarian cannon- founder, was born, probably in Siena, in 1477. Having joined a turbulent club named the Bardotti, he disappeared from Siena in 1535, when the club was dispersed, and nothing of a later date is known about him. His most celebrated work is a fresco of the Nativity of the Virgin, in the chapel of S. Bernardino, Siena, graceful and tender, with a certain artificiality. Another renowned fresco, in the church of St Catherine, represents that saint on her visit to St Agnes of Montepulciano, who, having just expired, raises her foot by miracle. In the National Gallery of London there is a Virgin and Child. The forms of G. del Pacchia are fuller than those of Perugino (his principal model of style appears to have been in reality Franciabigio) ; the drawing is not always unexcep tionable ; the female heads have sweetness and beauty of feature ; and some of the colouring has noticeable force. Pacchiarotto was born in Siena in 1474. In 1530 he took part in the conspiracy of the Libertini and Popolani, and in 1534 he joined the Bardotti. He had to hide for his life in 1535, and was concealed by the Observantine fathers in a tomb in the church of St John. He was stuffed in close to a new-buried corpse, and got covered with vermin and dreadfully exhausted by the close of the second day. After a while he resumed w r ork ; he was exiled in 1539, but recalled in the following year, and in that year or soon afterwards he died. Among the few extant works with which he is still credited is an Assump tion of the Virgin, in the Carmine of Siena. PACHECO, FRANCISCO (1571-1654), Spanish painter and art historian, born at Seville in 1571, was the pupil of Luis Fernandez, and a diligent and prolific workman. Favourable specimens of his style are to be seen in the Madrid picture gallery, and also in two churches at Alcala de Guadaira near Seville ; they are characterized by care ful drawing and correct if somewhat feeble composition, but prove that he was no colorist. He attained great popularity, and about the beginning of the 17th century opened an academy of painting which was largely attended. Of his pupils by far the most distinguished was Velazquez, who afterwards became his son-in-law. From about 1625 he gave up painting and betook himself to literary society and pursuits ; the most important of his works in this department is a treatise on the art of painting (Arte de la Pintura: su anteyuedad y yrandezas, 1649), which, although characterized by prolixity and pedantry of style, and often nonsensical enough in its theories, is of considerable value for the information it contains, especi ally on matters relating to Spanish art. He died in!654. PACHOMIUS, or PACHUMIUS. See MONACHISM, vol. xvi. pp. 699, 700. PACHYDERMATA. See MAMMALIA. PACIFIC OCEAN Plates II. -ITIHE ancient world was ignorant of the existence of and III. I the vast expanse of water now known as the Pacific Ocean. In Ptolemy s map of the world, constructed in the 2d century of our era (see MAP, vol. xv. PI. VII.), this fact is clearly brought out, for the only space which might possibly represent the Pacific is the Magnus Sinus, a sea so limited in extent, and represented in such a position, that it probably stands for the Gulf of Siam in the Indian Ocean. Vague reports of a great ocean lying beyond China rrogre were current in Europe as early as the period of Arabian f ^s- supremacy in learning. Indeed an Arab merchant named cc