Mons Politianus), Tuscany, whence he assumed his literary designation, his own family name being Ambrogini, currently called Cini: there seems to be no authority for the surname Basso, sometimes given. His father was a doctor of law in poor circumstances. Poliziano was amazingly precocious, writing his best in boyhood, and transcending all his contemporaries in literary aptitude. He wrote Latin epigrams at the age of thirteen, which have been accounted his best, and Greek at seventeen. His longest, and generally though unwisely termed his finest Italian poem, upon a joust held by Giuliano de' Medici, is believed to have been written at the age of fourteen, or at latest eighteen. These first-fruits of genius were either the motive, or possibly the result, of special care bestowed by Lorenzo de' Medici upon the education of Poliziano. He studied under the four renowned scholars, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Argirofulo, Cristiforo Landino, and Andronicus of Thessalonica. Lorenzo continued till his death, at which Poliziano was present, 1492, to evince extreme attachment towards the poet, committing to him the education of his son Pietro, and perhaps also of Giovanni, afterwards Leo X., and keeping him permanently in his own house. Poliziano was professor of Greek and Latin in Florence at twenty-nine years of age, and his lectures attracted scholars from all parts of Europe. He was also well versed in Hebrew. After Lorenzo's death he received a canonicate in the cathedral of Florence, and entered holy orders. He died on 24th September, 1494, the day when Charles VIII. of France entered Florence in triumph; being carried off in his forty-first year by a fever, supposed to have been aggravated by sorrow at the fall of the Medici. Some writers, however, with little show of reason, say that furious despair at his rejection by a lady, or a passion of far more criminal kind, led to his death. His morals, in fact, appear to have been bad, and his amours especially notorious; the darker charge may be pronounced unproved, though it cannot be dismissed as mere gratuitous calumny. Another accusation is the cheap one of irreligion or "atheism." This also is unproved, and is to some extent confuted by passages in his writings, especially the tone of his account of Lorenzo's death, and by some circumstances attending his own decease; on the other hand, however, we have a report of his having stated that he had once read the scriptures, and had never spent his time worse. He was moreover splenetic, carping, and arrogant, and in person ugly, with a squint and a disproportionately long nose. This repulsive figure of Poliziano the man, is the antipodes of Poliziano the poet. His poetic faculty, in lyrics and short pieces at least, is certainly the greatest in Italian literature after the time of Petrarca. In writing of love and women, his chief theme, he is indeed warm, but almost invariably alien from grossness; his grace of sound and cadence is quite peculiar; his sallies are full of charm and archness, with an exquisitely natural and almost modern tone; and he is markedly free for so profound a classicist from any of the insipidities of learning. His lyric drama of "Orpheus," acted in or about 1483, is the earliest example of the Italian opera. Among his other works may be specified a Latin "History of the Conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici;" Latin translations of Herodian and many other Greek historians and poets; a comment on Justinian's Pandects, published in 1762; a highly erudite volume of "Miscellanea," containing explanations and corrections of a great number of passages from the Latin classics; and a work, "Parepistomenon," mapping out the field of human knowledge, and furnishing a kind of prelude to Bacon's labours. Of a Latin translation which he wrote, or commenced, of the Iliad, no trace now remains.—W. M. R.
POLLAJUOLO, Antonio, one of the most distinguished of the earliest Florentine painters, was born about the year 1430, though Vasari fixes the date at 1426; but there are data also fixing the years 1431 and 1433 as the years of his birth. His first master was the goldsmith Bartoluccio, the stepfather of Lorenzo Ghiberti. Through this connection Antonio attracted the notice of Ghiberti, who afterwards employed him as one of his assistants in the modelling of the second pair of gates which he made for the Baptistery of Florence, completed in 1452; Antonio was employed in modelling the ornaments of the architrave. About this time Pollajuolo was established as a goldsmith, and he soon acquired also a great reputation as a statuary or sculptor in bronze. He was remarkable as a skilful modeller, and is distinguished as having been the first artist to dissect the human body for the purposes of art. It is, however, as a painter that Antonio Pollajuolo has transmitted his name to posterity.—His brother, Piero Pollajuolo, who was ten years younger than Antonio, was educated as a painter under Andrea del Castagno, and this circumstance probably led Antonio to take up painting also. They worked together; and Vasari mentions, as their masterpiece, the fine large altarpiece now in the National gallery, but formerly in the Pucci chapel in the church of San Sebastiano de' Servi at Florence. It was painted in 1475, represents the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, and is distinguished for its admirable drawing of the figures, unrivalled by anything of its own date—the year in which Michelangelo was born. Another work in the National gallery, the "Virgin adoring the Infant Christ," ascribed to Domenico Ghirlandajo, is now generally attributed with much more probability to Pollajuolo. The church of San Gimignano possesses a "Coronation of the Virgin," painted by Piero Pollajuolo in 1483. In 1484 Antonio was invited to Rome by Pope Innocent VIII., for whom he executed some important monumental works in the old church of St. Peter. He died in Rome early in the year 1498, and was buried there in the church of San Pietro in Vinculis. He seems to have accumulated a large fortune for his time; for in his will, dated November 4, 1496, he bequeathes to each of his two daughters five thousand golden ducats. Some of Pollajuolo's pictures are hard in manner, and of too decided an anatomical character; but they are generally very well drawn, and sometimes elaborately executed, and even brilliantly coloured.—(Vasari, Vite, &c., ed. Le Monnier; Gaye, Carteggio Inedito d'Artisti; Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen.—R. N. W.
POLLAJUOLO, Simone del, or Simon Masi, called also il Cronaca, from his fondness for narrating, an eminent Italian architect, was born at Florence in 1454. He studied at Rome, measuring carefully all the ancient buildings in that city. On his return to Florence he was employed by Strozzi to complete his palace, begun in 1489 by Benedetto Maiano. This is considered his masterwork, and though deficient in purity of design, is a very noble edifice. Pollajuolo also built the council hall of the Signoria at Florence, afterwards enlarged and embellished by Vasari; the sacristy of San Spirito; the convent Del Servi; and the church of San Miniato al Monte, outside Florence, a building greatly admired by Michelangelo. Pollajuolo was a follower of Savonarola. He died at Florence in 1509.—J. T—e.
POLLEXFEN, Sir Henry, an eminent English lawyer of the seventeenth century. He was of the whig party, and defended Richard Baxter in that trial before Judge Jeffreys of which Macaulay gives so graphic an account. He was long at the head of the western circuit, and lost his popularity by holding briefs at the Bloody Assizes, particularly by appearing against Alice Lisle. He was reinstated in public estimation by the part he took in defending the seven bishops in 1688. In the following year, after acting a few weeks as attorney-general, he was made, by the new government, chief justice of the common pleas. He died in 1692.—R. H.
POLLIO, Caius Asinius, was born at Rome, 76 b.c., and early in life attained distinction as an orator. On the commencement of the civil war he joined Cæsar in Gaul, and accompanied him in his advance to Rome. He was present at the battle of Pharsalia, and had a share in Cæsar's subsequent campaigns in Africa and Spain. At the time of Cæsar's death Pollio was governor of Further Spain. After temporizing for some time he joined the triumvirs with three legions, about the close of the year 43 b.c. He was soon appointed by Antony governor of Gallia Transpadana, and it was in this office that he saved from confiscation the property of Virgil. As a common friend of both parties, Pollio had a considerable share in bringing about the treaty of Brundusium between Antony and Augustus, 40 b.c. In the following year he conducted with success a war against the Parthini, a Dalmatian tribe, on which he is complimented by Horace in the first ode of his second book. After this he took no further prominent part in public affairs, but continued to be distinguished as an orator and a patron of literary men. He declined to accompany Augustus in the Actian campaign on account of his former friendship for Antony, and Augustus admitted the excuse. He died a.d. 4, at the age of eighty. As a critic, a poet, a historian, and an orator Pollio was equally eminent. He was the friend of Catullus, Horace, and Virgil, to the two latter of whom, along with many other distinguished writers, he extended a generous protection. He was also the first person who formed a public library at Rome,
