fortune to his daughters, for he had no son. He died in 1589, aged seventy-five, and was interred in the great church at Antwerp, where a monument was erected to his memory. His device was a pair of compasses, with the motto "Labore et constantia." Balsac only has aimed at the reputation of Plantin, by a story which, he says, Lipsius told him, that our printer did not understand Latin. The story, however, seems at variance with every other authority. It is also said that the king of Spain had distressed him by re-demanding the money he had lent him to carry on the printing of the Polygiot. We hope this rests on no better authority than the preceding; but it is certain that at one time, when Thuanus visited him, he was, for whatever reason, in less flourishing circumstances. We find, however, that at last he died in opulence.1 PLANUDES (MAXIMUS), a Greek monk of Constantinople, who lived at the end of the thirteenth, and the beginning of the fourteenth century, is the author of a "Life of Æsop," full of anachronisms, absurdities, and falsehoods; and of 149 "Fables;" which, though he published them as Æsop's, have been suspected to be his own. There is also a collection of Greek epigrams, under the title of "Anthologia," made by this monk and it is but just to allow him the merit of having preserved many valuable compositions which otherwise would have been lost. His "Anthologia" was published at Florence, 1494, a very rare edition, reprinted in 1600. No particulars are known of Planudes, except that he suffered some persecution on account of his zeal for the Latin church, and, although he wrote a recantation, Bessarion thinks he was not sincere.2 PLATEL. See PARISOT. PLATER (FELIX), an eminent physician, was born at Basle in 1536, and educated under his father's eye, who was likewise an eminent physician, and principal of the college of Basle. From this place he went to Montpellier, where he obtained the degree of doctor in 1556, and on. his return to Basle, was admitted ad eundem, and commenced a very successful career of practice. In 1560 he was appointed professor of medicine, and became the confidential physician of the princes and nobles of the Upper Rhine. He possessed an extensive knowledge of anatomy, botany, natural history, and other branches of science, and contributed much to the celebrity of his native university, in which he was a teacher upwards of fifty years. He died in July 1614, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He left the following works: "De Corporis humani structura et usu Libri tres," Basle, 1583, and 1603, folio; "De Febribus Liber," Francfort, 1597; "Praxeos Medicæ Tomi tres," Basle, 1602; "Observationum Medicinalium Libri tres," ibid. 1614, &c.; "Consilia Medica," Francf. 1615, in the collection of Brendelius; "De Gangræna Epistola," in the first century of the letters of Hildanus. After his death were published "Quæstionum Medicarum paradoxarum et eudoxarum Centuria posthuma," Basle, 1625, edited by his brother, Thomas Plater; and "Quæstiones Physiologicæ de partium in utero conformatione," Leyden, 1650.1 1 Baillet Jugements.-Foppen, Bibl. Belg.-Bullart's Academie des Sciences. 2 Moreri. PLATINA (BARTOLOMEO-Sacchi), so called, a learned Italian, and author of a "History of the Popes," was born in 1421 at Piadena, in Latin Platina, a village between Cremona and Mantua; whence he took the name by which he is generally known. He first embraced a military life, which he followed for a considerable time; but afterwards devoted himself to literature, and made a considerable progress in it. He went to Rome under Calixtus III. who was made pope in 1455; and procuring an introduction to cardinal Bessarion, he obtained some small benefices of pope Pius II. who succeeded Calixtus in 1458, and afterwards was appointed to an office which Pius II. created, called the college of apostolical abbreviators. But when Paul II. succeeded Pius in 1464, Platina's affairs took a very unfavourable turn. Paul hated him because he was the favourite of his predecessor Pius, and removed all the abbreviators from their employments, by abolishing their places, notwithstanding some had purchased them with great sums of money. On this Platina ventured to complain to the pope, and most humbly besought him to order their cause to be judged by the auditors of the Rota. The pope was offended at the liberty, and gave him a very haughty repulse: "Is it thus," said he, looking at him sternly, " is it thus, that you summon us before your judges, as if you knew not that all laws were centered in our breast? Such is our decree: they shall all go hence, whithersoever they please: Eloy, Dict. Hist. I am pope, and have a right to ratify or cancel the acts of others at pleasure." These abbreviators, thus divested of their employments, used their utmost endeavours, for some days, to obtain audience of the pope, but were repulsed with contempt. Upon this, Platina wrote to him in bolder language: "If you had a right to dispossess us, without a hearing, of the employments we lawfully purchased; we, on the other side, may surely be permitted to complain of the injustice we suffer, and the ignominy with which we are branded. As you have repulsed us so contumeliously, we will go to all the courts of princes, and intreat them to call a council; whose principal business shall be, to oblige you to shew cause, why you have divested us of our lawful possessions." This letter being considered as an act of rebellion, the writer was imprisoned, and endured great hardships. At the end of four months he had his liberty, with orders not to leave Rome, and continued in quiet for some time; but afterwards, being suspected of a plot, was again imprisoned, and, with many others, put to the rack. The plot being found imaginary, the charge was turned to heresy, which also came to nothing; and Platina was set at liberty some time after. The pope then flattered him with a prospect of preferment, but died before he could perform his promises, if ever he meant to do so. On the accession, however, of Sixtus IV. to the pontificate, he recompensed Platina in some measure by appointing him in 1475, keeper of the Vatican library, which was established by this pope. It was a place of moderate income then, but was highly acceptable to Platina, who enjoyed it with great contentment until 1481, when he was snatched away by the plague. He bequeathed to Pomponius Lætus the house which he built on the Mons Quirinalis, with the laurel grove, out of which the poetical crowns were taken. He was the author of several works, the most considerable of which is, "De Vitis ac Gestis Summorum Pontificum;" or, History of the Popes from St. Peter to Sixtus IV. to whom he dedicated it. This work is written with an elegance of style, and discovers powers of research and discrimination which were then unknown in biographical works. He seems always desirous of stating the truth, and does this with as much boldness as could be expected in that age. The best proof of this, perhaps, is that all the editions after 1500 were mutilated by the licensers of the press. The account he gives of his sufferings under Paul II. has been objected to him as a breach of the impartiality to be observed by a historian; but it was at the same time no inconsiderable proof of his courage. This work was first printed at Venice in 1479, folio, and reprinted once or twice before 1500. Platina wrote also, 2. "A History of Mantua," in Latin, which was first published by Lambecius, with notes, at Vienna, 1675, in 4to. 3. "De Naturis rerum." 4. "Epistolæ ad diversos." 5. " De honesta voluptate et valetudine." 6. "De falso et vero bono." 7. "Contra amores." 8. "De vera nobilitate." 9. "De optimo cive." 10. "Panegyricus in Bessarionem." 11. "Oratio ad Paulum II." 12. "De pace Italiæ componenda et bello Turcico indicendo." 13. "De flosculis linguæ Latinæ." Sannazarius wrote an humorous epigram on the treatise "de honesta voluptate," including direc tions for the kitchen, de Obsoniis, which Mr. Gresswell has thus translated: "Each pontiff's talents, morals, life, and end, In this hit at the popes, Sannazarius forgot that the case was quite the reverse with these two works, the treatise "De honesta voluptate" being in fact composed before its author's imprisonment and persecution under Paul II. and the Lives of the Popes not until he became keeper of the Vatican under Sixtus IV. The date of the first edition of the former, 1481, had probably misled Sannazarius. The lives of the popes was continued in subsequent editions by Onuphrius Panvinius and others. We have likewise an English translation and continuation by sir Paul Ricaut, which will be noticed more particularly hereafter. 1 PLATNER (JOHN ZACHARIAH), an able physician, was born at Chemnitz, in Misnia, in August 1694. He was first intended for merchandize, but the rapid progress which he made in his studies, induced his father to consent that he should direct his attention to medicine, for which he had manifested a strong inclination. He studied, therefore, at Leipsic, for three years, and afterwards at Halle, where he received the degree of doctor in September 1716. He then travelled through various parts of Europe, for four years, and finally settled at Leipsic in 1720. In 1721 he was appointed professor extraordinary of anatomy and surgery. In 1724 he obtained the chair of physiology, which had become vacant by the death of Rivinus; in 1737 he was promoted to the professorship of pathology; and in 1747 to that of therapeutics. He was also nominated perpetual dean of the faculty, and consulting physician to the court of Saxony. He did not live long, however, to enjoy these flattering distinctions; for he was carried off suddenly on the 19th of December 1747, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, by a paroxysm of asthma. 1 Tiraboschi. Bullart's Academie des Sciences, Niceron, vols. VIII. and X. -Gresswell's Politian, - Saxii Onomast. He left only three different works, the first of which, entitled "Institutiones Chirurgiæ Rationalis, tum medicæ, tum manualis," Leipsic, 1745, was published by himself. It passed through several editions. The second, entitled "Opusculorum Chirurgicorum et Anatomicorum Tomi duo: Dissertationes et Prolusiones," ibid. 1749, was edited by his son, Frederic Platner, a professor of law. And the third, entitled "Ars medendi singulis morbis accommodata," ibid. 1765, which had been bequeathed by the author to his pupil J. B. Boehmer, upon condition that it should not be published, was printed by a bookseller, Fritsch, into whose hands a copy of it fell eighteen years after the author's death. PLATO, the most illustrious of the Greek philosophers, and whose sect outlived every other, was by descent an Athenian, but born in the island of Ægina, then subject to Athens. His origin is traced back, on his father Aristo's side, to Codrus; and on that of his mother Pericthione, through five generations, to Solon. The time of his birth is commonly placed in the first year of the eighty-eighth olympiad, or B. C. 428; but Brucker thinks, it may perhaps be more accurately fixed in the third year of the eighty-seventh olympiad, or B. C. 430. He gave early indications of an extensive and original genius, and was instructed in the rudiments of letters by the grammarian Dionysius, and trained in athletic exercises by Aristo of Argos. He applied also with great diligence to the arts of painting and poetry, and produced an epic poem, which he had the wisdom afterwards, upon comparing it with Homer, to commit to the flames. At the age of twenty years, he composed a dramatic piece, which was about to be performed on the theatre, but the day before the in 1 Eloy, Dict. Hist. de Medicine. Rees's Cyclopædia, |