The Renaissance

the Bahamas, Tortuga, Jamaica, and later
Panama. Under Henry Morgan, pirate
bands captured the major cities of
Spanish-held Panama, including Portobelo
and the city of Panama, a crucial link in
the transportation of silver and gold from
the Andes region to Spain. Their ranks
were often increased by mutineers from
British military ships, who escaped a
miserable and dangerous existence for
the chance to share in captured gold and
loot.

Piracy also thrived in Asian waters. The
Chinese pirate Pinyin Zheng Zhilong, after
leaving the service of the Portuguese at
Macau, raided Dutch shipping in the East
Indies. Cheng Ch’eng Kuon seized the en-
tire island of Formosa from the Portu-
guese, using it as a base for a long cam-
paign of piracy in the South China Sea—a
region that remains a dangerous hotbed of
piracy in the twenty-first century.

Pirckheimer, Willibald .....................

(1470–1530)

German author and humanist, and patron
of Albrecht Dürer and other leading Ger-
man artists of the city of Nuremberg. He
was born in Eichstätt, a town in the south-
ern state of Bavaria, and studied law in
Italy as a young man. His experience in
Italy brought him into contact with the
humanism of the Renaissance, in which
scholars were studying the ancient writers
and inspiring a rebirth of art and philoso-
phy. His abilities crossed many different
fields, and brought him the notice of the
Holy Roman Emperor. In 1499 Pirckhe-
imer commanded a company of infantry
in the Swabian War between the emperor
and the independence-minded Swiss.

After his return to Germany, Pirckhe-
imer had settled in Nuremberg, where he

became a prosperous lawyer and a leading

public official, a man of letters and, nota-

bly, the patron of Dürer. Pirckheimer gath-

ered one of the largest personal libraries

in Germany and translated ancient Greek

and Latin books, including theGeography

of the astronomer Ptolemy, into German.

He wrote influential essays on art, human-

istic thinking, and on the various contro-

versies dividing the Protestant church. As

a close friend of Dürer, he helped the art-

ist make important journeys to Italy, where

Dürer came under the influence of Italian

Renaissance art and philosophy.

SEEALSO: Dürer, Albrecht

Pisanello .........................................

(ca. 1395–1455)

Italian artist of the early Renaissance,

known for portraits, frescoes, and for med-

als he designed to commemorate impor-

tant people and events. Born as Antonio

Pisano in Pisa, he was the son of Pucio di

Giovanni and Isabetta Giovanni, who

raised him in Verona after the death of his

father. He was trained as an artist in Ve-

rona in the studio of Stefano di Verona, an

artist whose strong influence can be seen

in an early work of Pisanello’s calledMa-

donna of the Quails. By 1415 he was work-

ing as an assistant to Gentile da Fabriano,

who had a strong influence on his style.

The two artists completed frescoes for the

Grand Council Hall in the palace of the

Doge in Venice. According to the Renais-

sance historian Giorgio Vasari, Pisanello

also made a close study of the work of

Paolo Uccello, and learned from him the

art of drawing and painting horses. While

employed by the Gonzaga family, the rul-

ers of Mantua, Pisanello completed the

Annunciation, a fresco for the Church of

San Fermo. In the Pellegrini Chapel of the

Church of Sant’ Anastasia he paintedSaint

Pirckheimer, Willibald