Pompignan, Jean -Georges le Franc i>e. a French prelate, brother of the poet Pompignan, was born at Montauban Feb. 22, 1715. After finishing his stud- ies at the College Louis le Grand and at the Seminary of St. Sulpice, he was made canon in his native dio- cese, hut he had scarcely taken bis license when he was appointed bishop of Le Puy (Dec. 25, 174-2). In 1747 he obtained in commendam the abbey of St. Chaffre in his diocese, and was sent as a deputy to the assembly of the clergy held in 1755. He sided, in the strife which di- vided at that time, the Church of France, with the party of the Feuillants, so called because they adopted the prin- ciples of the cardinal De la Rochefoucauld, the new min- ister of the portfolio of the prebendaries, in opposition to the party of the Theatins. who sided with the Theatine Boyer, previously bishop of Mirepoix. Pompignan was sent by the assembly to address the pope on the articles drawn up by both parties. He was one of the presidents of the assembly of 1760, and the author of the remon- strances to the king in favor of the members of the clergy banished by Parliament. He was untiring in writing against the vices and incredulity of his epoch — works which made him many enemies, among whom was Voltaire. In 1774 Louis XV made him archbishop of Vienne. In 1788 he sided with the tiers-e'tat in the e'tats of the Dauphine, and this conduct caused him to be deputed to the Etats Generaux. He was true there to the same line of conduct, and was conspicuous at the head of the members of the clergy who, June 22, 1789, joined the tiers-etat. The consequence was that he became one of the first presidents of the National As- sembly. On Aug. 4 of the ensuing year the king in- trusted him with the roll of the prebendary, and the following day he was appointed minister of state, and took his seat in the council. Being aware that he could not reside in his diocese, he resigned the episcopal see, and received in exchange the abbey of Buzai. The suspension of the nomination to the pre- bendaries, Nov. 9, 1789, left him minister without port- folio, and was followed by considerable changes in- troduced into the Church of France by the decree of July 12, 1790, on the civil constitution of the clergy. Pius VI addressed to Pompignan a bull, in which he condemned the new decrees, and exhorted him to bring his whole influence to bear upon the king to prevent him from giving them his sanction. This bull was result- less, as the king sanctioned the decrees on Aug. 24. Pompignan had nothing to do with this decision of Louis XVI, inasmuch as he had not attended the meet- ings of the council since Aug. 17, suffering already of the disease of which he died at Paris, Dec. 30, 1790. Besides a number of Mandements, pastoral letters, and reports to the assembly of the clergy, he left Questions diverses sur l' Incredulite (Paris, 1753, 12mo) : — Le veri- table Usage de I'A utorite seculi'ere dans les Matieres qui conceruent la Religion (1753, 1784, 12mo) : — V Incredulite convaincue par les Prophetes (1759, 3 vols. 12mo) : — La Religion vengee de V Incredulite par V Incredulite elle- meme (1772, 12mo) : — U Oraison funebre de la Dauphine (1747, 4to) : — L Oraison funebre de la Peine Marie Lec- zinska (17G8, 4to) : — Lettres a un Eveque sur plusieurs Points de Morale et de Discipline (1802, 2 vols. 8vo). See biographical sketch in his posthumous publica- tions; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, s. v. ; Jervis, Hist, of the Church of France, ii, 371 ; Van Laun, Hist, of French Lit. (N. Y. 1877, 3 vols. 8vo).
Pomponatius, Peter. See Pomponazzi.
Pomponazzi, Pietro, a famous Italian philoso- pher, was born at Mantua in 1462, and after studying at the University of Padua became a professor of phi-
losophy in his alma mater. He also taught and wrote at Bologna with the highest distinction. Although small in stature — for he was almost a dwarf— he yet as- tonished his contemporaries by his remarkable intel- lectual power, and became one of the most eminent men of his times. He had frequent disputations with the famous Achillini, whose puzzling objections would have confounded him had it not been for his skill in parry- ing them by his keen wit as well as by a sharp-cutting logic. He used to apply himself to the solution of diffi- culties so very intensely that he frequently forgot to eat, drink, sleep, and perform the ordinary functions of nature; nay, it made him almost distracted, and a laughing-stock to every one, as he himself tells us. He died in 1525. He wrote De Immortalitate A nimce (1516), in which he maintains that the immortality of the soul cannot be proved by philosophical (or natural) reasons, but depends solely on revelation, which he accepts. This precaution, however, did not save him from at- tacks, and many adversaries rose up against him who did not scruple to treat him as an atheist: and the monks caused his book, although he wrote several apol- ogies for it, to be burned at Venice. Another work of his on Incantations was also regarded as dangerous. He shows in this that he does not believe in magic and sorcery, and lays a prodigious stress on occult virtues in certain men by which they produced miraculous effects. He gives a great many examples of this, but his adver- saries do not admit them to be true, or free from magic. See Bayle, Diet. Hist. s. v.; Niceron, Memoires, vol. xxv ; Olearius, De Pomponatio (Jena, 1705, 4to) ; Buhle, Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, vol. ii; Ueberweg, Hist. ofPhilos. (see Index); Neander, Christian Dogmas (see Index) ; Lecky, Hist, of Rationalism, i, 370; Fish- er, Hist, of the Reformation, p. 542 ; Alzog, Kirchen- gesch. ii, 222; Morell, Hist, of Philosophy (see Index) ; Ranke, Hist, of the Papacy, i, 63, 64, 377.