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Pierre Pithou (1 November 1539 – 1 November 1596) was a French lawyer and scholar. He is also known as Petrus Pithoeus.
Henry, shortly after his accession to the throne, recognized Pithou's talents and services by giving him various legal appointments. He co-operated in publishing the Satire Ménippée (1593), which did much to damage the cause of the Catholic League; the harangue of the Sieur d'Aubray is usually attributed to Pithou.
Pithou wrote many legal and historical books, besides preparing editions of several ancient writers. His earliest publication was Adversariorum subsectorum lib. II. (1565). In 1569, he became the editio princeps Landolfus Sagax' Historia Romana, and under the name by which it became better known: Historia Miscella. Perhaps his edition of the Leges Visigothorum (1579) was his most valuable contribution to historical science; in the same line he edited the Capitula of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Charles the Bald in 1588; he assisted his brother François in preparing the Corpus juris canonici (1687).
Pierre's Libertés de l'église gallicane (1594) is reprinted in his Opera sacra juridica his orica miscellanea collecta (1609). In classical literature he was the first who made the world acquainted with the Fables of Phaedrus (1596).
Pithou contributed to the study of Livy, in collation a manuscript against the edition of Carolus Sigonius, and adding notes. It was not published, but has been cited as "Excerpta-", "Exc-" and "notulae Pithoei", and remains in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.Rossbach, Otto: Die handschriftliche Ueberlieferung der Periochae des Livius. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Band 044 (1889). pp. 72-74. Auct. 2 R 1.5
He died at Nogent-sur-Seine. His valuable library, specially rich in manuscripts, was for the most part transferred to what is now the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
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