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Back to article: FRANCISCO PIZARRO (c. 1471 or 1475-1541)

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PIZARRO, FRANCISCO (c. 1471 or 1475-1541), discoverer and conqueror of Peru, was born at Trujillo in Estremadura, Spain, about 1471 (oE 1475). He was an illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro, who as colonel of infantry afterwards served in Italy under Gonsalvo de Cordova, and in Navarre, with some distinction. Of Pizarro's early years hardly anything is known; but he appears to have been poorly cared for, and his education was neglected. Shortly after the news of the discovery of the New World had reached Spain he was in Seville, and thence found his way across the Atlantic. There he is heard of in 1510 as having taken part in an expedition from Hispaniola to Uraba
accounts for the occurrence of parts of a town being known as Place, e.g. Ely Place in London, formerly the site of the town residence of the bishops of Ely. A " place of arms " (Fr. place d'armes), in fortification, means the wide spaces (suitable for the assembly of troops for a sortie) made by the salients and re-entrants of the covered way. The phrase is also used in a strategic sense to express an entrenched camp or fortress in which a large army can be collected under cover previous to taking the field.