THE PICCINOTTI AGN SAMPLE OBSERVED IN THE ROSAT ALL-SKY SURVEY

The ROSAT All-Sky Survey observations of the complete hard X-ray selec ted Piccinotti AGN sample demonstrate that the soft X-ray spectra of a lmost none of the sample AGN can be simply represented by the power la w extrapolated from the 2 - 10 keV range. A comparison of the soft X-r ay spec tra of the sample members with their medium energy continua me asured with HEAO-1 and EXOSAT revealed that about half of the AGN in t he sample an inrinsically absorbed. Furthermore, almost all sample AGN show excess fluxes in their soft X-ray emission. These features in th e spectra of active galactic nuclei have an important impact on the in terpretation of the cosmic soft X-ray background.