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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19600-8.txt b/19600-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd3add3 --- /dev/null +++ b/19600-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9249 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome Cardan, by William George Waters + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Jerome Cardan + A Biographical Study + +Author: William George Waters + +Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #19600] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Špehar, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + +_A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY_ + +BY + +W.G. WATERS + +"To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, +not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in +Cardan."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE. + +[Illustration] + +LAWRENCE & BULLEN, Limited, + +16 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, MDCCCXCVIII. + + + + + RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON & BUNGAY. + + + + +PREFACE + + +No attempt is made in the following pages to submit to historical +treatment the vast and varied mass of printed matter which Cardan left as +his contribution to letters and science, except in the case of those works +which are, in purpose or incidentally, autobiographical, or of those which +furnish in themselves effective contributions towards the framing of an +estimate of the genius and character of the writer. Neither has it seemed +worth while to offer to the public another biography constructed on the +lines of the one brought out by Professor Henry Morley in 1854, for the +reason that the circumstances of Cardan's life, the character of his work, +and of the times in which he lived, all appeared to be susceptible of more +succinct and homogeneous treatment than is possible in a chronicle of the +passing years, and of the work that each one saw accomplished. At certain +junctures the narrative form is inevitable, but an attempt has been made +to treat the more noteworthy episodes of Cardan's life and work, and the +contemporary aspect of the republic of letters, in relation to existing +tendencies and conditions, whenever such a course has seemed possible. + +Professor Morley's book, _The Life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, +physician_, has been for some time out of print. This industrious writer +gathered together a large quantity of material, dealing almost as fully +with the more famous of the contemporary men of mark, with whom Cardan +was brought into contact, as with Cardan himself. The translations and +analyses of some of Cardan's more popular works which Professor Morley +gives are admirable in their way, but the space they occupy in the +biography is somewhat excessive. Had sufficient leisure for revision and +condensation been allowed, Professor Morley's book would have taken a high +place in biographical literature. As it stands it is a noteworthy +performance; and, by reason of its wide and varied stores of information +and its excellent index, it must always prove a valuable magazine of +_mémoires pour servir_ for any future students who may be moved to write +afresh, concerning the life and work of the great Milanese physician. + +An apology may be needed for the occurrence here and there of passages +translated from the _De Vita Propria_ and the _De Utilitate ex Adversis +capienda_, passages which some readers may find too frequent and too +lengthy, but contemporary opinion is strongly in favour of letting the +subject speak for himself as far as may be possible. The date and place of +Cardan's quoted works are given in the first citation therefrom; those of +his writings which have not been available in separate form have been +consulted in the collected edition of his works in ten volumes, edited by +Spon, and published at Lyons in 1663. + +The author desires to acknowledge with gratitude the valuable assistance +in the way of suggestion and emendation which he received from Mr. R.C. +Christie during the final revision of the proofs. + +_London, October 1898._ + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LIKE certain others of the illustrious personages who flourished in his +time, Girolamo Cardano, or, as he has become to us by the unwritten law of +nomenclature, Jerome Cardan, was fated to suffer the burden and obloquy of +bastardy.[1] He was born at Pavia from the illicit union of Fazio Cardano, +a Milanese jurisconsult and mathematician of considerable repute, and a +young widow, whose maiden name had been Chiara Micheria, his father being +fifty-six, and his mother thirty-seven years of age at his birth. The +family of Fazio was settled at Gallarate, a town in Milanese territory, +and was one which, according to Jerome's contention, could lay claim to +considerable antiquity and distinction. He prefers a claim of descent from +the house of Castillione, founding the same upon an inscription on the +apse of the principal church at Gallarate.[2] He asserts that as far back +as 1189 Milo Cardano was Governor of Milan for more than seven years, and +according to tradition Franco Cardano, the commander of the forces of +Matteo Visconti,[3] was a member of the family. If the claim of the +Castillione ancestry be allowed the archives of the race would be still +farther enriched by the name of Pope Celestine IV., Godfrey of Milan, who +was elected Pope in 1241, and died the same year. + +Cardan's immediate ancestors were long-lived. The sons of Fazio Cardano, +his great-grandfather, Joanni, Aldo, and Antonio, lived to be severally +ninety-four, eighty-eight, and eighty-six years of age. Of these Joanni +begat two sons: Antonio, who lived eighty-eight years, and Angelo, who +reached the age of eighty-six. To Aldo were born Jacopo, who died at +seventy-two; Gottardo, who died at eighty-four; and Fazio, the father of +Jerome, who died at eighty.[4] + +Fazio, albeit he came of such a long-lived stock, and lived himself to be +fourscore, suffered much physical trouble during his life. On account of a +wound which he had received when he was a youth, some of the bones of his +skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain +long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a +certain corrosive poison, which did not kill him, but left him toothless. +He was likewise round-shouldered, a stammerer, and subject to constant +palpitation of the heart; but in compensation for these defects he had +eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not spectacles even in +advanced age. + +Of Jerome's mother little is known. Her family seems to have been as +tenacious of life as that of Fazio, for her father Jacopo lived to be +seventy-five years of age. Of his maternal grandfather Jerome remarks that +he was a highly skilled mathematician, and that when he was about seventy +years of age, he was cast into prison for some offence against the law. He +speaks of his mother as choleric in temper, well dowered with memory and +mental parts, small in stature and fat, and of a pious disposition,[5] and +declares that she and his father were alike in one respect, to wit that +they were easily moved to anger and were wont to manifest but lukewarm and +intermittent affection for their child. Nevertheless they were in a way +indulgent to him. His father permitted him to remain in bed till the +second hour of the day had struck, or rather forbade him to rise before +this time--an indulgence which worked well for the preservation of his +health. He adds that in after times he always thought of his father as +possessing the kindlier nature of the two.[6] + +It would seem from the passage above written, as well as from certain +others subsequent, that Jerome had little affection for his mother; and +albeit he neither chides nor reproaches her, he never refers to her in +terms so appreciative and loving as those which he uses in lamenting the +death of his harsh and tyrannical father. In the _Geniturarum Exempla_[7] +he says that, seeing he is writing of a woman, he will confine his remarks +to saying that she was ingenious, of good parts, generous, upright, and +loving towards her children. Perhaps the fact that his father died early, +while his mother lived on for many years, and was afterwards a member of +his household--together with his wife--may account for the colder tone of +his remarks while writing about her. She was the widow of a certain +Antonio Alberio,[8] and during her marriage had borne him three children, +Tommaso, Catilina, and Joanni Ambrogio; but when Jerome was a year old all +three of these died of the plague within the space of a few weeks.[9] He +himself narrowly escaped death from the same cause, and this attack he +attributes to an inherited tendency from his mother, she having suffered +from the same disease during her girlhood. There seems to have been born +to Fazio and Chiara another son, who died at birth.[10] + +Jerome Cardan was born on September 24, 1501, between half-past six +o'clock and a quarter to seven in the evening. In the second chapter of +his autobiography he gives the year as 1500, and in _De Utilitate_, p. +347, he writes the date as September 23, but on all other occasions the +date first written is used. Before he saw the light malefic influences +were at work against him. His mother, urged on no doubt by the desire to +conceal her shame, and persuaded by evil counsellors, drank a potion of +abortive drugs in order to produce miscarriage,[11] but Nature on this +occasion was not to be baulked. In recording the circumstances of his +birth he writes at some length in the jargon of astrology to show how the +celestial bodies were leagued together so as to mar him both in body and +mind. "Wherefore I ought, according to every rule, to have been born a +monster, and, under the circumstances, it was no marvel that it was found +necessary to tear me from the womb in order to bring me into the world. +Thus was I born, or rather dragged from my mother's body. I was to all +outward seeming dead, with my head covered with black curly hair. I was +brought round by being plunged in a bath of heated wine, a remedy which +might well have proved hurtful to any other infant. My mother lay three +whole days in labour, but at last gave birth to me, a living child."[12] + +The sinister influences of the stars soon began to manifest their power. +Before Jerome had been many days in the world the woman into whose charge +he had been given was seized with the plague and died the same day, +whereupon his mother took him home with her. The first of his bodily +ailments,--the catalogue of the same which he subsequently gives is indeed +a portentous one,[13]--was an eruption of carbuncles on the face in the +form of a cross, one of the sores being set on the tip of the nose; and +when these disappeared, swellings came. Before the boy was two months old +his godfather, Isidore di Resta of Ticino, gave him into the care of +another nurse who lived at Moirago, a town about seven miles from Milan, +but here again ill fortune attended him. His body began to waste and his +stomach to swell because the nurse who gave him suck was herself +pregnant.[14] A third foster-mother was found for him, and he remained +with her till he was weaned in his third year. + +When he was four years of age he was taken to Milan to be under the care +of his mother, who, with her sister, Margarita, was living in Fazio's +house; but whether she was at this time legally married to him or not +there is no evidence to show. In recording this change he remarks that he +now came under a gentler discipline from the hands of his mother and his +aunt, but immediately afterwards proclaims his belief that the last-named +must have been born without a gall bladder, a remark somewhat difficult to +apply, seeing he frequently complains afterwards of her harshness. It must +be remembered, however, that these details are taken from a record of the +writer's fifth year set down when he was past seventy.[15] He quotes +certain lapses from kindly usage, as for instance when it happened that he +was beaten by his father or his mother without a cause. After much +chastisement he always fell sick, and lay some time in mortal danger. +"When I was seven years old my father and my mother were then living +apart--my kinsfolk determined, for some reason or other, to give over +beating me, though perchance a touch of the whip might then have done me +no harm. But ill-fortune was ever hovering around me; she let my +tribulation take a different shape, but she did not remove it. My father, +having hired a house, took me and my mother and my aunt to live with him, +and made me always accompany him in his rounds about the city. On this +account I, being taken at this tender age with my weak body from a life of +absolute rest and put to hard and constant work, was seized at the +beginning of my eighth year with dysentery and fever, an ailment which was +at that time epidemic in our city. Moreover I had eaten by stealth a vast +quantity of sour grapes. But after I had been visited by the physicians, +Bernabo della Croce and Angelo Gyra, there seemed to be some hope of my +recovery, albeit both my parents, and my aunt as well, had already bewept +me as one dead. + +"At this season my father, who was at heart a man of piety, was minded to +invoke the divine assistance of San Girolamo (commending me to the care of +the Saint in his prayers) rather than trust to the working of that +familiar spirit which, as he was wont to declare openly, was constantly in +attendance upon him. The reason of this change in his treatment of me I +never cared to inquire. It was during the time of my recovery from this +sickness, that the French celebrated their triumph after defeating the +Venetians on the banks of the Adda, which spectacle I was allowed to +witness from my window.[16] After this my father freed me of the task of +going with him on his rounds. But the anger of Juno was not yet exhausted; +for, before I had fully recovered my health, I fell down-stairs (we were +then living in the Via dei Maini), with a hammer in my hand, and by this +accident I hurt the left side of my forehead, injuring the bone and +causing a scar which remains to this day. Before I had recovered from this +mishap I was sitting on the threshold of the house when a stone, about as +long and as broad as a nut, fell down from the top of a high house next +door and wounded my head just where my hair grew very thickly on the left +side. + +"At the beginning of my tenth year my father changed this house, which had +proved a very unlucky one for me, for another in the same street, and +there I abode for three whole years. But my ill luck still followed me, +for my father once more caused me to go about with him as his _famulus_, +and would never allow me on any pretext to escape this task. I should +hesitate to say that he did this through cruelty; for, taking into +consideration what ensued, you may perchance be brought to see that this +action of his came to pass rather through the will of Heaven than through +any failing of his own. I must add too that my mother and my aunt were +fully in agreement with him in his treatment of me. In after times, +however, he dealt with me in much milder fashion, for he took to live with +him two of his nephews, wherefore my own labour was lessened by the amount +of service he exacted from these. Either I did not go out at all, or if we +all went out together the task was less irksome. + +"When I had completed my sixteenth year--up to which time I served my +father constantly--we once more changed our house, and dwelt with +Alessandro Cardano next door to the bakery of the Bossi. My father had two +other nephews, sons of a sister of his, one named Evangelista, a member of +the Franciscan Order, and nearly seventy years of age, and the other Otto +Cantone, a farmer of the taxes, and very rich. The last-named, before he +died, wished to leave me his sole heir; but this my father forbad, saying +that Otto's wealth had been ill gotten; wherefore the estate was +distributed according to the directions of the surviving brother."[17] + +This, told as nearly as may be in his own words, is the story of Cardan's +birth and childhood and early discipline, a discipline ill calculated to +let him grow up to useful and worthy manhood. It must have been a wretched +spring of life. Many times he refers to the hard slavery he underwent in +the days when he was forced to carry his father's bag about the town, and +tells how he had to listen to words of insult cast at his mother's +name.[18] Like most boys who lead solitary lives, unrelieved by the +companionship of other children, he was driven in upon himself, and grew +up into a fanciful imaginative youth, a lover of books rather than of +games, with an old head upon his young shoulders. After such a training it +was only natural that he should be transformed from a nervous hysterical +child into an embittered, cross-grained man, profligate and superstitious +at the same time. Abundant light is thrown upon every stage of his career, +for few men have left a clearer picture of themselves in their written +words, and nowhere is Cardan, from the opening to the closing scene, so +plainly exhibited as in the _De Vita Propria_, almost the last work which +came from his pen. It has been asserted that this book, written in the +twilight of senility by an old man with his heart cankered by misfortune +and ill-usage, and his brain upset by the dread of real or fancied +assaults of foes who lay in wait for him at every turn, is no trustworthy +guide, even when bare facts are in question, and undoubtedly it would be +undesirable to trust this record without seeking confirmation elsewhere. +This confirmation is nearly always at hand, for there is hardly a +noteworthy event in his career which he does not refer to constantly in +the more autobiographic of his works. The _De Vita Propria_ is indeed ill +arranged and full of inconsistencies, but in spite of its imperfections, +it presents its subject as clearly and effectively as Benvenuto Cellini is +displayed in his own work. The rough sketch of a great master often +performs its task more thoroughly than the finished painting, and Cardan's +autobiography is a fragment of this sort. It lets pass in order of +procession the moody neglected boy in Fazio's ill-ordered house, the +student at Pavia, the youthful Rector of the Paduan Gymnasium, plunging +when just across the threshold of life into criminal excess of +Sardanapalean luxury, the country doctor at Sacco and afterwards at +Gallarate, starving amongst his penniless patients, the University +professor, the famous physician for whose services the most illustrious +monarchs in Europe came as suppliants in vain, the father broken by family +disgrace and calamity, and the old man, disgraced and suspected and +harassed by persecutors who shot their arrows in the dark, but at the same +time tremblingly anxious to set down the record of his days before the +night should descend. + +Until he had completed his nineteenth year Jerome continued to dwell under +the roof which for the time being might give shelter to his parents. The +emoluments which Fazio drew from his profession were sufficient for the +family wants--he himself being a man of simple tastes; wherefore Jerome +was not forced, in addition to his other youthful troubles, to submit to +that _execrata paupertas_ and its concomitant miseries which vexed him in +later years. To judge from his conduct in the matter of Otto Cantone's +estate, Fazio seems to have been as great a despiser of wealth as his son +proved to be afterwards. His virtue, such as it was, must have been the +outcome of one of those hard cold natures, with wants few and trifling, +and none of those tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be +procured by money. The fact that he made his son run after him through the +streets of Milan in place of a servant is not a conclusive proof of +avarice; it may just as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and +callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his young son, and +indisposed to trouble himself about searching for a hireling to carry his +bag. The one indication we gather of his worldly wisdom is his +dissatisfaction that his son was firmly set to follow medicine rather than +jurisprudence, a step which would involve the loss of the stipend of one +hundred crowns a year which he drew for his lectureship, an income which +he had hoped might be continued to a son of his after his death.[19] + +Amidst the turmoil and discomfort of what must at the best have been a +most ill-regulated household, the boy's education was undertaken by his +father in such odds and ends of time as he might find to spare for the +task.[20] What with the hardness and irritability of the teacher, and the +peevishness inseparable from the pupil's physical feebleness and morbid +overwrought mental habit, these hours of lessons must have been irksome to +both, and of little benefit. "In the meantime my father taught me orally +the Latin tongue as well as the rudiments of Arithmetic, Geometry, and +Astrology. But he allowed me to sleep well into the day, and he himself +would always remain abed till nine o'clock. But one habit of his appeared +to me likely to lead to grave consequences, to wit the way he had of +lending to others anything which belonged to him. Part of these loans, +which were made to insolvents, he lost altogether; and the residue, lent +to divers persons in high places, could only be recovered with much +trouble and no little danger, and with loss of all interest on the same. I +know not whether he acted in this wise by the advice of that familiar +spirit[21] whose services he retained for eight-and-thirty years. What +afterwards came to pass showed that my father treated me, his son, rightly +in all things relating to education, seeing that I had a keen +intelligence. For with boys of this sort it is well to make use of the bit +as though you were dealing with mules. Beyond this he was witty and +diverting in his conversation, and given to the telling of stories and +strange occurrences well worth notice. He told me many things about +familiar spirits, but what part of these were true I know not; but +assuredly tales of this sort, wonderful in themselves and artfully put +together, delighted me marvellously. + +"But what chiefly deserved condemnation in my father was that he brought +up certain other youths with the intention of leaving to them his goods in +case I should die; which thing, in sooth, meant nothing less than the +exposure of myself to open danger through plots of the parents of the boys +aforesaid, on account of the prize offered. Over this affair my father and +my mother quarrelled grievously, and finally decided to live apart. +Whereupon my mother, stricken by this mental vexation, and troubled at +intervals with what I deem to have been an hysterical affection, fell one +day full on the back of her neck, and struck her head upon the floor, +which was composed of tiles. It was two or three hours before she came +round, and indeed her recovery was little short of miraculous, especially +as at the end of her seizure she foamed much at the mouth. + +"In the meantime I altered the whole drift of this tragedy by a pretended +adoption of the religious life, for I became for a time a member of the +mendicant Franciscan brotherhood. But at the beginning of my twenty-first +year[22] I went to the Gymnasium at Pavia, whereupon my father, feeling my +absence, was softened towards me, and a reconciliation between him and my +mother took place. + +"Before this time I had learnt music, my mother and even my father having +secretly given me money for the same; my father likewise paid for my +instruction in dialectics. I became so proficient in this art that I +taught it to certain other youths before I went to the University. Thus he +sent me there endowed with the means of winning an honest living; but he +never once spake a word to me concerning this matter, bearing himself +always towards me in considerate, kindly, and pious wise. + +"For the residue of his days (and he lived on well-nigh four more years) +his life was a sad one, as if he would fain let it be known to the world +how much he loved me.[23] Moreover, when by the working of fate I returned +home while he lay sick, he besought, he commanded, nay he even forced me, +all unwilling, to depart thence, what though he knew his last hour was +nigh, for the reason that the plague was in the city, and he was fain that +I should put myself beyond danger from the same. Even now my tears rise +when I think of his goodwill towards me. But, my father, I will do all the +justice I can to thy merit and to thy paternal care; and, as long as these +pages may be read, so long shall thy name and thy virtues be celebrated. +He was a man not to be corrupted by any offering whatsoever, and indeed a +saint. But I myself was left after his death involved in many lawsuits, +having nothing clearly secured except one small house."[24] + +Fazio contracted a close intimacy with a certain Galeazzo Rosso, a man +clever as a smith, and endowed with mechanical tastes which no doubt +helped to secure him Fazio's friendship. Galeazzo discovered the principle +of the water-screw of Archimedes before the description of the same, +written in the books of the inventor, had been published. He also made +swords which could be bent as if they were of lead, and sharp enough to +cut iron like wood. He performed a more wonderful feat in fashioning iron +breast-plates which would resist the impact of red-hot missiles. In the +_De Sapientia_, Cardan records that when Galeazzo perfected his +water-screw, he lost his wits for joy. + +Fazio took no trouble to teach his son Latin,[25] though the learned +language would have been just as necessary for the study of jurisprudence +as for any other liberal calling, and Jerome did not begin to study it +systematically till he was past nineteen years of age. Through some whim +or prejudice the old man refused for some time to allow the boy to go to +the University, and when at last he gave his consent he still fought hard +to compel Jerome to qualify himself in jurisprudence; but here he found +himself at issue with a will more stubborn than his own. Cardan writes: +"From my earliest youth I let every action of mine be regulated in view of +the after course of my life, and I deemed that as a career medicine would +serve my purpose far better than law, being more appropriate for the end I +had in view, of greater interest to the world at large, and likely to last +as long as time itself. At the same time I regarded it as a study which +embodied the nobler principles, and rested upon the ground of reason (that +is upon the eternal laws of Nature) rather than upon the sanction of human +opinion. On this account I took up medicine rather than jurisprudence, nay +I almost entirely cast aside, or even fled from the company of those +friends of mine who followed the law, rejecting at the same time wealth +and power and honour. My father, when he heard that I had abandoned the +study of law to follow philosophy, wept in my presence, and grieved amain +that I would not settle down to the study of his own subject. He deemed +it the more salutary discipline--proofs of which opinion he would often +bring forward out of Aristotle--that it was better adapted for the +acquisition of power and riches; and that it would help me more +efficiently in restoring the fortunes of our house. He perceived moreover +that the office of teaching in the schools of the city, together with its +accompanying salary of a hundred crowns which he had enjoyed for so many +years, would not be handed on to me, as he had hoped, and he saw that a +stranger would succeed to the same. Nor was that commentary of his +destined ever to see the light or to be illustrated by my notes. Earlier +in life he had nourished a hope that his name might become illustrious as +the emendator of the 'Commentaries of John, Archbishop of Canterbury on +Optics and Perspective.'[26] Indeed the following verses were printed +thereanent: + + 'Hoc Cardana viro gaudet domus: omnia novit + Unus: habent nullum saecula nostra parem.' + +"These words may be taken as a sort of augury referring rather to certain +other men about to set forth to do their work in the world, than to my +father, who, except in the department of jurisprudence (of which indeed +rumour says that he was a master), never let his mind take in aught that +was new. The rudiments of mathematics were all that he possessed, and he +gathered no fresh knowledge from the store-houses of Greek learning. This +disposition in him was probably produced by the vast multitude of subjects +to be mastered, and by his infirmity of purpose, rather than by any lack +of natural parts, or by idleness or by defect of judgment; vices to which +he was in no way addicted. But I, being firmly set upon the object of my +wishes, for the reasons given above, and because I perceived that my +father had achieved only moderate success--though he had encountered but +few hindrances--remained unconvinced by any of his exhortations."[27] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Bayle is unwilling to admit Cardan's illegitimate birth. In _De +Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 619 (Lyons, 1663), Cardan writes in +reference to the action of the Milanese College of Physicians: "Medicorum +collegium, suspitione obortâ, quòd (tam malè à patre tractatus) spurius +essem, repellebat." Bayle apparently had not read the _De Consolatione_, +as he quotes the sentence as the work of a modern writer, and affirms that +the word "suspitio" would not have been used had the fact been notorious. +But in the _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 676, Cardan declares +that his father openly spoke of him as a bastard. + +[2] _De Utilitate ex adversis Capienda_ (Franeker, 1648), p. 357. + +[3] Matteo Visconti was born in 1250, and died in 1322. He was lord of +Novara Vercello Como and Monferrato, and was made Vicar Imperial by +Adolphus of Nassau. Though he was worsted in his conflict with John XXII. +he did much to lay the foundations of his family. + +[4] _De Vita Propria_ (Amsterdam, 1654), ch. i. p. 4. + +[5] Cardan makes a statement in _De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 605, +which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. "Matrem meam +Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum puer essem, meminique hanc +dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo placuisset, extincta forem in infantia." + +[6] _De Vita Propria_, ch. i. p. 4. + +[7] _Geniturarum Exempla_ (Basil, 1554), p. 436. + +[8] _De Rerum Varietate_ (Basil, 1557), p. 655. + +[9] _De Utilitate_, p. 347. There is a passage in _Geniturarum Exempla_, +p. 435, dealing with Fazio's horoscope, which may be taken to mean that +these children were his. "Alios habuisse filios qui obierint ipsa genitura +dem[o=]strat, me solo diu post eti[a=] illius mort[e=] superstite." + +[10] With regard to the union of his parents he writes: "Uxorem vix duxit +ob Lunam afflictam et eam in senectute."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 435. + +[11] "Igitur ut ab initio exordiar, in pestilentia conceptus, matrem, +nondum natus (ut puto) mearum calamitatum participem, profugam +habui."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 618. + +"Mater ut abortiret medicamentum abortivum dum in utero essem, alieno +mandato bibit."--_De Utilitate_, p. 347. + +[12] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ii. p. 6. + +[13] In one passage, _De Utilitate_, p. 348, he sums up his physical +misfortunes: "Hydrope, febribus, aliisque morbis conflictatus sum, donec +sub fine octavi anni ex dysenteria ac febre usque ad mortis limina +perveni, pulsavi ostium sed non aperuere qui intro erant." + +[14] "Inde lac praegnantis hausi per varias nutrices lactatus ac +jactatus."--_De Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[15] The _De Vita Propria_, the chief authority for these remarks, was +written by Cardan in Rome shortly before his death. + +[16] The illness would have occurred about October 1508, and the victory +of the Adda was on May 14, 1509. This fact fixes his birth in 1501, and +shows that his illness must have lasted six or seven months. + +[17] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. ii. + +[18] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 676. + +[19] "Quod munus profitendi institutiones in urbe ipsa cum honorario +centum coronatorum, quo jam tot annis gaudebat, non in me (ut speraverat) +transiturum intelligebat."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 35. + +[20] "Pater jam antè concesserat ut Geometriæ et Dialecticæ operam darem, +in quo (quanquam præter paucas admonitiones, librosque, ac licentiam, +nullum aliud auxilium præbuerit) eas tamen ego (succicivis temporibus +studens) interim feliciter sum assecutus."--_De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. +i. p. 619. + +[21] "Facius Cardanus dæmonem ætherium, ut ipse dicebat, diu familiarem +habuit; qui quamdiu conjuratione usus est, vera illi dabat responsa, cùm +autem illam exussisset, veniebat quidem, sed responsa falsa dabat. Tenuit +igitur annis, ni fallor, vinginti octo cum conjuratione, solutum autem +circiter quinque."--_De Varietate_, p. 629. + +In the _Dialogus Tetim_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 672), Cardan writes: "Pater +honeste obiit et ex senio, sed multo antea eum Genius ille reliquerat." + +[22] There is a discrepancy between this date and the one given in _De +Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 11. "Anno exacto XIX contuli me in Ticinensem +Academiam." + +[23] "Inde (desiderium augente absentiâ) mortuus est, sæviente peste, cùm +primum me diligere coepisset."--_De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 619. + +[24] _De Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[25] "Nimis satis fuit defuisse tot, memoriam, linguam Latinam per +adolescentiam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. li. p. 218. + +[26] John Peckham was a Franciscan friar, and was nominated to the see of +Canterbury by Nicholas III. in 1279. He had spent much time in the convent +of his Order at Oxford, and there is a legend connecting him with a +Johannes Juvenis or John of London, a youth who had attracted the +attention and benevolence of Roger Bacon. This Johannes became one of the +first mathematicians and opticians of the age, and was sent to Rome by +Bacon, who entrusted to him the works which he was sending to Pope Clement +IV. There is no reason for this view beyond the fact that both were called +John, and distinguished in the same branches of learning. The _Perspectiva +Communis_ was his principal work; it does not deal with perspective as now +understood, but with elementary propositions of optics. It was first +printed in Milan in or about 1482. + +[27] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 34. A remark in _De Sapientia_, Opera, +tom. i. p. 578, suggests that Fazio began life as a physician: "Pater meus +Facius Cardanus Medicus primò, inde Jurisconsultus factus est." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE University of Pavia to which Jerome now betook himself was by +tradition one of the learned foundations of Charlemagne.[28] It had +certainly enjoyed a high reputation all through the Middle Ages, and had +recently had the honour of numbering Laurentius Valla amongst its +professors. In 1362, Galeazzo Visconti had obtained a charter for it from +the Emperor Charles IV., and that it had become a place of consequence in +1400 is proved by the fact that, besides maintaining several professors in +the Canon Law, it supported thirteen in Civil Law, five in Medicine, three +in Philosophy, and one each in Astrology, Greek, and Eloquence. Like all +the other Universities of Northern Italy, it suffered occasional eclipse +or even extinction on account of the constant war and desolation which +vexed these parts almost without intermission during the years following +the formation of the League of Cambrai. Indeed, as recently as 1500, the +famous library collected by Petrarch, and presented by Gian Galeazzo +Visconti to the University, was carried off by the French.[29] + +To judge from the pictures which the Pavian student, writing in after +years, gives of his physical self, it may be inferred that he was +ill-endowed by the Graces. "I am of middle height. My chest is somewhat +narrow and my arms exceedingly thin: my right hand is the more grossly +fashioned of the two, so that a chiromantist might have set me down as +rude or doltish: indeed, should such an one examine my hand, he would be +ashamed to say what he thought. In it the line of life is short, and that +named after Saturn long and well marked. My left hand, however, is seemly, +with fingers long, tapering, and well-set, and shining nails. My neck is +longer and thinner than the rule, my chin is divided, my lower lip thick +and pendulous, my eyes are very small, and it is my wont to keep them +half-closed, peradventure lest I should discern things over clearly. My +forehead is wide and bare of hair where it meets the temples. My hair and +beard are both of them yellow in tint, and both as a rule kept close cut. +My chin, which as I have said already is marked by a division, is covered +in its lower part with a thick growth of long hair. My habit is to speak +in a highly-pitched voice, so that my friends sometimes rebuke me +thereanent; but, harsh and loud as is my voice, it cannot be heard at any +great distance while I am lecturing. I am wont to talk too much, and in +none too urbane a tone. The look of my eyes is fixed, like that of one in +deep thought. My front teeth are large, and my complexion red and white: +the form of my countenance being somewhat elongated, and my head is +finished off in narrow wise at the back, like to a small sphere. Indeed, +it was no rare thing for the painters, who came from distant countries to +paint my portrait, to affirm that they could find no special +characteristic which they could use for the rendering of my likeness, so +that I might be known by the same."[30] + +After giving this account of his person, Cardan writes down a catalogue of +the various diseases which vexed him from time to time, a chapter of +autobiography which looks like a transcript from a dictionary of Nosology. +More interesting is the sketch which he makes of his mental state during +these early years. Boys brought up in company of their elders often show a +tendency to introspection, and fall into a dreamy whimsical mood, and his +case is a striking example. "By the command of my father I used to lie +abed until nine o'clock,[31] and, if perchance I lay awake any time before +the wonted hour of rising, it was my habit to spend the same by conjuring +up to sight all sorts of pleasant visions, nor can I remember that I ever +summoned these in vain. I used to behold figures of divers kinds like airy +bodies. Meseemed they were made up of tiny rings, like those in coats of +chain-armour, though at this time I had seen nought of the kind. They +would rise at the bottom of the bed, from the right-hand corner; and, +moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. +Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, +of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all +sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, +but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things +I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily +forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests, and divers +other things which I now forget. In all this I took no small delight, and +with straining eyes I would gaze upon these marvels; wherefore my Aunt +Margaret asked me more than once whether I saw anything. I, though I was +then only a child, deliberated over this question of hers before I +replied, saying to myself: 'If I tell her the facts she will be wroth at +the thing--whatever it may be--which is the cause of these phantasms, and +will deprive me of this delight.' And then I seemed to see flowers of all +kinds, and four-footed beasts, and birds; but all these, though they were +fashioned most beautifully, were lacking in colour, for they were things +of air. Therefore I, who neither as a boy nor as an old man ever learned +to lie, stood silent for some time. Then my aunt said--'Boy, what makes +you stare thus and stand silent?' I know not what answer I made, but I +think I said nothing at all. In my dreams I frequently saw what seemed to +be a cock, which I feared might speak to me in a human voice. This in +sooth came to pass later on, and the words it spake were threatening ones, +but I cannot now recall what I may have heard on these occasions."[32] + +With a brain capable of such remarkable exercises as the above-written +vision, living his life in an atmosphere of books, and with all games and +relaxations dear to boys of his age denied to him, it was no marvel that +Jerome should make an early literary essay on his own account. The death +of a young kinsman, Niccolo Cardano,[33] suggested to him a theme which he +elaborated in a tract called _De immortalitate paranda_, a work which +perished unlamented by its author, and a little later he wrote a treatise +on the calculation of the distances between the various heavenly +bodies.[34] But he put his mathematical skill to other and more sinister +uses than this; for, having gained practical experience at the +gaming-tables, he combined this experience with his knowledge of the +properties of numbers, and wrote a tract on games of chance. Afterwards he +amplified this into his book, _Liber de Ludo Aleæ_. + +With this equipment and discipline Jerome went to Pavia in 1520. He found +lodging in the house of Giovanni Ambrogio Targio, and until the end of his +twenty-first year he spent all his time between Pavia and Milan. By this +date he had made sufficiently good use of his time to let the world see of +what metal he was formed, for in the year following he had advanced far +enough in learning to dispute in public, to teach Euclid in the Gymnasium, +and to take occasional classes in Dialectics and Elementary Philosophy. At +the end of his twenty-second year the country was convulsed by the wars +between the Spaniards and the French under Lautrec, which ended in the +expulsion of the last-named and the establishment of the Imperial power in +Milan. Another result of the war, more germane to this history, was the +closing of the University of Pavia through lack of funds. In consequence +of this calamity Jerome remained some time in Milan, and during these +months he worked hard at mathematics; but he was not destined to return to +Pavia as a student. The schools there remained some long time in +confusion, so in 1524 he went with his father's consent to Padua. In the +autumn of that same year he was summoned back to Milan to find Fazio in +the grip of his dying illness. "Whereupon he, careful of my weal rather +than his own, bade me return to Padua at once, being well pleased to hear +that I had taken at the Venetian College the Baccalaureat of Arts.[35] +After my return to Padua, letters were brought to me which told me that he +had died on the ninth day after he had refused nourishment. He died on the +twenty-eighth of August, having last eaten on Sunday the twentieth of the +month. Towards the close of my twenty-fourth year I was chosen Rector of +the Academy at Padua,[36] and at the end of the next was made Doctor of +Medicine. For the first-named office I came out the victor by one vote, +the suffrages having to be cast a second time; and for the Doctorate of +Medicine my name had already twice come forth from the ballot with +forty-seven votes cast against me (a circumstance which forbade another +voting after the third), when, at the third trial, I came out the winner, +with only nine votes against me (previously only this same number had been +cast for me), and with forty-eight in my favour. + +"Though I know well enough that affairs like these must needs be of small +account, I have set them down in the order in which they came to pass for +no other reason than that I give pleasure to myself who write these words +by so doing: and I do not write for the gratification of others. At the +same time those people who read what I write--if indeed any one should +ever be so minded--may learn hereby that the beginnings and the outcomes +of great events may well be found difficult to trace, because in sooth it +is the way of such things to come to the notice of anybody rather than of +those who would rightly observe them."[37] + +Padua cannot claim for its University an antiquity as high as that which +may be conceded to Pavia, but in spite of its more recent origin, there is +no little obscurity surrounding its rise. The one fact which may be put +down as certain is that it sprang originally from the University of +Bologna. Early in the thirteenth century violent discords arose between +the citizens of Bologna and the students, and there is a tradition that +the general school of teaching was transferred to Padua in 1222. What +happened was probably a large migration of students, part of whom remained +behind when peace between town and gown in Bologna was restored. The +orthodox origin of the University is a charter granted by Frederic II. in +1238. Frederic at this time was certainly trying to injure Bologna, +actuated by a desire to help on his own University at Naples, and to crush +Bologna as a member of the Lombard League.[38] Padua, however, was also a +member of this league, so his benevolent action towards it is difficult to +understand. In 1228 the students had quarrelled with the Paduan citizens, +and there was a movement to migrate to Vercelli; but, whether this really +took place or not, the Paduan school did not suffer: its ruin and +extinction was deferred till the despotism of the Ezzelini. In 1260 it +was again revived by a second migration from Bologna, and this movement +was increased on account of the interdict laid by the Pope upon Bologna in +1306 after the expulsion of the Papal Legate by the citizens. + +In the early days Medicine and Arts were entirely subordinate to the +schools of canon and civil law; but by the end of the fourteenth century +these first-named Faculties had obtained a certain degree of independence, +and were allowed an equal share in appointing the Rector.[39] The first +College was founded in 1363, and after 1500 the number rapidly increased. +The dominion of the Dukes of Carrara after 1322 was favourable to the +growth of the University, which, however, did not attain its highest point +till it came under Venetian rule in 1404. The Venetian government raised +the stipends of the professors, and allowed four Paduan citizens to act as +_Tutores Studii_; the election of the professors being vested in the +students, which custom obtained until the end of the sixteenth +century.[40] The Rector was allowed to wear a robe of purple and gold; +and, when he retired, the degree of Doctor was granted to him, together +with the right to wear the golden collar of the order of Saint Mark. + +Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town +of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected +from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who possibly +were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal +power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of +which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which +the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most +dangerous foes. + +Such was the University of Padua at the height of its glory, and it will +be apparent at once that Padua must have fallen considerably in its +fortunes when it installed as its Rector an obscure student, only +twenty-four years of age, and of illegitimate birth, and conferred upon +him the right to go clad in purple and gold, and to claim, as his +retiring gift, the degree of Doctor and the cross of Saint Mark. In 1508 +the League of Cambrai had been formed, and Venice, not yet recovered +from the effects of its disastrous wars with Bajazet II., was forced to +meet the combined assault of the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of +France. Padua was besieged by the Imperial forces, a motley horde of +Germans, Swiss, and Spaniards, and the surrounding country was pillaged +and devastated by these savages with a cruelty which recalled the days +of Attila. It is not wonderful that the University closed its doors in +such a time. When the confederates began to fight amongst themselves the +class-rooms were reopened, intermittently at first, but after 1515 the +teaching seems to have been continuous. Still the prevalent turmoil and +poverty rendered it necessary to curtail all the mere honorary and +ornamental adjuncts of the schools, and for several years no Rector was +appointed, for the good and sufficient reason that no man of due +position and wealth and character could be found to undertake the +rectorial duties, with the Academy just emerging from complete +disorganization. These duties were many and important, albeit the Rector +could, if he willed, appoint a deputy, and the calls upon the purse of +the holder must have been very heavy. It would be hard to imagine any +one less fitted to fill such a post than Cardan, and assuredly no office +could befit him less than this pseudo-rectorship.[41] It must ever +remain a mystery why he was preferred, why he was elected, and why he +consented to serve: though, as to the last-named matter, he hints in a +passage lately cited from _De Utilitate_, that it was through the +persuasions of his mother that he took upon himself this disastrous +honour. Many pasages in his writings suggest that Chiara was an +indulgent parent. She let Fazio have no peace till he consented to allow +the boy to go to college; she paid secretly for music-lessons, so that +Jerome was enabled to enjoy the relaxation he loved better than anything +else in the world--except gambling; she paid all his charges during his +student life at Padua; and now, quite naturally, she would have shed her +heart's blood rather than let this son of hers--ugly duckling as he +was--miss what she deemed to be the crowning honour of the rectorship; +but after all the sacrifices Chiara made, after all the misfortunes +which attended Jerome's ill-directed ambition, there is a doubt as to +whether he ever was Rector in the full sense of the term. Many times and +in divers works he affirms that once upon a time he was Rector, and over +and beyond this he sets down in black and white the fact, more than +once, that he never told a lie; so it is only polite to accept this +legend for what it is worth. But it must likewise be noted that in the +extant records of the University there is no mention of his name in the +lists of Rectors.[42] + +Jerome has left very few details as to his life at Padua. Of those which +he notices the following are the most interesting: "In 1525, the year in +which I became Rector, I narrowly escaped drowning in the Lago di Garda. I +went on board the boat, unwillingly enough, which carried likewise some +hired horses; and, as we sailed on, the mast and the rudder, and one of +the two oars we had with us, were broken by the wind. The sails, even +those on the smaller mast, were split, and the night came on. We landed at +last safe and sound at Sirmio, but not before all my companions had given +up hope, and I myself was beginning to despair. Indeed, had we been a +minute later we must have perished, for the tempest was so violent that +the iron hinges of the inn windows were bent thereby. I, though I had been +sore afraid ever since the wind began to blow, fell to supper with a good +heart when the host set upon the board a mighty pike, but none of the +others had any stomach for food, except the one passenger who had advised +us to make trial of this perilous adventure, and who had proved to be an +able and courageous helper in our hour of distress. + +"Again, once when I was in Venice on the birthday of the Virgin, I lost +some money at dicing, and on the day following all that was left me went +the same way. This happened in the house of the man with whom I was +gambling, and in the course of play I noticed that the cards were marked, +whereupon I struck him in the face with my dagger, wounding him slightly. +Two of his servants were present at the time; some spears hung all ready +from the beams of the roof, and besides this the house door was fastened. +But when I had taken from him all the money he had about him--his own as +well as that which he had won from me by cheating, and my cloak and the +rings which I had lost to him the day before--I was satisfied that I had +got back all my possessions. The chattels I sent home by my servant at +once, but a portion of the money I tossed back to the fellow when I saw +that I had drawn blood of him. Then I attacked the servants who were +standing by; and, as they knew not how to use their weapons and besought +my mercy, I granted this on the condition that they should unlock the +door. Their master, taking account of the uproar and confusion, and +mistrusting his safety in case the affair should not be settled forthwith +(I suspect he was alarmed about the marked cards), commanded the servants +to open the door, whereupon I went my way. + +"That very same evening, while I was doing my best to escape the notice of +the officers of justice on account of the wound I had given to this +Senator, I lost my footing and fell into a canal, having arms under my +cloak the while. In my fall I did not lose my nerve, but flinging out my +right arm, I grasped the thwart of a passing boat and was rescued by those +on board. When I had been hauled into the boat I discovered--wonderful to +relate--that the man with whom I had lately played cards was likewise on +board, with his face bandaged by reason of the wounds I had given him. +Now of his own accord he brought out a suit of clothes, fitted for +seafaring, and, having clad myself in them, I journeyed with him as far as +Padua."[43] + +Cardan's life from rise to set cannot be estimated otherwise than an +unhappy one, and its least fortunate years were probably those lying +between his twenty-first and his thirty-first year of age. During this +period he was guilty of that crowning folly, the acceptance of the +Rectorship of the Gymnasium at Padua, he felt the sharpest stings of +poverty, and his life was overshadowed by dire physical misfortune. He +gives a rapid sketch of the year following his father's death. "Then, my +father having breathed his last and my term of office come to an end, I +went, at the beginning of my twenty-sixth year, to reside at Sacco, a town +distant ten miles from Padua and twenty-five from Venice. I fixed on this +place by the advice of Francesco Buonafidei, a physician of Padua, who, +albeit I brought no profit to him--not even being one of those who +attended his public teaching--helped me and took a liking for me, being +moved to this benevolence by his exceeding goodness of heart. In this +place I lived while our State was being vexed by every sort of calamity. +In 1524 by a raging pestilence and by a two-fold change of ruler. In 1526 +and 1527 by a destructive scarcity of the fruits of the earth. It was hard +to get corn in exchange for money of any kind, and over and beyond this +was the intolerable weight of taxation. In 1528 the land was visited by +divers diseases and by the plague as well, but these afflictions seemed +the easier to bear because all other parts were likewise suffering from +the same. In 1529 I ventured to return to Milan--these ill-starred +troubles being in some degree abated--but I was refused membership by the +College of Physicians there, I was unable to settle my lawsuit with the +Barbiani, and I found my mother in a very ill humour, so I went back to my +village home, having suffered greatly in health during my absence. For +what with cruel vexations, and struggles, and cares which I saw impending, +and a troublesome cough and pleurisy aggravated by a copious discharge of +humour, I was brought into a condition such as few men exchange for aught +else besides a coffin."[44] + +The closing words of his eulogy on his father tell how the son, on the +father's death, found that one small house was all he could call his own. +The explanation of this seems to be that the old man, being of a careless +disposition and litigious to boot, had left his affairs in piteous +disorder. In consequence of this neglect Jerome was involved in lawsuits +for many years, and the one afore-mentioned with the Barbiani was one of +them. This case was subsequently settled in Jerome's favour. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] Pavia, like certain modern universities, did not spend all its time +over study. "Aggressus sum Mediolani vacationibus quadragenariæ, seu +Bacchanalium potius, anni MDLXI. Ita enim non obscurum est, nostra ætate +celebrari ante quadragenariam vacationes, in quibus ludunt, convivantur, +personati ac larvati incedunt, denique nullum luxus ac lascivæ genus +omittunt: Sybaritæ et Lydi Persæque vincuntur." _Opera_, tom. i. p. 118. + +[29] These books were taken to Blois. They were subsequently removed by +Francis I. to Fontainebleau, and with the other collections formed the +nucleus of the Bibliothèque Nationale. + +[30] _De Vita Propria_, ch. v. p. 18. + +[31] The time covered by this experience was from his fourth to his +seventh year. + +[32] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 114; _De Rerum Subtilitate_ (Basil, +1554), p. 524. + +[33] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 61. + +[34] "Erat liber exiguus, rem tamen probe absolvebat: nam tunc forte in +manus meas inciderat, Gebri Hispani liber, cujus auxilio non parum adjutus +sum."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 56. + +[35] "Initio multi quidem paupertate aliave causa quum se nolunt subjicere +rigoroso examini Cl. Collegii in artibus Medicinae vel in Jure, +Baccalaureatus, vel Doctoratus gradum a Comitibus Palatinis aut +Lateranensibus sumebant. Postea vero, sublata hac consuetudine, Gymnasii +Rector, sive substitutus, convocatis duobus professoribus, bina puncta +dabantur, iisque recitatis et diligentis [_sic_] excussis, illis gradus +Baccalaureatus conferebatur."--_Gymnasium Patavinum_ (1654), p. 200. + +[36] He constantly bewails this step as the chief folly of his life: +"Stulte vero id egi, quod Rector Gymnasii Patavini effectus sum, tum, cum, +inops essem, et in patria maxime bella vigerent, et tributa intolerabilia. +Matris tamen solicitudine effectum est, ut pondus impensarum, quamvis +aegre, sustinuerim."--_De Utilitate_, p. 350. + +[37] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 11. + +[38] Muratori, _Chron. di Bologna_, xviii. 254. + +[39] The stipends paid to teachers of jurisprudence were much more liberal +than those paid to humanists. In the Diary of Sanudo it is recorded that a +jurist professor at Padua received a thousand ducats per annum. Lauro +Quirino, a professor of rhetoric, meantime received only forty ducats, and +Laurentius Valla at Pavia received fifty sequins.--Muratori, xxii. 990. + +[40] Tomasinus, _Gymnasium Patavinam_ (1654), p. 136. + +[41] Tomasinus writes that the Rector should be "Virum illustrem, +providum, eloquentem ac divitem, quique eo pollet rerum usu ut Gymnasi +decora ipsius gubernatione et splendore augeantur."--_Gymnasium +Patavinum_, p. 54. He likewise gives a portrait of the Rector in his robes +of office, and devotes several chapters to an account of his duties. + +[42] "Ab anno 1509 usque ad annum 1515 ob bellum Cameracense Gymn. +interrmissum fuit."--_Elenchus nominum Patavii_ (1706), p. 28. The first +names given after this interregnum are Dom. Jo. Maria de Zaffaris, Rector +in Arts, and Dom. Marinus de Ongaris, Rector in Jurisprudence in 1527. + +Papadapoli (_Historia Gymn. Patav._) gives the name of Ascanius Serra as +pro-Rector in 1526: no Rector being mentioned at all. + +[43] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 79. + +[44] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 13. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +DURING his life at Padua it would appear that Cardan, over and above the +allowance made to him by his mother, had no other source of income than +the gaming-table.[45] However futile and disastrous his sojourn at this +University may have been, he at least took away with him one possession of +value, to wit his doctorate of medicine, on the strength of which he began +to practise as a country physician at Sacco. The record of his life during +these years gives the impression that he must have been one of the most +wretched of living mortals. The country was vexed by every sort of +misfortune, by prolonged warfare, by raging pestilence, by famine, and by +intolerable taxation;[46] but while he paints this picture of misery and +desolation in one place, he goes on to declare in another that the time +which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.[47] No greater +instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I +gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving +scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my +respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented +their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no time could +have been more delightful than this which lasted for five years and a +half."[48] + +But for almost the whole of this period Cardan was labouring under a +physical misfortune concerning which he writes in another place in terms +of almost savage bitterness. During ten years of his life, from his +twenty-first to his thirty-first year, he suffered from the loss of virile +power, a calamity which he laments in the following words: "And I maintain +that this misfortune was to me the worst of evils. Compared with it +neither the harsh servitude under my father, nor unkindness, nor the +troubles of litigation, nor the wrongs done me by my fellow-townsmen, nor +the scorn of my fellow-physicians, nor the ill things falsely spoken +against me, nor all the measureless mass of possible evil, could have +brought me to such despair, and hatred of life, and distaste of all +pleasure, and lasting sorrow. I bitterly wept this misery, that I must +needs be a laughing-stock, that marriage must be denied me, and that I +must ever live in solitude. You ask for the cause of this misfortune, a +matter which I am quite unable to explain. Because of the reasons just +mentioned, and because I dreaded that men should know how grave was the +ill afflicting me, I shunned the society of women; and, on account of this +habit, the same miserable public scandal which I desired so earnestly to +avoid, arose concerning me, and brought upon me the suspicion of still +more nefarious practices: in sooth it seemed that there was no further +calamity left for me to endure."[49] After reading these words, it is hard +to believe that a man, afflicted with a misfortune which he characterizes +in these terms, could have been even moderately happy; much less in that +state of bliss which he sits down to describe forty years afterwards. + +But the end of his life at Sacco was fated to be happier than the +beginning, and it is possible that memories of the last months he spent +there may have helped to colour with rosy tint the picture of happiness +recently referred to. In the first place he was suddenly freed from his +physical infirmity, and shortly after his restoration he met and married +the woman who, as long as she lived with him, did all that was possible to +make him happy. Every momentous event of Cardan's life--and many a +trifling one as well--was heralded by some manifestation of the powers +lying beyond man's cognition. In writing about the signs and tokens which +served as premonitions of his courtship and marriage, he glides easily +into a description of the events themselves in terms which are worth +producing. "In times past I had my home in Sacco, and there I led a joyful +life, as if I were a man unvexed by misfortune (I recall this circumstance +somewhat out of season, but the dream I am about to tell of seems only too +appropriate to the occasion), or a mortal made free of the habitations of +the blest, or rather of some region of delight. Then, on a certain night, +I seemed to find myself in a pleasant garden, beautiful exceedingly, +decked with flowers and filled with fruits of divers sorts, and a soft air +breathed around. So lovely was it all that no painter nor our poet Pulci, +nor any imagination of man could have figured the like. I was standing in +the forecourt of this garden, the door whereof was open, and there was +another door on the opposite side, when lo! I beheld before me a damsel +clad in white. I embraced and kissed her; but before I could kiss her +again, the gardener closed the door. I straightway begged him earnestly +that he would open it again, but I begged in vain; wherefore, plunged in +grief and clinging to the damsel, I seemed to be shut out of the garden. + +"A little time after this there was a rumour in the town of a house on +fire, and I was roused from sleep to hurry to the spot. Then I learned +that the house belonged to one Altobello Bandarini,[50] a captain of the +Venetian levies in the district of Padua. I had no acquaintance with him, +in sooth I scarcely knew him by sight. Now it chanced that after the fire +he hired a house next door to my own, a step which displeased me somewhat, +for such a neighbour was not to my taste; but what was I to do? After the +lapse of a few days, when I was in the street, I perceived a young girl +who, as to her face and her raiment, was the exact image of her whom I had +beheld in my dream. But I said to myself, 'What is this girl to me? If I, +poor wretch that I am, take to wife a girl dowered with naught, except a +crowd of brothers and sisters, it will be all over with me; forasmuch as I +can hardly keep myself as it is. If I should attempt to carry her off, or +to have my will of her by stealth, there will of a surety be some +tale-bearers about; and her father, being a fellow-townsman and a soldier +to boot, would not sit down lightly under such an injury. In this case, or +in that, it is hard to say what course I should follow, for if this +affair should come to the issue I most desire, I must needs fly the +place.' From that same hour these thoughts and others akin to them +possessed my brain, which was only too ready to harbour them, and I felt +it would be better to die than to live on in such perplexity. Thenceforth +I was as one love-possessed, or even burnt up with passion, and I +understood what meaning I might gather from the reading of my dream. +Moreover I was by this time freed from the chain which had held me back +from marriage. Thus I, a willing bridegroom, took a willing bride, her +kinsfolk questioning us how this thing had been brought about, and +offering us any help which might be of service; which help indeed proved +of very substantial benefit. + +"But the interpretation of my dreams did not work itself out entirely in +the after life of my wife; it made itself felt likewise in the lives of my +children. My wife lived with me fifteen years, and alas! this ill-advised +marriage was the cause of all the misfortunes which subsequently happened +to me. These must have come about either by the working of the divine +will, or as the recompense due for some ill deeds wrought by myself or by +my forefathers."[51] + +The dream aforesaid was not the only portent having reference to his +marriage. After describing shakings and tremblings of his bed, for which +indeed a natural cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain +dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a persistent howling +for a long time; how some ravens perched on the house-top and began +croaking in an unusual manner; and how, when his servant was breaking up a +faggot, some sparks of fire flew out of the same; whereupon, "by an +unlooked-for step I married a wife, and from that time divers misfortunes +have attended me."[52] Lucia, the wife of his choice, was the eldest +daughter of Altobello Bandarini, who had, besides her, three daughters and +four sons. Jerome, as it has been already noted, was possessed with a fear +lest he should be burdened by his brothers- and sisters-in-law after his +marriage; but, considering that he was a young unknown physician, without +either money or patients, and that Bandarini was a man of position and +repute, with some wealth and more shrewdness, the chances were that the +burden would lie on the other side. Cardan seems to have inherited Fazio's +contempt for wealth, or at least to have made a profession thereof; for, +in chronicling the event of his marriage, he sets down, with a certain +degree of pomposity, that he took a wife without a dower on account of a +certain vow he had sworn.[53] If the bride was penniless the father-in-law +was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have proved a powerful +argument to induce Cardan to remain at Sacco, albeit he had little scope +for his calling. That he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence +of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination to sponge upon +his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, when this scheme was proposed to +him, vetoed it at once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and +possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, for Cardan has left +it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; he ended, +however, by consenting to the migration, which was not made without the +intervention of a warning portent. A short time before the young couple +departed, it happened that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's +bed-chamber; and, in the course of the night, exploded with a loud +report, and the fragments thereof were scattered around. This event +Bandarini regarded as an augury of evil, and indeed evil followed swiftly +after. Before a year had passed he was dead, some holding that his death +had been hastened by the ill conduct of his eldest son, and others +whispering suspicions of poison. + +Jerome and his young wife betook themselves to Milan, but this visit seems +to have been fully as unprofitable as the one he had paid in 1529. In that +year he had to face his first rejection by the College of Physicians, when +he made application for admission; and there is indirect evidence that he +now made a second application with no better result.[54] In any case his +affairs were in a very bad way. If he had money in his pocket he would not +keep long away from the gaming-table; and, with the weight of trouble ever +bearing him down more and more heavily, it is almost certain that his +spirits must have suffered, and that poor Lucia must have passed many an +unhappy hour on account of his nervous irritability. Then the gates of his +profession remained closed to him by the action of the College. The +pretext the authorities gave for their refusal to admit him was his +illegitimate birth; but it is not unlikely that they may have mistrusted +as a colleague the son of Fazio Cardano, and that stories of the +profligate life and the intractable temper of the candidate may have been +brought to them.[55] His health suffered from the bad air of the city +almost as severely as before, and Lucia, who was at this time pregnant, +miscarried at four months, and shortly afterwards had a second misfortune +of the same kind. His mother's temper was not of the sweetest, and it is +quite possible that between her and her daughter-in-law there may have +been strained relations. Cardan at any rate found that he must once more +beat a retreat from Milan, wherefore, at the end of April 1533, he made up +his mind to remove to Gallarate. + +This town has already been mentioned as chief place of the district, from +which the Cardan family took its origin. Before going thither Jerome had +evidently weighed the matter well, and he has set down at some length the +reasons which led him to make this choice. "Thus, acting under the reasons +aforesaid (the family associations), I resolved to go to Gallarate, in +order that I might have the enjoyment of four separate advantages which it +offered. Firstly, that in the most healthy air of the place I might shake +off entirely the distemper which I had contracted in Milan. Secondly, that +I might earn something by my profession, seeing that then I should be free +to practise. Thirdly, that there would be no need for me to pine away +while I beheld those physicians, by whom I reckoned I had been despoiled, +flourishing in wealth and in the high estimation of all men. Lastly, that +by following a more frugal way of life, I might make what I possessed last +the longer. For all things are cheaper in the country, since they have to +be carried from the country into the town, and many necessaries may be had +for the asking. Persuaded by these arguments, I went to this place, and I +was not altogether deceived, seeing that I recovered my health, and the +son--who was to be reft from me later on by the Senate--was born to +me."[56] + +Employment at Gallarate was, however, almost as scarce as it had been at +Sacco, wherefore Jerome found leisure in plenty for literary work. He +began a treatise on Fate; but, even had this been completed, it would +scarcely have filled the empty larder by the proceeds of its sale. More +profitable was some chance employment which was given to him by Filippo +Archinto,[57] a generous and accomplished young nobleman of Milan, who was +ambitious to figure as a writer on Astronomy, and, it may be remarked, +Archinto's benefactions were not confined to the payment for the hack work +which Jerome did for him at this period. Had it not been for his +subsequent patronage and support, it is quite possible that Cardan would +have gone under in the sea of adversity. + +In spite of the cheapness of provisions at Gallarate, and of occasional +meals taken gratis from the fields, complete destitution seemed to be only +a matter of days, and just at this crisis, to add to his +embarrassments--though he longed earnestly for the event--Lucia was +brought to bed with her first-born living child on May 14, 1534. The +child's birth was accompanied by divers omens, one of which the father +describes, finding therein some premonition of future disaster. "I had +great fear of his life until the fifteenth day of June, on which day, +being a Sunday, he was baptized. The sun shone brightly into the +bed-chamber: it was between the hours of eleven and twelve in the +forenoon; and, according to custom, we were all gathered round the +mother's bed except a young servant, the curtain was drawn away from the +window and fastened to the wall, when suddenly a large wasp flew into the +room, and circled round the infant. We were all greatly afeard for the +child, but the wasp did him no hurt. The next moment it came against the +curtain, making so great a noise that you would have said that a drum was +being beaten, and all ran towards the place, but found no trace of the +wasp. It could not have flown out of the room, because all eyes had been +fixed upon it. Then all of us who were then present felt some foreboding +of what subsequently came to pass, but did not deem that the end would be +so bitter as it proved to be."[58] + +The impulse which drives men in desperate straits to seek shelter in the +streets of a city was as strong in Cardan's time as it is to-day. At +Gallarate the last coin was now spent, and there was an extra mouth to +feed. There seemed to be no other course open but another retreat to +Milan. Archinto was rich in literary ambitions, which might perchance +stimulate him to find farther work for the starving scholar: and there was +Chiara also who would scarcely let her grandchild die of want. The +revelation which Cardan makes of himself and of his way of life at this +time is not one to enlist sympathy for him entirely; but it is not wanting +in a note of pathetic sincerity. "For a long time the College at Milan +refused to admit me, and during these days I was assuredly a spendthrift +and heedless. In body I was weakly, and in estate plundered by thieves on +all sides, yet I never grudged money for the buying of books. My residence +at Gallarate brought me no profit, for in the whole nineteen months I +lived there, I did not receive more than twenty-five crowns towards the +rent of the house I hired. I had such ill luck with the dice that I was +forced to pawn all my wife's jewels, and our very bed. If it is a wonder +that I found myself thus bereft of all my substance, it is still more +wonderful that I did not take to begging on account of my poverty, and a +wonder greater still that I harboured in my mind no unworthy thoughts +against my forefathers, or against right living, or against those honours +which I had won--honours which afterwards stood me in good stead--but bore +my misfortunes with mind undisturbed."[59] + +Cardan's worldly fortunes were now at their lowest ebb. Burdened with a +wife and child, he had found it necessary to return, after a second futile +attempt to gain a living by his calling in a country town, to Milan, his +"stony-hearted step-mother." If he had reckoned on his mother's bounty he +was doomed to disappointment, for Chiara was an irritable woman, and as +her son's temper was none of the sweetest, it is almost certain that they +must have quarrelled occasionally. It is hard to believe that they could +have been on good terms at this juncture, otherwise she would scarcely +have allowed him to take his wife and child to what was then the public +workhouse of the city;[60] but this place was his only refuge, and in +October 1534 he was glad to shelter himself beneath its roof. + +There was in Cardan's nature a strong vein of melancholy, and up to the +date now under consideration he had been the victim of a fortune +calculated to deepen rather than disperse his morbid tendencies. A proof +of his high courage and dauntless perseverance may be deduced from the +fact that neither poverty, nor the sense of repeated failure, nor the +flouts of the Milanese doctors, prevailed at any time to quench in his +heart the love of fame,[61] or to disabuse him of the conviction that he, +poverty-stricken wretch as he was, would before long bind Fortune to his +chariot-wheels, and would force the adverse world to acknowledge him as +one of its master minds. The dawn was now not far distant, but the last +hours of his night of misfortune were very dark. The worst of the +struggle, as far as the world was concerned, was over, and the sharpest +sorrows and the heaviest disgrace reserved for Cardan in the future were +to be those nourished in his own household. + +Writing of his way of life and of the vices and defects of his character, +he says: "If a man shall fail in his carriage before the world as he fails +in other things, who shall correct him? Thus I myself will do duty for +that one leper who alone out of the ten who were healed came back to our +Lord. By reasoning of this sort, Physicians and Astrologers trace back the +origin of our natural habits to our primal qualities, to the training of +our will, and to our occupations and conversation. In every man all these +are found in proper ratio to the time of life of each individual; +nevertheless it will be easy to discern marked variations in cases +otherwise similar. Therefore it behoves us to hold fast to some guiding +principle chosen out of these, and I on my part am inclined, as far as it +may be allowed, to say with respect to all of them, [Greek: gnôthi +seauton]. + +"My own nature in sooth was never a mystery to myself. I was ever +hot-tempered, single-minded, and given to women. From these cardinal +tendencies there proceeded truculence of temper, wrangling, obstinacy, +rudeness of carriage, anger, and an inordinate desire, or rather a +headstrong passion, for revenge in respect to any wrong done to me; so +that this inclination, which is censured by many, became to me a delight. +To put it briefly, I held _At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa_. As a +general rule I went astray but seldom, though it is a common saying, +'_Natura nostra prona est ad malum_.' I am moreover truthful, mindful of +benefits wrought to me, a lover of justice and of my own people, a +despiser of money, a worshipper of that fame which defies death, prone to +thrust aside what is commonplace, and still more disposed to treat mere +trifles in the same way. Still, knowing well how great may be the power of +little things at any moment during the course of an undertaking, I never +make light of aught which may be useful. By nature I am prone to every +vice and ill-doing except ambition, and I, if no one else does, know my +own imperfections. But because of my veneration for God, and because I +recognize the vanity and emptiness of all things of this sort, it often +happens that, of my own free will, I forego certain opportunities for +taking revenge which may be offered to me. I am timid, with a cold heart +and a hot brain, given to reflection and the consideration of things many +and mighty, and even of things which can never come to pass. I can even +let my thoughts concern themselves with two distinct subjects at the same +time. Those who throw out charges of garrulity and extravagance by way of +contradicting any praise accorded to me, charge me with the faults of +others rather than my own. I attack no man, I only defend myself. + +"And what reason is there why I should spend myself in this cause since I +have so often borne witness of the emptiness of this life of ours? My +excuse must be that certain men have praised me, wherefore they cannot +deem me altogether wicked. I have always trained myself to let my face +contradict my thoughts. Thus while I can simulate what is not, I cannot +dissimulate what is. To accomplish this is no difficult task if a man +cultivates likewise the habit of hoping for nothing. By striving for +fifteen years to compass this end and by spending much trouble over the +same I at last succeeded. Urged on by this humour I sometimes go forth in +rags, sometimes finely dressed, sometimes silent, sometimes talkative, +sometimes joyful, sometimes sad; and on this account my two-fold mood +shows everything double. In my youth I rarely spent any care in keeping my +hair in order, because of my inclination for other pursuits more to my +taste. My gait is irregular. I move now quickly, now slowly. When I am at +home I go with my legs naked as far as the ankles. I am slack in duty and +reckless in speech, and specially prone to show irritation over anything +which may disgust or irk me." + +The above-written self-description does not display a personality +particularly attractive. Jerome Cardan was one of those men who experience +a morbid gratification in cataloguing all their sinister points of +character, and exaggerating them at the same time; and in this picture, as +in many others scattered about the _De Vita Propria_, the shadows may have +been put in too strongly. + +In the foregoing pages reference was made to certain acts of benevolence +done to Cardan by the family of Archinto. It is not impossible that the +promises and persuasions of his young patron Filippo may have had some +weight in inducing Jerome to shift his home once more. Whatever befell he +could hardly make his case worse; but whether Filippo had promised help or +not, he showed himself now a true and valuable friend. There was in Milan +a public lectureship in geometry and astronomy supported by a small +endowment left by a certain Tommaso Plat, and to this post, which happened +opportunely to be vacant, Cardan was appointed by the good offices of +Filippo Archinto. Yet even when he was literally a pauper he seems to have +felt some scruples about accepting this office, but fortunately in this +instance his poverty overcame his pride. The salary was indeed a very +small one,[62] and the lecturer was not suffered to handle the whole of +it, but it was at least liberal enough to banish the dread of starvation, +and his duties, which consisted solely in the preparation and delivery of +his lectures, did not debar him from literary work on his own account. +Wherefore in his leisure time he worked hard at his desk. + +Any differences which may have existed between him and his mother were now +removed, for he took her to live with him, the household being made up of +himself, his wife, his mother, a friend (a woman), a nurse, the little +boy, a man- and maidservant, and a mule.[63] Possibly Chiara brought her +own income with her, and thus allowed the establishment to be conducted on +a more liberal scale. The Plat lectureship would scarcely have maintained +three servants, and Jerome's gains from other sources must have been as +yet very slender. His life at this time was a busy one, but he always +contrived to portion out his days in such wise that certain hours were +left for recreation. At such times as he was called upon to teach, the +class-room, of course, had the first claims. After the lecture he would +walk in the shade outside the city walls, then return to his dinner, then +divert himself with music, and afterwards go fishing in the pools and +streams hard by the town. In the course of time he obtained other +employment, being appointed physician to the Augustinian friars. The Prior +of this Order, Francesco Gaddi, was indeed his first patient of note. He +tells how he cured this man of a biennial leprosy after treating him for +six months;[64] adding that his labour was in vain, inasmuch as Gaddi died +a violent death afterwards. The refusal of the College of Milan to admit +him to membership did not forbid him to prescribe for whatever patients +might like to consult him by virtue of his Paduan degree. He read +voraciously everything which came in his way, and it must have been during +these years that he stored his memory with that vast collection of facts +out of which he subsequently compounded the row of tomes which form his +legacy to posterity. Filippo Archinto was unfailing in his kindness, and +Jerome at this time was fortunate enough to attract the attention of +certain other Milanese citizens of repute who afterwards proved to be +valuable friends; Ludovico Madio, Girolamo Guerrini a jeweller, Francesco +Belloti, and Francesco della Croce. The last-named was a skilled +jurisconsult, whose help proved of great service in a subsequent +litigation between Jerome and the College of Physicians. + +All his life long Cardan was a dreamer of dreams, and he gives an account +of one of his visions in this year, 1534, which, whether regarded as an +allegory or as a portent, is somewhat remarkable. "In the year 1534, when +I was as it were groping in the dark, when I had settled naught as to my +future life, and when my case seemed to grow more desperate day by day, I +beheld in a dream the figure of myself running towards the base of a +mountain which stood upon my right hand, in company with a vast crowd of +people of every station and age and sex--women, men, old men, boys, +infants, poor men and rich men, clad in raiment of every sort. I inquired +whither we were all running, whereupon one of the multitude answered that +we were all hastening on to death. I was greatly terrified at these words, +when I perceived a mountain on my left hand. Then, having turned myself +round so that it stood on my right side, I grasped the vines (which, here +in the midst of the mountains and as far as the place wherein I stood, +were covered with dry leaves, and bare of grapes, as we commonly see them +in autumn) and began to ascend. At first I found this difficult, for the +reason that the mountain was very steep round the base, but having +surmounted this I made my way upward easily. When I had come to the summit +it seemed that I was like to pass beyond the dictates of my own will. +Steep naked rocks appeared on every side, and I narrowly escaped falling +down from a great height into a gloomy chasm. So dreadful is all this that +now, what though forty years have rolled away, the memory thereof still +saddens and terrifies me. Then, having turned towards the right where I +could see naught but a plain covered with heath, I took that path out of +fear, and, as I wended thither in reckless mood, I found that I had come +to the entrance of a rude hut, thatched with straw and reeds and rushes, +and that I held by my right hand a boy about twelve years of age and clad +in a grey garment. Then at this very moment I was aroused from sleep, and +my dream vanished. + +"In this vision was clearly displayed the deathless name which was to be +mine, my life of heavy and ceaseless work, my imprisonment, my seasons of +grievous terror and sadness, and my abiding-place foreshadowed as +inhospitable, by the sharp stones I beheld: barren, by the want of trees +and of all serviceable plants; but destined to be, nevertheless, in the +end happy, and righteous, and easy. This dream told also of my lasting +fame in the future, seeing that the vine yields a harvest every year. As +to the boy, if he were indeed my good spirit, the omen was lucky, for I +held him very close. If he were meant to foreshadow my grandson it would +be less fortunate. That cottage in the desert was my hope of rest. That +overwhelming horror and the sense of falling headlong may have had +reference to the ruin of my son.[65] + +"My second dream occurred a short time after. It seemed to me that my soul +was in the heaven of the moon, freed from the body and all alone, and when +I was bewailing my fate I heard the voice of my father, saying: 'God has +appointed me as a guardian to you. All this region is full of spirits, but +these you cannot see, and you must not speak either to me or to them. In +this part of heaven you will remain for seven thousand years, and for the +same time in certain other stars, until you come to the eighth. After +this you shall enter the kingdom of God.' I read this dream as follows. My +father's soul is my tutelary spirit. What could be dearer or more +delightful? The Moon signifies Grammar; Mercury Geometry and Arithmetic; +Venus Music, the Art of Divination, and Poetry; the Sun the Moral, and +Jupiter the Natural, World; Mars Medicine; Saturn Agriculture, the +knowledge of plants, and other minor arts. The eighth star stands for a +gleaning of all mundane things, natural science, and various other +studies. After dealing with these I shall at last find my rest with the +Prince of Heaven."[66] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] "Nec ullum mihi erat relictum auxilium nisi latrunculorum +Ludus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 619. + +[46] From the formation of the League of Cambrai in 1508 to the +establishment of the Imperial supremacy in Italy in 1530, the whole +country was desolated by the marching and counter-marching of the +contending forces. Milan, lying directly in the path of the French armies, +suffered most of all. + +[47] Compare _De Vita Propria_, chaps. iv. and xxxi. pp. 13 and 92. + +[48] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxi. p. 92. In taking the other view he +writes: "Vitam ducebam in Saccensi oppido, ut mihi videbar, +infelicissime."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 97. + +[49] _De Utilitate_, p. 235. + +[50] He gives a long and interesting sketch of his father-in-law in _De +Utilitate_, p. 370. + +[51] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvi. p. 68; _Opera_, tom. i. p. 97. + +[52] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 149. + +[53] _De Utilitate_, p. 350. + +[54] _De Utilitate_, p. 357: "Nam in urbe nec collegium recipere volebat +nec cum aliquo ex illis artem exercere licebat et sine illis difficillimum +erat." He writes thus while describing this particular visit to Milan. + +[55] Ill fortune seems to have pursued the whole family in their relations +with learned societies. "Nam et pater meus ut ab eo accepi, diu in +ingressu Collegii Jurisconsultorum laboravit, et ego, ut alias testatus +sum, bis a medicorum Patavino, toties filius meus natu major, a Ticinensi, +uterque a Mediolanensi rejecti sumus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 94. + +[56] _De Utilitate_, p. 358. + +[57] He became a priest, and died Archbishop of Milan in 1552. Cardan +dedicated to him his first published book, _De Malo Medendi_. + +[58] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 119. + +[59] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxv. p. 67. + +[60] The Xenodochium, which was originally a stranger's lodging-house. By +this time places of this sort had become little else than _succursales_ of +some religious house. The Governors of the Milanese Xenodochium were the +patrons of the Plat endowment which Cardan afterwards enjoyed. + +[61] "Hoc unum sat scio, ab ineunte ætate me inextinguibili nominis +immortalis cupiditate flagrasse."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 61. + +[62] "Minimo tamen honorario, et illud etiam minimum suasu cujusdam amici +egregii praefecti Xenodochii imminuerunt; ita cum hujus recordor in mentem +venit fabellæ illius Apuleii de annonæ Praefecto."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +64. + +[63] _De Utilitate_, p. 351. + +[64] The following gives a hint as to the treatment followed: "Referant +leprosos balneo ejus aquae in qua cadaver ablutum sit, sanari."--_De +Varietate_, p. 334. + +[65] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. This dream is also told in _De +Libris Propriis_, Opera, tom. i. p. 64. + +[66] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +JEROME CARDAN is now standing on the brink of authorship. The very title +of his first book, _De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum Medendi Usu_, gives +plain indication of the humour which possessed him, when he formulated his +subject and put it in writing. With his temper vexed by the persistent +neglect and insult cast upon him by the Milanese doctors he would +naturally sit down _con amore_ to compile a list of the errors perpetrated +by the ignorance and bungling of the men who affected to despise him, and +if his object was to sting the hides of these pundits and arouse them to +hostility yet more vehement, he succeeded marvellously well. He was +enabled to launch his book rather by the strength of private friendship +than by the hope of any commercial success. Whilst at Pavia he had become +intimate with Ottaviano Scoto, a fellow-student who came from Venice, and +in after times he found Ottaviano's purse very useful to his needs. Since +their college days Ottaviano's father had died and had left his son to +carry on his calling of printing. In 1536 Jerome bethought him of his +friend, and sent him the MS. of the treatise which was to let the world +learn with what little wisdom it was being doctored.[67] + +Ottaviano seems to have expected no profit from this venture, which was +manifestly undertaken out of a genuine desire to help his friend, and he +generously bore all the costs. Cardan deemed that, whatever the result of +the issue of the book might be, it would surely be to his benefit; he +hazarded nothing, and the very publication of his work would give him at +least notoriety. It would moreover give him the intense pleasure of +knowing that he was repaying in some measure the debt of vengeance owing +to his professional foes. The outcome was exactly the opposite of what +printer and author had feared and hoped. The success of the book was rapid +and great. + +Ottaviano must soon have recouped all the cost of publication; and, while +he was counting his money, the doctors everywhere were reading Jerome's +brochure, and preparing a ruthless attack upon the daring censor, who, +with the impetuosity of youth, had laid himself open to attack by the +careless fashion in which he had compiled his work. He took fifteen days +to write it, and he confesses in his preface to the revised edition that +he found therein over three hundred mistakes of one sort or another. The +attack was naturally led by the Milanese doctors. They demanded to be told +why this man, who was not good enough to practise by their sanction, was +good enough to lay down the laws for the residue of the medical world. +They heaped blunder upon blunder, and held him up to ridicule with all the +wealth of invective characteristic of the learned controversy of the age. +Cardan was deeply humbled and annoyed. "For my opponents, seizing the +opportunity, took occasion to assail me through the reasoning of this +book, and cried out: 'Who can doubt that this man is mad? and that he +would teach a method and a practice of medicine differing from our own, +since he has so many hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen +said, I must in truth have appeared crazy in my efforts to contradict this +multitude raging against me. For, as it was absolutely certain that either +I or they must be in the wrong, how could I hope to win? Who would take my +word against the word of this band of doctors of approved standing, +wealthy, for the most part full of years, well instructed, richly clad and +cultivated in their bearing, well versed in speaking, supported by crowds +of friends and kinsfolk, raised by popular approval to high position, and, +what was more powerful than all else, skilled in every art of cunning and +deceit?" + +Cardan had indeed prepared a bitter pill for his foes, but the draught +they compelled him to swallow was hardly more palatable. The publication +of the book naturally increased the difficulties of his position, and in +this respect tended to make his final triumph all the more noteworthy. + +It was in 1536 that Cardan made his first essay as an author.[68] The next +three years of his life at Milan were remarkable as years of preparation +and accumulation, rather than as years of achievement. He had struck his +first blow as a reformer, and, as is often the lot of reformers, his sword +had broken in his hand, and there now rested upon him the sense of failure +as a superadded torment. Yet now and again a gleam of consolation would +disperse the gloom, and advise him that the world was beginning to +recognize his existence, and in a way his merits. In this same year he +received an offer from Pavia of the Professorship of Medicine, but this he +refused because he did not see any prospect of being paid for his +services. His friend Filippo Archinto was loyal still, and zealous in +working for his success, and as he had been recently promoted to high +office in the Imperial service, his good word might be very valuable +indeed. He summoned his _protégé_ to join him at Piacenza, whither he had +gone to meet Paul III., hoping to advance Cardan's interests with the +Pope; but though Marshal Brissac, the French king's representative,[69] +joined Archinto in advocating his cause, nothing was done, and Jerome +returned disappointed to Milan. + +In these months Cardan, disgusted by the failure of his late attack upon +the fortress of medical authority, turned his back, for a time, upon the +study of medicine, and gave his attention almost entirely to mathematics, +in which his reputation was high enough to attract pupils, and he always +had one or more of them in his house, the most noteworthy of whom was +Ludovico Ferrari of Bologna, who became afterwards a mathematician of +repute, and a teacher both at Milan and Bologna. While he was working at +the _De Malo Medendi_, he began a treatise upon Arithmetic, which he +dedicated to his friend Prior Gaddi; but this work was not published till +1539. In 1536 he first heard a report of a fresh and important discovery +in algebra, made by one Scipio Ferreo of Bologna; the prologue to one of +the most dramatic incidents in his career, an incident which it will be +necessary to treat at some length later on. + +Cardan was well aware that his excursions into astrology worked to his +prejudice in public esteem, but in spite of this he could not refrain +therefrom. It was during the plentiful leisure of this period that he +cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ, a feat which subsequently brought upon +him grave misfortune; a few patients came to him, moved no doubt by the +spirit which still prompts people suffering from obscure diseases to +consult professors of healing who are either in revolt or unqualified in +preference to going to the orthodox physician. In connection with this +irregular practice of his he gives a curious story about a certain Count +Borromeo. "In 1536, while I was attending professionally in the house of +the Borromei, it chanced that just about dawn I had a dream in which I +beheld a serpent of enormous bulk, and I was seized with fear lest I +should meet my death therefrom. Shortly afterwards there came a messenger +to summon me to see the son of Count Carlo Borromeo. I went to the boy, +who was about seven years old, and found him suffering from a slight +distemper, but on feeling his pulse I perceived that it failed at every +fourth beat. His mother, the Countess Corona, asked me how he fared, and I +answered that there was not much fever about him; but that, because his +pulse failed at every fourth beat, I was in fear of something, but what it +might be I knew not rightly (but I had not then by me Galen's books on the +indications of the pulse). Therefore, as the patient's state changed not, +I determined on the third day to give him in small doses the drug called +_Diarob: cum Turbit_: I had already written my prescription, and the +messenger was just starting with it to the pharmacy, when I remembered my +dream. 'How do I know,' said I to myself, 'that this boy may not be about +to die as prefigured by the portent above written? and in that case these +other physicians who hate me so bitterly, will maintain he died through +taking this drug.' I called to the messenger, and said there was wanting +in the prescription something which I desired to add. Then I privately +tore up what I had written, and wrote out another made of pearls, of the +horn of unicorn,[70] and certain gems. The powder was given, and was +followed by vomiting. The bystanders perceived that the boy was indeed +sick, whereupon they called in three of the chief physicians, one of whom +was in a way friendly to me. They saw the description of the medicine, and +demanded what I would do now. Now although two of these men hated me, it +was not God's will that I should be farther attacked, and they not only +praised the medicine, but ordered that it should be repeated. This was the +saving of me. When I went again in the evening I understood the case +completely. The following morning I was summoned at daybreak, and found +the boy battling with death, and his father lying in tears. 'Behold him,' +he cried, 'the boy whom you declared to ail nothing' (as if indeed I could +have said such a thing); 'at least you will remain with him as long as he +lives.' I promised that I would, and a little later the boy tried to rise, +crying out the while. They held him down, and cast all the blame upon me. +What more is there to say? If there had been found any trace of that drug +_Diarob: cum Turbit_: (which in sooth was not safe) it would have been all +over with me, since Borromeo all his life would either have launched +against me complaints grave enough to make all men shun me, or another +Canidia, more fatal than African serpents, would have breathed poison upon +me."[71] + +In this same year, 1536, Lucia brought forth another child, a daughter, +and it was about this time that Cardan first attracted the attention of +Alfonso d'Avalos, the Governor of Milan, and an intimacy began which, +albeit fruitless at first, was destined to be of no slight service to +Jerome at the crisis of his fortunes.[72] In the following year, in 1537, +he made a beginning of two of his books, which were subsequently found +worthy of being finished, and which may still be read with a certain +interest: the treatises _De Sapientia_ and _De Consolatione_. Of the +last-named, he remarks that it pleased no one, forasmuch as it appealed +not to those who were happy, and the wretched rejected it as entirely +inadequate to give them solace in their evil case. In this year he made +another attempt to gain admission to the College at Milan, and was again +rejected; the issue of the _De Malo Medendi_ was too recent, and it needed +other and more potent influences than those exercised by mere merit, to +appease the fury of his rivals and to procure him due status. But it would +appear that, in 1536 or 1537, he negotiated with the College to obtain a +quasi-recognition on conditions which he afterwards describes as +disgraceful to himself, and that this was granted to him.[73] + +Whatever his qualifications may have been, Cardan had no scruples in +treating the few patients who came to him. The first case he notes is that +of Donato Lanza,[74] a druggist, who had suffered for many years with +blood-spitting, which ailment he treated successfully. Success of this +sort was naturally helpful, but far more important than Lanza's cure was +the introduction given by the grateful patient to the physician, +commending him to Francesco Sfondrato, a noble Milanese, a senator, and a +member of the Emperor's privy council. The eldest son of this gentleman +had suffered many months from convulsions, and Cardan worked a cure in his +case without difficulty. Shortly afterwards another child, only ten months +old, was attacked by the same complaint, and was treated by Luca della +Croce, the procurator of the College of Physicians, of which Sfondrato was +a patron. As the attack threatened to be a serious one, Della Croce +recommended that another physician, Ambrogio Cavenago, should be called +in, but the father, remembering Cardan's cure of Lanza, wished for him as +well. The description of the meeting of the doctors round the sick child's +bed, of their quotations from Hippocrates, of the uncertainty and +helplessness of the orthodox practitioners, and of the ready resource of +the free-lance--who happens also to be the teller of the story--is a +richly typical one.[75] "We, the physicians and the father of the child, +met about seven in the morning, and Della Croce made a few general +observations on death, for he knew that Sfondrato was a sensible man, and +he himself was both honoured and learned. Cavenago kept silence at this +stage, because the last word had been granted to him. Then I said, 'Do you +not see that the child is suffering from Opisthotonos?' whereupon the +first physician stood as one dazed, as if I were trying to trouble his +wits by my hard words. But Della Croce at once swept aside all uncertainty +by saying, 'He means the backward contraction of the muscles.' I confirmed +his words, and added, 'I will show you what I mean.' Whereupon I raised +the boy's head, which the doctors and all the rest believed was hanging +down through weakness, and by its own weight, and bade them put it into +its former position. Then Sfondrato turned to me, and said, 'As you have +discovered what the disease is, tell us likewise what is the remedy +therefor.' Since no one else spoke, I turned towards him and--careful lest +I should do hurt to the credit I had gained already,--I said, 'You know +what Hippocrates lays down in a case like this--_febrem convulsioni_'--and +I recited the aphorism. Then I ordered a fomentation, and an application +of lint moistened with linseed-oil and oil of lilies, and gave directions +that the child should be gently handled until such time as the neck +should be restored; that the nurse should eat no meat, and that the child +should be nourished entirely by the milk of her breast, and not too much +of that; that it should be kept in its cradle in a warm place, and rocked +gently till it should fall asleep. After the other physicians had gone, I +remember that the father of the child said to me, 'I give you this child +for your own,' and that I answered, 'You are doing him an ill turn, in +that you are supplanting his rich father by a poor one.' He answered, 'I +am sure that you would care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught +that you might thereby give offence to these others' (meaning the +physicians). I said, 'It would please me well to work with them in +everything, and to win their support.' I thus blended my words, so that he +might understand I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was quite +confident thereanent. The cure came to a favourable end; for, after the +fourteenth day of the fever--the weather being very warm--the child got +well in four days' time. Now as I review the circumstances, I am of +opinion that it was not because I perceived what the disease really was, +for I might have done so much by reason of my special practice; nor +because I healed the child, for that might have been attributed to chance; +but because the child got well in four days, whereas his brother lay ill +for six months, and was then left half dead, that his father was so much +amazed at my skill, and afterwards preferred me to all others. That he +thought well of me is certain, because Della Croce himself, during the +time of his procuratorship, was full of spite and jealousy against me, and +declared in the presence of Cavenago and of Sfondrato, that he would not, +under compulsion, say a word in favour of a man like me, one whom the +College regarded with disfavour. Whereupon Sfondrato saw that the envy +and jealousy of the other physicians was what kept me out of the College, +and not the circumstances of my birth. He told the whole story to the +Senate, and brought such influence to bear upon the Governor of the +Province and other men of worship, that at last the entrance to the +College was opened to me." + +Up to the time of his admission to the College, Jerome had never felt that +he could depend entirely upon medicine for his livelihood. He now +determined to publish his _Practica Arithmeticæ_, the book which he had +prepared _pari passu_ with the ill-starred _De Malo Medendi_. It seems to +have been thoroughly revised and corrected, and was finally published in +1539, in Milan; Cardan only received ten crowns for his work, but the +sudden fame he achieved as a mathematician ought to have set him on firm +ground. His friends were still working to secure for him benefits yet more +substantial. Alfonso d'Avalos, Francesco della Croce, the jurisconsult +whose name has already been mentioned, and the senator Sfondrato, were +doing their best to bring the physicians of the city into a more +reasonable temper, and they finally succeeded in 1539; when, after having +been denied admission for twelve years, Jerome Cardan became a member of +the College, and a sharer in all the privileges appertaining thereto. + +Though Cardan was now a fully qualified physician, he spent his time for +the next year or two rather with letters than with medicine. He worked +hard at Greek, and as the result of his studies published somewhat +prematurely a treatise, _De Immortalitate Animorum_, a collection of +extracts from Greek writers which Julius Cæsar Scaliger with justice +calls a confused farrago of other men's learning.[76] He published also +about this period the treatise on Judicial Astrology, and the Essay _De +Consolatione_, the only one of his books which has been found worthy of an +English translation.[77] In 1541 he became Rector of the College of +Physicians, but there is no record of any increase in the number of his +patients by reason of this superadded dignity. A passage in the _De Vita +Propria_, written with even more than his usual brutal candour, gives a +graphic view of his manner of life at this period. "It was in the summer +of the year 1543, a time when it was my custom to go every day to the +house of Antonio Vicomercato, a gentleman of the city, and to play chess +with him from morning till night. As we were wont to play for one real, or +even three or four, on each game, I, seeing that I was generally the +winner, would as a rule carry away with me a gold piece after each day's +play, sometimes more and sometimes less. In the case of Vicomercato it was +a pleasure and nothing else to spend money in this wise; but in my own +there was an element of conflict as well; and in this manner I lost my +self-respect so completely that, for two years and more, I took no thought +of practising my art, nor considered that I was wasting all my +substance--save what I made by play--that my good name and my studies as +well would suffer shipwreck. But on a certain day towards the end of +August, a new humour seized Vicomercato (either advisedly on account of +the constant loss he suffered, or perhaps because he thought his decision +would be for my benefit), a determination from which he was to be moved +neither by arguments, nor adjurations, nor abuse. He forced me to swear +that I would never again visit his house for the sake of gaming, and I, on +my part, swore by all the gods as he wished. That day's play was our last, +and thenceforth I gave myself up entirely to my studies."[78] + +But these studies unfortunately were not of a nature to keep the wolf from +the door; and Jerome, albeit now a duly qualified physician, and known to +fame as a writer on Mathematics far beyond the bounds of Italy, was +well-nigh as poor as ever. His mother had died several years before, in +1537; but what little money she may have left would soon have been wasted +in gratifying his extravagant taste for costly things,[79] and at the +gaming-table. He found funds, however, for a journey to Florence, whither +he went to see d'Avalos, who was a generous, open-handed man, and always +ready to put his purse at the service of one whom he regarded as an honour +to his city and country. There can be little doubt that he helped Cardan +liberally at this juncture. The need for a loan was assuredly urgent +enough. The recent resumption of hostilities between the French and the +Imperialists had led to intolerable taxation throughout the Milanese +provinces, and in consequence of dearth of funds in 1543, the Academy at +Pavia was forced to close its class-rooms, and leave its teachers unpaid. +The greater part of the professors migrated to Pisa; and the Faculty of +Medicine, then vacant, was, _pro formâ_, transferred to Milan. This chair +was now offered to Cardan. He was in desperate straits--a third child had +been born this year--and, though there must have been even less chance of +getting his salary paid than when he had refused it before, he accepted +the post, explaining that he took this step because there was now no need +for him to leave Milan, or danger that he would be rated as an itinerant +teacher. It is not improbable that he may have been led to accept the +office on account of the additional dignity it would give to him as a +practising physician. When, a little later on, the authorities began to +talk of returning to Pavia, he was in no mind to follow them, giving as a +reason that, were he to leave Milan, he would lose his stipend for the +Plat lectureship, and be put to great trouble in the transport of his +household, and perhaps suffer in reputation as well. The Senate was +evidently anxious to retain his services. They bade him consider the +matter, promising to send on a certain date to learn his decision; and, as +fate would have it, the question was conveniently decided for him by a +portent. + +"On the night before the day upon which my answer was to be sent to the +Senate to say what course I was going to take, the whole of the house fell +down into a heap of ruins, and no single thing was left unwrecked, save +the bed in which I and my wife and my children were sleeping. Thus the +step, which I should never have taken of my own free will or without some +sign, I was compelled to take by the course of events. This thing caused +great wonder to all those who heard of it."[80] + +This was in 1544. Jerome hesitated no longer, and went forthwith to Pavia +as Professor of Medicine at a salary of two hundred and forty gold crowns +per annum; but, for the first year at least, this salary was not paid; +and the new professor lectured for a time to empty benches; but, as he was +at this time engaged in the final stage of his great work on Algebra, the +leisure granted to him by the neglect of the students must have been most +acceptable. He published at this time a treatise called _Contradicentium +Medicorum_, and in 1545 his _Algebra_ or _Liber Artis Magnæ_ was issued +from the press by Petreius of Nuremberg. The issue of this book, by which +alone the name of Cardan holds a place in contemporary learning, is +connected with an episode of his life important enough to demand special +and detailed consideration in a separate place. + +His practice in medicine was now a fairly lucrative one, but his +extravagant tastes and the many vices with which he charges himself would +have made short work of the largest income he could possibly have earned, +consequently poverty was never far removed from the household. Hitherto +his reputation as a man of letters and a mathematician had exceeded his +fame as a doctor; for, even after he had taken up his residence as +Professor of Medicine at Padua, many applications were made to him for his +services in other branches of learning. It was fortunate indeed that he +had let his reading take a somewhat eclectic course, for medicine at this +time seemed fated to play him false. At the end of 1544 no salary was +forthcoming at Pavia, so he abandoned his class-room, and returned to +Milan. + +During his residence there, in the summer of 1546, Cardinal Moroni, acting +on behalf of Pope Paul III., made an offer for his services as a teacher +of mathematics, accompanied by terms which, as he himself admits, were not +to be despised; but, as was his wont, he found some reason for demur, and +ultimately refused the offer. In his Harpocratic vein he argued, "This +pope is an old man, a tottering wall, as it were. Why should I abandon a +certainty for an uncertainty?"[81] The certainty he here alludes to must +have been the salary for the Plat lectureship; and, as this emolument was +a very small one, it would appear that he did not rate at a high figure +any profits which might come to him in the future from his acceptance of +the Pope's offer; but, as he admits subsequently, he did not then fully +realize the benevolence of the Cardinal who approached him on the subject, +or the magnificent patronage of the Farnesi.[82] It is quite possible that +this refusal of his may have been caused by a reluctance to quit Milan, +the city which had treated him in such cruel and inhospitable fashion, +just at the time when he had become a man of mark. In the arrogance of +success it was doubtless a keen pleasure to let his fellow-townsmen see +that the man upon whom they had heaped insult after insult for so many +years was one who could afford to let Popes and Cardinals pray for his +services in vain. But whatever may have been his humour, he resolved to +remain in Milan; and, as he had no other public duty to perform except the +delivery of the Plat lectures, he had abundant leisure to spend upon the +many and important works he had on hand at this season. + +Cardan had now achieved European fame, and was apparently on the high +road to fortune, but on the very threshold of his triumph a great sorrow +and misfortune befell him, the full effect of which he did not experience +all at once. In the closing days of 1546 he lost his wife. There is very +scant record of her life and character in any of her husband's +writings,[83] although he wrote at great length concerning her father; and +the few words that are to be found here and there favour the view that she +was a good wife and mother. That Jerome could have been an easy husband to +live with under any circumstances it is hard to believe. Lucia's life, had +it been prolonged, might have been more free of trouble as the wife of a +famous and wealthy physician; but it was her ill fortune to be the +companion of her husband only in those dreary, terrible days at Sacco and +Gallarate, and in the years of uncertainty which followed the final return +to Milan. In the last-named period there was at least the Plat lectureship +standing between them and starvation; but children increased the while in +the nursery, and manuscripts in the desk of the physician without +patients, and Lucia's short life was all consumed in this weary time of +waiting for fame and fortune which, albeit hovering near, seemed destined +to mock and delude the seeker to the end. Cardan was before all else a man +of books and of the study, and it is not rare to find that one of this +sort makes a harsh unsympathetic husband. The qualities which he +attributes to himself in his autobiography suggest that to live with a man +cursed with such a nature would have been difficult even in prosperity, +and intolerable in trouble and privation. But fretful and irascible as +Cardan shows himself to have been, there was a warm-hearted, affectionate +side to his nature. He was capable of steadfast devotion to all those to +whom his love had ever been given. His reverence for the memory of his +tyrannical and irascible father had been noted already, and a still more +remarkable instance of his fidelity and love will have to be considered +when the time comes to deal with the crowning tragedy of his life. If +Cardan had this tender side to his nature, if he could speak tolerant and +even laudatory words concerning such a father as Fazio Cardano, and show +evidences of a love strong as death in the fight he made for the life of +his ill-starred and unworthy son, it may be hoped--in spite of his almost +unnatural silence concerning her--that he gave Lucia some of that +tenderness and sympathy which her life of hard toil and heavy sacrifice so +richly deserved; and that even in the days when he sold her trinkets to +pay his gambling losses, she was not destined to weep the bitter tears of +a neglected wife. If her early married life had been full of care and +travail, if she died when a better day seemed to be dawning, she was at +least spared the supreme sorrow and disgrace which was destined to fall so +soon upon the household. Judging by what subsequently happened, it will +perhaps be held that fate, in cutting her thread of life, was kinder to +her than to her husband, when it gave him a longer term of years under the +sun. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] _De Libris Propriis_, Opera, tom. i. p. 102. + +[68] Besides the _De Malo Medendi Usu_, he published in 1536 a tract upon +judicial astrology. This, in an enlarged form, was reprinted by Petreius +at Nuremburg in 1542. + +[69] Cardan writes of Brissac: "Erat enim Brissacus Prorex singularis in +studiosis amoris et humanitatis."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 14. + +[70] "Mirumque in modum venenis cornu ejus adversari creditur."--_De +Subtilitate_, p. 315. Sir Thomas Browne (_Vulgar Errors_, Bk. iii. 23) +deals at length with the pretended virtues of the horn, and in the +Bestiary of Philip de Thaun (_Popular Treatises on Science during the +Middle Ages_) is given an account of the many wonderful qualities of the +beast. + +[71] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxiii. p. 105. He also alludes to this case +in _De Libris Propriis_ (Opera, tom. i. p. 65), affirming that the other +doctors concerned in the case raised a great prejudice against him on +account of his reputation as an astrologer. "Ita tot modis et insanus +paupertate, et Astrologus profitendo edendoque libros, et imperitus casu +illustris pueri, et modum alium medendi observans ex titulo libri nuper +edito, jam prope ab omnibus habebar. Atque hæc omnia in Urbe omnium +nugacissima, et quæ calumniis maximè patet." + +[72] The founder of this family was Indico d'Avalos, a Spanish gentleman, +who was chosen by Alfonso of Naples as a husband for Antonella, the +daughter and heiress of the great Marchese Pescara of Aquino. This +d'Avalos Marchese dal Guasto was the grandson of Indico. He commanded the +advanced guard at the battle of Pavia, and took part in almost every +battle between the French and Imperialists, and went with the Emperor to +Tunis in 1535. Though he was a brave soldier and a skilful tactician, he +was utterly defeated by d'Enghien at Cerisoles in 1544. He has been taxed +with treachery in the case of the attack upon the messengers Rincon and +Fregoso, who were carrying letters from Francis I. to the Sultan during a +truce, but he did little more than imitate the tactics used by the French +against himself; moreover, neither of the murdered men was a French +subject, or had the status of an ambassador. D'Avalos was a liberal patron +of letters and arts, and was very popular as Governor of Milan. He was a +noted gallant and a great dandy. Brantôme writes of him--"qu'il était si +dameret qu'il parfumait jusqu'aux selles de ses chevaux."--He died in +1546. + +[73] "Violentia quorundam Medicorum adactus sum anno MDXXXVI, seu XXXVII, +turpi conditione pacisci cum Collegio, sed ut dixi, postmodum dissoluta +est, anno MDXXXIX et restitutus sum integrè."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. +xxxiii. p. 105. + +[74] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 133.--He gives a long list of cases of +his successful treatment in _Opera_, tom. i. p. 82. + +[75] There is a full account of this episode in _De Libris Propriis_, p. +128, and in _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 133. + +[76] Exotericarum exercitationum, p. 987. + +[77] _Cardanus Comforte, translated into Englishe_, 1573. It was the work +of Thomas Bedingfield, a gentleman pensioner of Queen Elizabeth. + +[78] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 116. + +[79] "Delectant me gladii parvi, seu styli scriptorii, in quos plus +viginti coronatis aureis impendi: multas etiam pecunias in varia pennarum +genera, audeo dicere apparatum ad scribendum ducentis coronatis non +potuisse emi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xviii. p. 57. + +[80] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[81] "At ego qui, ut dixi, Harpocraticus sum dicebam:--Summus Pont: +decrepitus est: murus ruinosus, certa pro incertis derelinquam?"--_De Vita +Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. It is quite possible that Paul III. may have +desired to have Cardan about him on account of his reputation as an +astrologer, the Pope being a firm believer in the influence of the +stars.--_Vide_ Ranke, _History of the Popes_ i. 166. + +[82] "Neque ego tum Moroni probitatem, nec Pharnesiorum splendorem +intelligebam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[83] In writing of his own horoscope (_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 461) he +records that she miscarried thrice, brought forth three living children, +and lived with him fifteen years. He dismisses his marriage as follows: +"Duxi uxorem inexpectato, a quo tempore multa adversa concomitata +sunt."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 149. But in _De Rerum Subtilitate_, +p. 375, he records his grief at her death:--"Itaque cum a luctu dolor et +vigilia invadere soleant, ut mihi anno vertente in morte uxoris Luciæ +Bandarenæ quanquam institutis philosophiæ munitus essem, repugnante tamen +natura, memorque vinculi c[o=]jugalis, suspiriis ac lachrymis et inedia +quinque dierum, a periculo me vindicavi." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +AT this point it may not be inopportune to make a break in the record of +Cardan's life and work, and to treat in retrospect of that portion of his +time which he spent in the composition of his treatises on Arithmetic and +Algebra. Ever since 1535 he had been working intermittently at one or +other of these, but it would have been impossible to deal coherently and +effectively with the growth and completion of these two books--really the +most important of all he left behind him--while chronicling the goings and +comings of a life so adventurous as that of the author. + +The prime object of Cardan's ambition was eminence as a physician. But, +during the long years of waiting, while the action of the Milanese doctors +kept him outside the bounds of their College, and even after this had been +opened to him without inducing ailing mortals to call for his services, he +would now and again fall into a transport of rage against his persecutors, +and of contempt for the public which refused to recognize him as a master +of his art, and cast aside his medical books for months at a time, +devoting himself diligently to Mathematics, the field of learning which, +next to Medicine, attracted him most powerfully. His father Fazio was a +geometrician of repute and a student of applied mathematics, and, though +his first desire was to make his son a jurisconsult, he gave Jerome in +early youth a fairly good grounding in arithmetic and geometry, deeming +probably that such training would not prove a bad discipline for an +intellect destined to attack those formidable tomes within which lurked +the mysteries of the Canon and Civil Law. Mathematical learning has given +to Cardan his surest title to immortality, and at the outset of his career +he found in mathematics rather than in medicine the first support in the +arduous battle he had to wage with fortune. His appointment to the Plat +lectureship at Milan has already been noted. In the discharge of his new +duties he was bound, according to the terms of the endowment of the Plat +lecturer, to teach the sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy, +and he began his course upon the lines laid down by the founder. Few +listeners came, however, and at this juncture Cardan took a step which +serves to show how real was his devotion to the cause of true learning, +and how lightly he thought of an additional burden upon his own back, if +this cause could be helped forward thereby. Keenly as he enjoyed his +mathematical work, he laid a part of it aside when he perceived that the +benches before him were empty, and, by way of making his lectures more +attractive, he occasionally substituted geography for geometry, and +architecture for arithmetic. The necessary research and the preparation of +these lectures led naturally to the accumulation of a large mass of notes, +and as these increased under his hand Jerome began to consider whether it +might not be worth his while to use them in the composition of one or more +volumes. In 1535 he delivered as Plat lecturer his address, the _Encomium +Geometriæ_, which he followed up shortly after by the publication of a +work, _Quindecim Libri Novæ Geometriæ_. But the most profitable labour of +these years was that which produced his first important book, _The +Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration_, which was published in +1539, a venture which brought to the author a reward of ten crowns.[84] It +was a well-planned and well-arranged manual, giving proof of the wide +erudition and sense of proportion possessed by the author. Besides dealing +with Arithmetic as understood by the modern school-boy, it discusses +certain astronomical operations, multiplication by memory, the mysteries +of the Roman and Ecclesiastical Calendars, and gives rules for the +solution of any problem arising from the terms of the same. It treats of +partnership in agriculture, the Mezzadria system still prevalent in +Tuscany and in other parts of Italy, of the value of money, of the strange +properties of certain numbers, and gives the first simple rules of Algebra +to serve as stepping-stones to the higher mathematics. It ends with +information as to house-rent, letters of credit and exchange, tables of +interest, games of chance, mensuration, and weights and measures. In an +appendix Cardan examines critically the work of Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo, +an earlier writer on the subject, and points out numerous errors in the +same. The book from beginning to end shows signs of careful study and +compilation, and the fame which it brought to its author was well +deserved. + +Cardan appended to the Arithmetic a printed notice which may be regarded +as an early essay in advertising. He was fully convinced that his works +were valuable and quite worth the sums of money he asked for them; the +world was blind, perhaps wilfully, to their merits, therefore he now +determined that it should no longer be able to quote ignorance of the +author as an excuse for not buying the book. This appendix was a +notification to the learned men of Europe that the writer of the _Practice +of Arithmetic_ had in his press at home thirty-four other works in MS. +which they might read with profit, and that of these only two had been +printed, to wit the _De Malo Medendi Usu_ and a tract on _Simples_. This +advertisement had something of the character of a legal document, for it +invoked the authority of the Emperor to protect the copyright of Cardan's +books within the Duchy of Milan for ten years, and to prevent the +introduction of them from abroad. + +The Arithmetic proved far superior to any other treatise extant, and +everywhere won the approval of the learned. It was from Nuremberg that its +appearance brought the most valuable fruits. Andreas Osiander,[85] a +learned humanist and a convert to Lutheranism, and Johannes Petreius, an +eminent printer, were evidently impressed by the terms of Cardan's +advertisement, for they wrote to him and offered in combination to edit +and print any of the books awaiting publication in his study at Milan. The +result of this offer was the reprinting of _De Malo Medendi_, and +subsequently of the tract on Judicial Astrology, and of the treatise _De +Consolatione_; the _Book of the Great Art_, the treatises _De Sapientia_ +and _De Immortalitate Animorum_ were published in the first instance by +these same patrons from the Nuremberg press. + +But Cardan, while he was hard at work on his Arithmetic, had not forgotten +a certain report which had caused no slight stir in the world of +Mathematics some three years before the issue of his book on Arithmetic, +an episode which may be most fittingly told in his own words. "At this +time[86] it happened that there came to Milan a certain Brescian named +Giovanni Colla, a man of tall stature, and very thin, pale, swarthy, and +hollow-eyed. He was of gentle manners, slow in gait, sparing of his words, +full of talent, and skilled in mathematics. His business was to bring word +to me that there had been recently discovered two new rules in Algebra for +the solution of problems dealing with cubes and numbers. I asked him who +had found them out, whereupon he told me the name of the discoverer was +Scipio Ferreo of Bologna. 'And who else knows these rules?' I said. He +answered, 'Niccolo Tartaglia and Antonio Maria Fiore.' And indeed some +time later Tartaglia, when he came to Milan, explained them to me, though +unwillingly; and afterwards I myself, when working with Ludovico +Ferrari,[87] made a thorough study of the rules aforesaid. We devised +certain others, heretofore unnoticed, after we had made trial of these new +rules, and out of this material I put together my _Book of the Great +Art_."[88] + +Before dealing with the events which led to the composition of the famous +work above-named, it may be permitted to take a rapid survey of the +condition of Algebra at the time when Cardan sat down to write. Up to the +beginning of the sixteenth century the knowledge of Algebra in Italy, +originally derived from Greek and Arabic sources, had made very little +progress, and the science had been developed no farther than to provide +for the solution of equations of the first or second degree.[89] In the +preface to the _Liber Artis Magnæ_ Cardan writes:--"This art takes its +origin from a certain Mahomet, the son of Moses, an Arabian, a fact to +which Leonard the Pisan bears ample testimony. He left behind him four +rules, with his demonstrations of the same, which I duly ascribe to him in +their proper place. After a long interval of time, some student, whose +identity is uncertain, deduced from the original four rules three others, +which Luca Paciolus put with the original ones into his book. Then three +more were discovered from the original rules, also by some one unknown, +but these attracted very little notice though they were far more useful +than the others, seeing that they taught how to arrive at the value of the +_cubus_ and the _numerus_ and of the _cubus quadratus_.[90] But in recent +times Scipio Ferreo of Bologna discovered the rule of the _cubus_ and the +_res_ equal to the _numerus_ (_x^3 + px=q_), truly a beautiful and +admirable discovery. For this Algebraic art outdoes all other subtlety of +man, and outshines the clearest exposition mortal wit can achieve: a +heavenly gift indeed, and a test of the powers of a man's mind. So +excellent is it in itself that whosoever shall get possession thereof, +will be assured that no problem exists too difficult for him to +disentangle. As a rival of Ferreo, Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, my +friend, at that time when he engaged in a contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, made out this same rule to help secure the +victory, and this rule he imparted to me after I had diligently besought +him thereanent. I, indeed, had been deceived by the words of Luca +Paciolus, who denied that there could be any general rule besides these +which he had published, so I was not moved to seek that which I despaired +of finding; but, having made myself master of Tartaglia's method of +demonstration, I understood how many other results might be attained; and, +having taken fresh courage, I worked these out, partly by myself and +partly by the aid of Ludovico Ferrari, a former pupil of mine. Now all the +discoveries made by the men aforesaid are here marked with their names. +Those unsigned were found out by me; and the demonstrations are all mine, +except three discovered by Mahomet and two by Ludovico."[91] + +This is Cardan's account of the scheme and origin of his book, and the +succeeding pages will be mainly an amplification thereof. The earliest +work on Algebra used in Italy was a translation of the MS. treatise of +Mahommed ben Musa of Corasan, and next in order is a MS. written by a +certain Leonardo da Pisa in 1202. Leonardo was a trader, who had learned +the art during his voyages to Barbary, and his treatise and that of +Mahommed were the sole literature on the subject up to the year 1494, when +Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo[92] brought out his volume treating of +Arithmetic and Algebra as well. This was the first printed work on the +subject. + +After the invention of printing the interest in Algebra grew rapidly. From +the time of Leonardo to that of Fra Luca it had remained stationary. The +important fact that the resolution of all the cases of a problem may be +comprehended in a simple formula, which may be obtained from the solution +of one of its cases merely by a change of the signs, was not known, but in +1505 the Scipio Ferreo alluded to by Cardan, a Bolognese professor, +discovered the rule for the solution of one case of a compound cubic +equation. This was the discovery that Giovanni Colla announced when he +went to Milan in 1536. + +Cardan was then working hard at his Arithmetic--which dealt also with +elementary Algebra--and he was naturally anxious to collect in its pages +every item of fresh knowledge in the sphere of mathematics which might +have been discovered since the publication of the last treatise. The fact +that Algebra as a science had made such scant progress for so many years, +gave to this new process, about which Giovanni Colla was talking, an +extraordinary interest in the sight of all mathematical students; +wherefore when Cardan heard the report that Antonio Maria Fiore, Ferreo's +pupil, had been entrusted by his master with the secret of this new +process, and was about to hold a public disputation at Venice with Niccolo +Tartaglia, a mathematician of considerable repute, he fancied that +possibly there would be game about well worth the hunting. + +Fiore had already challenged divers opponents of less weight in the other +towns of Italy, but now that he ventured to attack the well-known Brescian +student, mathematicians began to anticipate an encounter of more than +common interest. According to the custom of the time, a wager was laid on +the result of the contest, and it was settled as a preliminary that each +one of the competitors should ask of the other thirty questions. For +several weeks before the time fixed for the contest Tartaglia studied +hard; and such good use did he make of his time that, when the day of the +encounter came, he not only fathomed the formula upon which Fiore's hopes +were based, but, over and beyond this, elaborated two other cases of his +own which neither Fiore nor his master Ferreo had ever dreamt of. + +The case which Ferreo had solved by some unknown process was the equation +_x^3 + px = q_, and the new forms of cubic equation which Tartaglia +elaborated were as follows: _x^3 + px^2 = q_: and _x^3 - px^2 = q_. Before +the date of the meeting, Tartaglia was assured that the victory would be +his, and Fiore was probably just as confident. Fiore put his questions, +all of which hinged upon the rule of Ferreo which Tartaglia had already +mastered, and these questions his opponent answered without difficulty; +but when the turn of the other side came, Tartaglia completely puzzled the +unfortunate Fiore, who managed indeed to solve one of Tartaglia's +questions, but not till after all his own had been answered. By this +triumph the fame of Tartaglia spread far and wide, and Jerome Cardan, in +consequence of the rumours of the Brescian's extraordinary skill, became +more anxious than ever to become a sharer in the wonderful secret by means +of which he had won his victory. + +Cardan was still engaged in working up his lecture notes on Arithmetic +into the Treatise when this contest took place; but it was not till four +years later, in 1539, that he took any steps towards the prosecution of +his design. If he knew anything of Tartaglia's character, and it is +reasonable to suppose that he did, he would naturally hesitate to make any +personal appeal to him, and trust to chance to give him an opportunity of +gaining possession of the knowledge aforesaid, rather than seek it at the +fountain-head. Tartaglia was of very humble birth, and according to report +almost entirely self-educated. Through a physical injury which he met with +in childhood his speech was affected; and, according to the common Italian +usage, a nickname[93] which pointed to this infirmity was given to him. +The blow on the head, dealt to him by some French soldier at the sack of +Brescia in 1512, may have made him a stutterer, but it assuredly did not +muddle his wits; nevertheless, as the result of this knock, or for some +other cause, he grew up into a churlish, uncouth, and ill-mannered man, +and, if the report given of him by Papadopoli[94] at the end of his +history be worthy of credit, one not to be entirely trusted as an +autobiographer in the account he himself gives of his early days in the +preface to one of his works. Papadopoli's notice of him states that he was +in no sense the self-taught scholar he represented himself to be, but that +he was indebted for some portion at least of his training to the +beneficence of a gentleman named Balbisono,[95] who took him to Padua to +study. From the passage quoted below he seems to have failed to win the +goodwill of the Brescians, and to have found Venice a city more to his +taste. It is probable that the contest with Fiore took place after his +final withdrawal from his birthplace to Venice. + +In 1537 Tartaglia published a treatise on Artillery, but he gave no sign +of making public to the world his discoveries in Algebra. Cardan waited +on, but the morose Brescian would not speak, and at last he determined to +make a request through a certain Messer Juan Antonio, a bookseller, that, +in the interests of learning, he might be made a sharer of Tartaglia's +secret. Tartaglia has given a version of this part of the transaction; +and, according to what is there set down, Cardan's request, even when +recorded in Tartaglia's own words, does not appear an unreasonable one, +for up to this time Tartaglia had never announced that he had any +intention of publishing his discoveries as part of a separate work on +Mathematics. There was indeed a good reason why he should refrain from +doing this in the fact that he could only speak and write Italian, and +that in the Brescian dialect, being entirely ignorant of Latin, the only +tongue which the writer of a mathematical work could use with any hope of +success. Tartaglia's record of his conversation with Messer Juan Antonio, +the emissary employed by Cardan, and of all the subsequent details of the +controversy, is preserved in his principal work, _Quesiti et Inventioni +Diverse de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano_,[96] a record which furnishes +abundant and striking instance of his jealous and suspicious temper. Much +of it is given in the form of dialogue, the terms of which are perhaps a +little too precise to carry conviction of its entire sincerity and +spontaneity. It was probably written just after the final cause of quarrel +in 1545, and its main object seems to be to set the author right in the +sight of the world, and to exhibit Cardan as a meddlesome fellow not to be +trusted, and one ignorant of the very elements of the art he professed to +teach.[97] + +The inquiry begins with a courteously worded request from Messer Juan +Antonio (speaking on behalf of Messer Hieronimo Cardano), that Messer +Niccolo would make known to his principal the rule by means of which he +had made such short work of Antonio Fiore's thirty questions. It had been +told to Messer Hieronimo that Fiore's thirty questions had led up to a +case of the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_, and that +Messer Niccolo had discovered a general rule for such case. Messer +Hieronimo now especially desired to be taught this rule. If the inventor +should be willing to let this rule be published, it should be published as +his own discovery; but, if he were not disposed to let the same be made +known to the world, it should be kept a profound secret. To this request +Tartaglia replied that, if at any time he might publish his rule, he would +give it to the world in a work of his own under his own name, whereupon +Juan Antonio moderated his demand, and begged to be furnished merely with +a copy of the thirty questions preferred by Fiore, and Tartaglia's +solutions of the same; but Messer Niccolo was too wary a bird to be taken +with such a lure as this. To grant so much, he replied, would be to tell +everything, inasmuch as Cardan could easily find out the rule, if he +should be furnished with a single question and its solution. Next Juan +Antonio handed to Tartaglia eight algebraical questions which had been +confided to him by Cardan, and asked for answers to them; but Tartaglia, +having glanced at them, declared that they were not framed by Cardan at +all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, he declared, had sent him one of these +questions for solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) had +given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. Juan Antonio replied by +way of contradiction--somewhat lamely--that the questions had been handed +over to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, apparently, +that no one else could possibly have been concerned in them, whereupon +Tartaglia replied that, supposing the questions had been given by Cardan +to Juan Antonio his messenger, Cardan must have got the questions from +Colla, and have sent them on to him (Tartaglia) for solution because he +could not arrive at the meaning of them himself. He waved aside Juan +Antonio's perfectly irrelevant and fatuous protests--that Cardan would not +in any case have sent these questions if they had been framed by another +person, or if he had been unable to solve them. Tartaglia, on the other +hand, declared that Cardan certainly did not comprehend them. If he did +not know the rule by which Fiore's questions had been answered (that of +the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_), how could he solve +these questions which he now sent, seeing that certain of them involved +operations much more complicated than that of the rule above written? If +he understood the questions which he now sent for solution, he could not +want to be taught this rule. Then Juan Antonio moderated his demand still +farther, and said he would be satisfied with a copy of the questions which +Fiore had put to Tartaglia, adding that the favour would be much greater +if Tartaglia's own questions were also given. He probably felt that it +would be mere waste of breath to beg again for Tartaglia's answers. The +end of the matter was that Tartaglia handed over to the messenger the +questions which Fiore had propounded in the Venetian contest, and +authorized Juan Antonio to get a copy of his own from the notary who had +drawn up the terms of the disputation with Fiore. The date of this +communication is January 2, 1539, and on February 12 Cardan writes a long +letter to Tartaglia, complaining in somewhat testy spirit of the reception +given to his request. He is aggrieved that Tartaglia should have sent him +nothing but the questions put to him by Fiore, thirty in number indeed, +but only one in substance, and that he should have dared to hint that +those which he (Cardan) had sent for solution were not his own, but the +property of Giovanni Colla. Cardan had found Colla to be a conceited fool, +and had dragged the conceit out of him--a process which he was now about +to repeat for the benefit of Messer Niccolo Tartaglia. The letter goes on +to contradict all Tartaglia's assertions by arguments which do not seem +entirely convincing, and the case is not made better by the abusive +passages interpolated here and there, and by the demonstration of certain +errors in Tartaglia's book on Artillery. In short a more injudicious +letter could not have been written by any man hoping to get a favour done +to him by the person addressed. + +In the special matter of the problems which he sent to Tartaglia by the +bookseller Juan Antonio, Cardan made a beginning of that tricky and +crooked course which he followed too persistently all through this +particular business. In his letter he maintains with a show of indignation +that he had long known these questions, had known them in fact before +Colla knew how to count ten, implying by these words that he knew how to +solve them, while in reality all he knew about them was the fact that they +existed. Tartaglia in his answer is not to be moved from his belief, and +tells Cardan flatly that he is still convinced Giovanni Colla took the +questions to Milan, where he found no one able to solve them, not even +Messer Hieronimo Cardano, and that the mathematician last-named sent them +on by the bookseller for solution, as has been already related. + +This letter of Tartaglia's bears the date of February 13, 1539, and after +reading it and digesting its contents, Cardan seems to have come to the +conclusion that he was not working in the right way to get possession of +this secret which he felt he must needs master, if he wanted his +forthcoming book to mark a new epoch in this History of Mathematics, and +that a change of tactics was necessary. Alfonso d'Avalos, Cardan's friend +and patron, was at this time the Governor of Milan. D'Avalos was a man of +science, as well as a soldier, and Cardan had already sent to him a copy +of Tartaglia's treatise on Artillery, deeming that a work of this kind +would not fail to interest him. In his first letter to Tartaglia he +mentions this fact, while picking holes in the writer's theories +concerning transmitted force and views on gravitation. This mention of the +name of D'Avalos, the master of many legions and of many cannons as well, +to a man who had written a Treatise on the management of Artillery, and +devised certain engines and instruments for the management of the same, +was indeed a clever cast, and the fly was tempting enough to attract even +so shy a fish as Niccolo Tartaglia. In his reply to Jerome's scolding +letter of February 12, 1539, Tartaglia concludes with a description of the +instruments which he was perfecting: a square to regulate the discharge of +cannon, and to level and determine every elevation; and another instrument +for the investigation of distances upon a plane surface. He ends with a +request that Cardan will accept four copies of the engines aforesaid, two +for himself and two for the Marchese d'Avalos. + +The tone of this letter shows that Cardan had at least begun to tame the +bear, who now seemed disposed to dance _ad libitum_ to the pleasant music +of words suggesting introductions to the governor, and possible patronage +of these engines for the working of artillery. Cardan's reply of March 19, +1539, is friendly--too friendly indeed--and the wonder is that Tartaglia's +suspicions were not aroused by its almost sugary politeness. It begins +with an attempt to soften down the asperities of their former +correspondence, some abuse of Giovanni Colla, and an apology for the rough +words of his last epistle. Cardan then shows how their misunderstanding +arose chiefly from a blunder made by Juan Antonio in delivering the +message, and invites Tartaglia to come and visit him in his own house in +Milan, so that they might deliberate together on mathematical questions; +but the true significance of the letter appears in the closing lines. "I +told the Marchese of the instruments which you had sent him, and he showed +himself greatly pleased with all you had done. And he commanded me to +write to you forthwith in pressing terms, and to tell you that, on the +receipt of my letter, you should come to Milan without fail, for he +desires to speak with you. And I, too, exhort you to come at once without +further deliberation, seeing that this said Marchese is wonted to reward +all men of worth in such noble and magnanimous and liberal fashion that +none of them ever goes away dissatisfied." + +The receipt of this letter seems to have disquieted Tartaglia somewhat; +for he has added a note to it, in which he says that Cardan has placed him +in a position of embarrassment. He had evidently wished for an +introduction to D'Avalos, but now it was offered to him it seemed a burden +rather than a benefit. He disliked the notion of going to Milan; yet, if +he did not go, the Marchese d'Avalos might take offence. But in the end he +decided to undertake the journey; and, as D'Avalos happened then to be +absent from Milan on a visit to his country villa at Vigevano, he stayed +for three days in Cardan's house. As a recorder of conversations Tartaglia +seems to have had something of Boswell's gift. He gives an abstract of an +eventful dialogue with his host on March 25, 1539, which Cardan begins by +a gentle reproach anent his guest's reticence in the matter of the rule of +the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_. Tartaglia's reply to +this complaint seems reasonable enough (it must be borne in mind that he +is his own reporter), and certainly helps to absolve him from the charge +sometimes made against him that he was nothing more than a selfish +curmudgeon who had resolved to let his knowledge die with him, rather than +share it with other mathematicians of whom he was jealous. He told Cardan +plainly that he kept his rules a secret because, for the present, it +suited his purpose to do so. At this time he had not the leisure to +elaborate farther the several rules in question, being engaged over a +translation of Euclid into Italian; but, when this work should be +completed, he proposed to publish a treatise on Algebra in which he would +disclose to the world all the rules he already knew, as well as many +others which he hoped to discover in the course of his present work. He +concludes: "This is the cause of my seeming discourtesy towards your +excellency. I have been all the ruder, perhaps, because you write to me +that you are preparing a book similar to mine, and that you propose to +publish my inventions, and to give me credit for the same. This I confess +is not to my taste, forasmuch as I wish to set forth my discoveries in my +own works, and not in those of others." In his reply to this, Cardan +points out that he had promised, if Tartaglia so desired, that he would +not publish the rules at all; but here Messer Niccolo's patience and good +manners gave way, and he told Messer Hieronimo bluntly that he did not +believe him. Then said Cardan: "I swear to you by the Sacred Evangel, and +by myself as a gentleman, that I will not only abstain from publishing +your discoveries--if you will make them known to me--but that I will +promise and pledge my faith of a true Christian to set them down for my +own use in cypher, so that after my death no one may be able to understand +them. If you will believe this promise, believe it; if you will not, let +us have done with the matter." "If I were not disposed to believe such +oaths as these you now swear," said Tartaglia, "I might as well be set +down as a man without any faith at all. I have determined to go forthwith +to Vigevano to visit the Signor Marchese, as I have now been here for +three days and am weary of the delay, but I promise when I return that I +will show you all the rules." Cardan replied: "As you are bent on going to +Vigevano, I will give you a letter of introduction to the Marchese, so +that he may know who you are; but I would that, before you start, you show +me the rule as you have promised." "I am willing to do this," said +Tartaglia, "but I must tell you that, in order to be able to recall at any +time my system of working, I have expressed it in rhyme; because, without +this precaution, I must often have forgotten it. I care naught that my +rhymes are clumsy, it has been enough for me that they have served to +remind me of my rules. These I will write down with my own hand, so that +you may be assured that my discovery is given to you correctly." Then +follow Tartaglia's verses: + + "Quando chel cubo con le cose apresso + Se agualia à qualche numero discreto + Trouan dui altri differenti in esso + Dapoi terrai questo per consueto + Ch'el lor' produtto sempre sia eguale + Al terzo cubo delle cose neto + El residuo poi suo generale + Delli lor lati cubi ben sottratti + Varra la tua cosa principale. + In el secondo de cotesti atti + Quando chel cubo restasse lui solo + Tu osseruarai quest' altri contratti + Del numer farai due tal part 'a uolo + Che luna in l'altra si produca schietto + El terzo cubo delle cose in stolo + Delle qual poi, per commun precetto + Torrai li lati cubi insieme gionti + Et cotal summa sara il tuo concetto + Et terzo poi de questi nostri conti + Se solve col recordo se ben guardi + Che per natura son quasi congionti + Questi trouai, et non con passi tardi + Nel mille cinquecent' e quatro è trenta + Con fondamenti ben sald' è gagliardi + Nella citta del mar' intorno centa." + +Having handed over to his host these rhymes, with the precious rules +enshrined therein, Tartaglia told him that, with so clear an exposition, +he could not fail to understand them, ending with a warning hint to Cardan +that, if he should publish the rules, either in the work he had in hand, +or in any future one, either under the name of Tartaglia or of Cardan, he, +the author, would put into print certain things which Messer Hieronimo +would not find very pleasant reading. + +After all Tartaglia was destined to quit Milan without paying his respects +to D'Avalos. There is not a word in his notes which gives the reason of +this eccentric action on his part. He simply says that he is no longer +inclined to go to Vigevano, but has made up his mind to return to Venice +forthwith; and Cardan, probably, was not displeased at this exhibition of +petulant impatience on the part of his guest, but was rather somewhat +relieved to see Messer Niccolo ride away, now that he had extracted from +him the coveted information. From the beginning to the end of this affair +Cardan has been credited with an amount of subtle cunning which he +assuredly did not manifest at other times when his wits were pitted for +contest with those of other men. It has been advanced to his disparagement +that he walked in deceitful ways from the very beginning; that he dangled +before Tartaglia's eyes the prospect of gain and preferment simply for the +purpose of enticing him to Milan, where he deemed he might use more +efficaciously his arguments for the accomplishment of the purpose which +was really in his mind; that he had no intention of advancing Tartaglia's +fortunes when he suggested the introduction to D'Avalos, but that the +Governor of Milan was brought into the business merely that he might be +used as a potent ally in the attack upon Tartaglia's obstinate silence. +Whether this may have been his line of action or not, the issue shows that +he was fully able to fight his battle alone, and that his powers of +persuasion and hard swearing were adequate when occasion arose for their +exercise. It is quite possible that Tartaglia, when he began to reflect +over what he had done by writing out and handing over to Cardan his +mnemonic rhymes, fell into an access of suspicious anger--at Cardan for +his wheedling persistency, and at himself for yielding thereto--and packed +himself off in a rage with the determination to have done with Messer +Hieronimo and all his works. Certainly his carriage towards Cardan in the +weeks ensuing, as exhibited in his correspondence, does not picture him in +an amiable temper. On April 9 Jerome wrote to him in a very friendly +strain, expressing regret that his guest should have left Milan without +seeing D'Avalos, and fear lest he might have prejudiced his fortunes by +taking such a step. He then goes on to describe to Tartaglia the progress +he is making in his work with the Practice of Arithmetic, and to ask him +for help in solving one of the cases in Algebra, the rule for which was +indeed contained in Tartaglia's verses, but expressed somewhat obscurely, +for which reason Cardan had missed its meaning.[98] In his reply, +Tartaglia ignores Jerome's courtesies altogether, and tells him that what +he especially desires at the present moment is a sight of that volume on +the Practice of Arithmetic, "for," says he, "if I do not see it soon, I +shall begin to suspect that this work of yours will probably make manifest +some breach of faith; in other words, that it will contain as +interpolations certain of the rules I taught you." Niccolo then goes on to +explain the difficulty which had puzzled Cardan, using terms which showed +plainly that he had as poor an opinion of his correspondent's wit as of +his veracity. + +Cardan was an irascible man, and it is a high tribute to his powers of +restraint that he managed to keep his temper under the uncouth insults of +such a letter as the foregoing. The more clearly Tartaglia's jealous, +suspicious nature displays itself, the greater seems the wonder that a man +of such a disposition should ever have disclosed such a secret. He did not +believe Cardan when he promised that he would not publish the rules in +question without his (the discoverer's) consent--why then did he believe +him when he swore by the Gospel? The age was one in which the binding +force of an oath was not regarded as an obligation of any particular +sanctity if circumstances should arise which made the violation of the +oath more convenient than its observance. However, the time was not yet +come for Jerome to begin to quibble with his conscience. On May 12, 1539, +he wrote another letter to Tartaglia, also in a very friendly tone, +reproaching him gently for his suspicions, and sending a copy of the +_Practice of Arithmetic_ to show him that they were groundless. He +protested that Tartaglia might search from beginning to end without +finding any trace of his jealously-guarded rules, inasmuch as, beyond +correcting a few errors, the writer had only carried Algebra to the point +where Fra Luca had left it. Tartaglia searched, and though he could not +put his finger on any spot which showed that Messer Hieronimo had broken +his oath, he found what must have been to him as a precious jewel, to wit +a mistake in reckoning, which he reported to Cardan in these words: + +"In this process your excellency has made such a gross mistake that I am +amazed thereat, forasmuch as any man with half an eye must have seen +it--indeed, if you had not gone on to repeat it in divers examples, I +should have set it down to a mistake of the printer." After pointing out +to Cardan the blunders aforesaid, he concludes: "The whole of this work of +yours is ridiculous and inaccurate, a performance which makes me tremble +for your good name."[99] + +Every succeeding page of Tartaglia's notes shows more and more clearly +that he was smarting under a sense of his own folly in having divulged his +secret. Night and day he brooded over his excess of confidence, and as +time went by he let his suspicions of Cardan grow into savage resentment. +His ears were open to every rumour which might pass from one class-room to +another. On July 10 a letter came to him from one Maphio of Bergamo, a +former pupil, telling how Cardan was about to publish certain new +mathematical rules in a book on Algebra, and hinting that in all +probability these rules would prove to be Tartaglia's, whereupon he at +once jumped to the conclusion that Maphio's gossip was the truth, and that +this book would make public the secret which Cardan had sworn to keep. He +left many of Cardan's letters unanswered; but at last he seems to have +found too strong the temptation to say something disagreeable; so, in +answer to a letter from Cardan containing a request for help in solving an +equation which had baffled his skill, Tartaglia wrote telling Cardan that +he had bungled in his application of the rule, and that he himself was now +very sorry he had ever confided the rule aforesaid to such a man. He ends +with further abuse of Cardan's _Practice of Arithmetic_, which he declares +to be merely a confused farrago of other men's knowledge,[100] and with a +remark which he probably intended to be a crowning insult. "I well +remember when I was at your house in Milan, that you told me you had never +tried to discover the rule of the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the +_numerus_ which was found out by me, because Fra Luca had declared it to +be impossible;[101] as if to say that, if you had set yourself to the task +you could have accomplished it, a thing which sets me off laughing when I +call to mind the fact that it is now two months since I informed you of +the blunders you made in the extraction of the cube root, which process is +one of the first to be taught to students who are beginning Algebra. +Wherefore, if after the lapse of all this time you have not been able to +find a remedy to set right this your mistake (which would have been an +easy matter enough), just consider whether in any case your powers could +have been equal to the discovery of the rule aforesaid."[102] + +In this quarrel Messer Giovanni Colla had appeared as the herald of the +storm, when he carried to Milan in 1536 tidings of the discovery of the +new rule which had put Cardan on the alert, and now, as the crisis +approached, he again came upon the scene, figuring as unconscious and +indirect cause of the final catastrophe. On January 5, 1540, Cardan wrote +to Tartaglia, telling him that Colla had once more appeared in Milan, and +was boasting that he had found out certain new rules in Algebra. He went +on to suggest to his correspondent that they should unite their forces in +an attempt to fathom this asserted discovery of Colla's, but to this +letter Tartaglia vouchsafed no reply. In his diary it stands with a +superadded note, in which he remarks that he thinks as badly of Cardan as +of Colla, and that, as far as he is concerned, they may both of them go +whithersoever they will.[103] + +Colla propounded divers questions to the Algebraists of Milan, and +amongst them was one involving the equation _x^4 + 6x^2 + 36 = 60x_, one +which he probably found in some Arabian treatise. Cardan tried all his +ingenuity over this combination without success, but his brilliant pupil, +Ludovico Ferrari, worked to better purpose, and succeeded at last in +solving it by adding to each side of the equation, arranged in a certain +fashion, some quadratic and simple quantities of which the square root +could be extracted.[104] Cardan seems to have been baffled by the fact +that the equation aforesaid could not be solved by the recently-discovered +rules, because it produced a bi-quadratic. This difficulty Ferrari +overcame, and, pursuing the subject, he discovered a general rule for the +solution of all bi-quadratics by means of a cubic equation. Cardan's +subsequent demonstration of this process is one of the masterpieces of the +_Book of the Great Art_. It is an example of the use of assuming a new +indeterminate quantity to introduce into an equation, thus anticipating by +a considerable space of time Descartes, who subsequently made use of a +like assumption in a like case. + +How far this discovery of Ferrari's covered the rules given by Tartaglia +to Cardan, and how far it relieved Cardan of the obligation of secresy, is +a problem fitted for the consideration of the mathematician and the +casuist severally.[105] An apologist of Cardan might affirm that he cannot +be held to have acted in bad faith in publishing the result of Ferrari's +discovery. If this discovery included and even went beyond Tartaglia's, so +much the worse for Tartaglia. The lesser discovery (Tartaglia's) Cardan +never divulged before Ferrari unravelled Giovanni Colla's puzzle; but it +was inevitable that it must be made known to the world as a part of the +greater discovery (Ferrari's) which Cardan was in no way bound to keep a +secret. The case might be said to run on all fours with that where a man +confides a secret to a friend under a promise of silence, which promise +the friend keeps religiously, until one day he finds that the secret, and +even more than the secret, is common talk of the market-place. Is the +obligation of silence, with which he was bound originally, still to lie +upon the friend, even when he may have sworn to observe it by the Holy +Evangel and the honour of a gentleman; and is the fact that great renown +and profit would come to him by publishing the secret to be held as an +additional reason for keeping silence, or as a justification for speech? +In forming a judgment after a lapse of three and a half centuries as to +Cardan's action, while having regard both to the sanctity of an oath at +the time in question, and to the altered state of the case between him and +Tartaglia consequent on Ludovico Ferrari's discovery, an hypothesis not +overstrained in the direction of charity may be advanced to the effect +that Cardan might well have deemed he was justified in revealing to the +world the rules which Tartaglia had taught him, considering that these +isolated rules had been developed by his own study and Ferrari's into a +principle by which it would be possible to work a complete revolution in +the science of Algebra. + +In any case, six years were allowed to elapse before Cardan, by publishing +Tartaglia's rules in the _Book of the Great Art_, did the deed which, in +the eyes of many, branded him as a liar and dishonest, and drove +Tartaglia almost wild with rage. That his offence did not meet with +universal reprobation is shown by negative testimony in the _Judicium de +Cardano_, by Gabriel Naudé.[106] In the course of his essay Naudé lets it +be seen how thoroughly he dislikes the character of the man about whom he +writes. No evil disposition attributed to Cardan by himself or by his +enemies is left unnoticed, and a lengthy catalogue of his offences is set +down, but this list does not contain the particular sin of broken faith in +the matter of Tartaglia's rules. On the contrary, after abusing and +ridiculing a large portion of his work, Naudé breaks out into almost +rhapsodical eulogy about Cardan's contributions to Mathematical science. +"Quis negabit librum de Proportionibus dignum esse, qui cum pulcherrimis +antiquorum inventis conferatur? Quis in Arithmetica non stupet, eum tot +difficultates superasse, quibus explicandis Villafrancus, Lucas de Burgo, +Stifelius, Tartalea, vix ac ne vix quidem pares esse potuissent?" It seems +hard to believe, after reading elsewhere the bitter assaults of +Naudé,[107] that he would have neglected so tempting an opportunity of +darkening the shadows, if he himself had felt the slightest offence, or if +public opinion in the learned world was in any perceptible degree +scandalized by the disclosure made by the publication of the _Book of the +Great Art_. + +This book was published at Nuremberg in 1545, and in its preface and +dedication Cardan fully acknowledges his obligations to Tartaglia and +Ferrari, with respect to the rules lately discussed, and gives a catalogue +of the former students of the Art, and attributes to each his particular +contribution to the mass of knowledge which he here presents to the world. +Leonardo da Pisa,[108] Fra Luca da Borgo, and Scipio Ferreo all receive +due credit for their work, and then Cardan goes on to speak of "my friend +Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, who, in his contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, elaborated this rule to assure him of victory, +a rule which he made known to me in answer to my many prayers." He goes on +to acknowledge other obligations to Tartaglia:[109] how the Brescian had +first taught him that algebraical discovery could be most effectively +advanced by geometrical demonstration, and how he himself had followed +this counsel, and had been careful to give the demonstration aforesaid for +every rule he laid down. + +The _Book of the Great Art_ was not published till six years after Cardan +had become the sharer of Tartaglia's secret, which had thus had ample time +to germinate and bear fruit in the fertile brain upon which it was cast. +It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole--leaving out of account +the special question of the solution of cubic equations--must have gained +enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed +to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and +beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for +several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction with Ferrari, +an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia or himself. The opening chapters of +the book show that Cardan was well acquainted with the chief properties of +the roots of equations of all sorts. He lays it down that all square +numbers have two different kinds of root, one positive and one +negative,[110] _vera_ and _ficta_: thus the root of 9 is either 3. or -3. +He shows that when a case has all its roots, or when none are impossible, +the number of its positive roots is the same as the number of changes in +the signs of the terms when they are all brought to one side. In the case +of _x^3 + 3bx = 2c_, he demonstrates his first resolution of a cubic +equation, and gives his own version of his dealings with Tartaglia. His +chief obligation to the Brescian was the information how to solve the +three cases which follow, _i.e. x^3 + bx = c. x^3 = bx + c._ and +_x^3 + c = bx_, and this he freely acknowledges, and furthermore admits +the great service of the system of geometrical demonstration which +Tartaglia had first suggested to him, and which he always employed +hereafter. He claims originality for all processes in the book not +ascribed to others, asserting that all the demonstrations of existing +rules were his own except three which had been left by Mahommed ben Musa, +and two invented by Ludovico Ferrari. + +With this vantage ground beneath his feet Cardan raised the study of +Algebra to a point it had never reached before, and climbed himself to a +height of fame to which Medicine had not yet brought him. His name as a +mathematician was known throughout Europe, and the success of his book +was remarkable. In the _De Libris Propriis_ there is a passage which +indicates that he himself was not unconscious of the renown he had won, or +disposed to underrate the value of his contribution to mathematical +science. "And even if I were to claim this art (Algebra) as my own +invention, I should perhaps be speaking only the truth, though Nicomachus, +Ptolemæus, Paciolus, Boetius, have written much thereon. For men like +these never came near to discover one-hundredth part of the things +discovered by me. But with regard to this matter--as with divers others--I +leave judgment to be given by those who shall come after me. Nevertheless +I am constrained to call this work of mine a perfect one, seeing that it +well-nigh transcends the bounds of human perception."[111] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] It was published at Milan by Bernardo Caluschio, with a +dedication--dated 1537--to Francesco Gaddi, a descendant of the famous +family of Florence. This man was Prior of the Augustinian Canons in Milan, +and a great personage, but ill fortune seems to have overtaken him in his +latter days. Cardan writes (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 107):--"qui cum mihi +amicus esset dum floreret, Rexque cognomine ob potentiam appellaretur, +conjectus in carcerem, miseré vitam ibi, ne dicam crudeliter, finivit: nam +per quindecim dies in profundissima gorgyne fuit, ut vivus sepeliretur." + +[85] There is a reference to Osiander in _De Subtilitate_, p. 523. Cardan +gives a full account of his relations with Osiander and Petreius in +_Opera_, tom. i. p. 67. + +[86] November 1536. + +[87] Ferrari was one of Cardan's most distinguished pupils. "Ludovicus +Ferrarius Bononiensis qui Mathematicas et Mediolani et in patria sua +professus est, et singularis in illis eruditionis."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xxxv. p. 111. There is a short memoir of Ferrari in _Opera_, tom. ix. + +[88] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 66. + +[89] Fra Luca's book, _Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni é +Proportionalita_, extends as far as the solution of quadratic equations, +of which only the positive roots were used. At this time letters were +rarely used to express known quantities. + +[90] The early writers on Algebra used _numerus_ for the absolute or known +term, _res_ or _cosa_ for the first power, _quadratum_ for the second, and +_cubus_ for the third. The signs + and - first appear in the work of +Stifelius, a German writer, who published a book of Arithmetic in 1544. +Robert Recorde in his _Whetstone of Wit_ seems first to have used the sign +of equality =. Vieta in France first applied letters as general symbols of +quantity, though the earlier algebraists used them occasionally, chiefly +as abbreviations. Aristotle also used them in the _Physics.--Libri. Hist. +des Sciences Mathématiques_. i. 104. + +[91] _Opera_, tom. iv. p. 222. + +[92] In the conclusion of the Treatise on Arithmetic, Cardan points out +certain errors in the work of Fra Luca. Fra Luca was a pupil of Piero +della Francesca, who was highly skilled in Geometry, and who, according to +Vasari, first applied perspective to the drawing of the human form. + +[93] Tartaglia, _i.e._ the stutterer. + +[94] Papadopoli, _Hist. Gymn. Pata._ (Ven. 1724). + +[95] "Balbisonem post relatam jurisprudentiæ lauream redeuntem Brixiam +Nicolaus secutus est, cæpitque ex Mathematicis gloriam sibi ac divitias +parare, æque paupertatis impatiens, ac fortunæ melioris cupidus, quam dum +Brixiæ tuetur, homo morosæ, et inurbanæ rusticitatis prope omnium civium +odia sibi conciliavit. Quamobrem alibi vivere coactus, varias Italiæ urbes +incoluit, ac Ferrariæ, Parmæ, Mediolani, Romæ, Genuæ, arithmeticam, +geometricam, ceteraque quæ ad Mathesim pertinent, docuit; depugnavitque +scriptis accerrimis cum Cardano ac sibi ex illis quæsivit nomen et +gloriam. Tandem domicilium posuit Venetiis, ubi non a Senatoribus modo, ut +mos Venetus habet eruditorum hominum studiosissimus, maximi habitus est, +at etiam a variis Magnatum ac Principum legatis præmiis ac muneribus +auctus sortem, quam tamdiu expetierat visus sibi est conciliasse. Ergo +ratus se majorem, quam ut a civibus suis contemneretur, Brixiam rediit, +ubi spe privati stipendii Euclidis elementa explanare coepit; sed quæ +illum olim a civitate sua austeritas, rustica, acerba, morosa, depulerat, +eadem illum in eum apud omnes contemptum, et odium iterum dejicit, ut +exinde horrendus ac detestabilis omnibus fugere, atque iterum Venetias +confugere compulsus fuerit. Ibi persenex decessit."--Papadopoli, _Hist. +Gymn. Pata.,_ ii. p. 210. + +[96] This work is the chief authority for the facts which follow. The +edition referred to is that of Venice, 1546. There is also a full account +of the same in Cossali, _Origine dell' Algebra_ (Parma, 1799). vol. ii. p. +96. + +[97] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 115. + +[98] Cardan writes: "Vi supplico per l'amor che mi portati, et per +l'amicitia ch'è tra noi, che spero durara fin che viveremo, che mi mandati +sciolta questa questione. 1 cubo piu 3. cose egual à 10." Cardan had +mistaken (1/3 _b_)^3 for 1/3 _b_^3, or the cube of 1/3 of the co-efficient +for 1/3 of the cube of the co-efficient.--_Quesiti et Inventioni_ p. 124. + +[99] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 125. + +[100] "Non ha datta fora tal opera come cose composto da sua testa ma come +cose ellette raccolte e copiate de diverse libri a penna."--_Quesiti et +Inventioni_, p. 127. + +[101] Cardan repeats the remark in the first chapter of the _Liber Artis +Magnæ_ (_Opera_, tom. iv. p. 222). "Deceptus enim ego verbis Lucæ +Paccioli, qui ultra sua capitula, generale ullum aliud esse posse negat +(quanquam tot jam antea rebus a me inventis, sub manibus esset) desperabam +tamen invenire, quod quærere non audebam." Perhaps he wrote them down as +an apology or a defence against the storm which he anticipated as soon as +Tartaglia should have seen the new Algebra. + +[102] Subsequently Tartaglia wrote very bitterly against Cardan, as the +latter mentions in _De Libris Propriis_. "Nam etsi Nicolaus Tartalea +libris materna lingua editis nos calumniatur, impudentiæ tamen ac +stultitiæ suæ non aliud testimonium quæras, quam ipsos illius libros, in +quibus nominatim splendidiorem unumquemque e civibus suis proscindit: adeò +ut nemo dubitet insanisse hominem aliquo infortunio."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +80. + +[103] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 129. + +[104] Montucla, _Histoire de Math._ i. 596, gives a full account of +Ferrari's process. + +[105] In the _De Vita Propria_, Cardan dismisses the matter briefly: "Ex +hoc ad artem magnam, quam collegi, dum Jo. Colla certaret nobiscum, et +Tartalea, à quo primum acceperam capitulum, qui maluit æmulum habere, et +superiorem, quam amicum et beneficio devinctum, cum alterius fuisset +inventum."--ch. xlv. p. 175. + +[106] Prefixed to the _De Vita Propria_. + +[107] In a question of broken faith, Cardan laid himself open especially +to attack by reason of his constant self-glorification in the matter of +veracity. + +[108] Leonardo knew that quadratic equations might have two positive +roots, and Cardan pursued this farther by the discovery that they might +also have negative roots. + +[109] "Caput xxviii. De capitulo generali cubi et rerum æqualium numero, +Magistri Nicolai Tartagliæ, Brixiensis--Hoc capitulum habui à prefato viro +ante considerationem demonstrationum secundi libri super Euclidem, et +æquatio hæc cadit in [Symbol: Rx]. cu v binomii ex genere binomii secundi +et qunti [m~]. [Symbol: Rx]. cuba universali recisi ejusdem +binomii."--_Opera_, tom. iv. p. 341. + +[110] Montucla, who as a historian of Mathematics has a strong bias +against Cardan, gives him credit for the discovery of the _fictæ radices_, +but on the other hand he attributes to Vieta Cardan's discovery of the +method of changing a complete cubic equation into one wanting the second +term.--Ed. 1729, p. 595. + +[111] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 66. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IT has been noted that Cardan quitted Pavia at the end of 1544 on account +of the bankruptcy of the University, and that in 1546 a generous offer was +made to him on condition of his entering the service of Pope Paul III.; an +offer which after some hesitation he determined to refuse. In the autumn +of this same year he resumed his teaching at Pavia, a fact which sanctions +the assumption that this luckless seat of learning must have been once +more in funds. In the year following, in 1547, there came to him another +offer of employment accompanied by terms still more munificent than the +Pope's, conveyed through Vesalius[112] and the ambassador of the King of +Denmark. "The emolument was to be a salary of three hundred gold crowns +per annum of the Hungarian currency, and in addition to these six hundred +more to be paid out of the tax on skins of price. This last-named money +differed in value by about an eighth from the royal coinage, and would be +somewhat slower in coming in. Also the security for its payment was not so +solid, and would in a measure be subject to risk. To this was farther +added maintenance for myself and five servants and three horses. This +offer I did not accept because the country was very cold and damp, and the +people well-nigh barbarians; moreover the rites and doctrines of religion +were quite foreign to those of the Roman Church."[113] + +Cardan was now forty-six years of age, a mathematician of European fame, +and the holder of an honourable post at an ancient university, which he +might have exchanged for other employment quite as dignified and far more +lucrative. In dealing with a character as bizarre as his, it would be as a +rule unprofitable to search deeply for motives of action, but in this +instance it is no difficult matter to detect upon the surface several +causes which may have swayed him in this decision to remain at Pavia. +However firmly he may have set himself to win fame as a physician, he was +in no way disposed to put aside those mathematical studies in which he had +already made so distinguished a name, nor to abandon his astrology and +chiromancy and discursive reading of all kinds. At Pavia he would find +leisure for all these, and would in addition be able to make good any +arrears of medical and magical knowledge into which he might have fallen +during the years so largely devoted to the production of the _Book of the +Great Art_. Moreover, the time in question was one of the prime epochs in +the history of the healing art. A new light had just arisen in Vesalius, +who had recently published his book, _Corporis Humani Fabrica_, and was +lecturing in divers universities on the new method of Anatomy, the actual +dissection of the human body. He went to Pavia in the course of his +travels and left traces of his visit in the form of a revived and +re-organized school of Anatomy. This fact alone would have been a +powerful attraction to Cardan, ever greedy as he was of new knowledge, but +there was another reason which probably swayed him more strongly still, to +wit, the care of his eldest son's education and training. Gian Battista +Cardano was now in his fourteenth year, and, according to the usages of +the time, old enough to make a beginning of his training in Medicine, the +profession he was destined to follow. It is not recorded whether or not he +chose this calling for himself; but, taking into account the deep and +tender affection Jerome always manifested towards his eldest son, it is +not likely that undue compulsion was used in the matter. The youth, +according to his father's description, strongly favoured in person his +grandfather Fazio.[114] He had come into the world at a time when his +parents' fortunes were at their lowest ebb, during those terrible months +spent at Gallarate,[115] and in his adolescence he bore divers physical +evidences of the ill nurture--it would be unjust to call it neglect--which +he had received. At one time he was indeed put in charge of a good nurse, +but he had to be withdrawn from her care almost immediately through her +husband's jealousy, and he was next sent to a slattern, who fed him with +old milk, and not enough of that; or more often with chewed bread. His +body was swollen and unhealthy, he suffered greatly from an attack of +fever, which ultimately left him deaf in one ear. He gave early evidence +of a fine taste in music, an inheritance from his father, and was, +according to Cardan's showing, upright and honest in his carriage, gifted +with talents which must, under happier circumstances, have placed him in +the first rank of men of learning, and in every respect a youth of the +fairest promise. The father records that he himself, though well furnished +by experience in the art of medicine, was now and again worsted by his son +in disputation, and alludes in words of pathetic regret to divers +problems, too deep for his own powers of solution, which Gian Battista +would assuredly have mastered in the course of time. He does not forget to +notice certain of the young man's failings; for he remarks that he was +temperate of speech, except when he was angered, and then he would pour +forth such a torrent of words that he scarce seemed in his right mind. +Cardan professes to have discerned a cause for these failings, and the +calamities flowing therefrom, in the fact that Gian Battista had the third +and fourth toes of his right foot united by a membrane; he declares that, +if he had known of this in time, he would have counteracted the evil by +dividing the toes.[116] Gian Battista eventually gained the _baccalaureat_ +in his twenty-second year, and two years after became a member of the +College. + +The life which Cardan planned to lead at Pavia was unquestionably a full +one. He had several young men under his care as pupils besides his son, +amongst them being a kinsman of his, Gasparo Cardano, a youth of sterling +virtue and a useful coadjutor in times to come. He was at this time +engaged on his most important works in Medicine and Physical Science. He +worked hard at his profession, practising occasionally and reading +voraciously all books bearing on his studies. He wrote and published +several small works during the four years--from 1547 to 1551--of his +Professorship at Pavia; the most noteworthy of which were the Book of +Precepts for the guidance of his children, and some Treatises on the +Preservation of Health. He also wrote a book on Physiognomy, or as he +called it Metoposcopy, an abstract of which appears as a chapter in _De +Utilitate_ (lib. iii. c. 10), but the major part of his time must have +been consumed in collecting and reducing to form the huge mass of facts +out of which his two great works, _De Subtilitate_ and _De Varietate +Rerum_, were built up. + +A mere abstract of the contents of these wonderful books would fill many +pages, and prove as uninteresting and unsuggestive as abstracts must +always be; and a commentary upon the same, honestly executed, would make a +heavy draft on the working life-time of an industrious student. In +reference to each book the author has left a statement of the reasons +which impelled him to undertake his task, the most cogent of which were +certain dreams.[117] Soon after he had begun to write the _De Astrorum +Judiciis_ he dreamt one night that his soul, freed from his body, was +ranging the vault of heaven near to the moon, and the soul of his father +was there likewise. But he could not see this spirit, which spake to him +saying, "Behold, I am given to you as a comrade." The spirit of the father +then went on to tell the son how, after various stages of probation, he +would attain the highest heaven, and in the terms of this discourse Cardan +professed to discern the scheme of his more important works. + +The _De Subtilitate_ represents Cardan's original conception of a +treatise dealing with the Cosmos, but during the course of its preparation +a vast mass of subsidiary and contingent knowledge accumulated in his +note-books, and rendered necessary the publication of a supplementary +work, the _De Varietate_,[118] which, by the time it was finished, had +grown to a bulk exceeding that of the original treatise. The seminal ideas +which germinated and produced such a vast harvest of printed words, were +substantially the same which had possessed the brains of Paracelsus and +Agrippa. Cardan postulates in the beginning a certain sympathy between the +celestial bodies and our own, not merely general, but distributive, the +sun being in harmony with the heart, and the moon with the animal humours. +He considers that all organized bodies are animated, so that what we call +the Spirit of Nature is present everywhere. Beyond this everything is +ruled by the properties of numbers.[119] Heat and moisture are the only +real qualities in Nature, the first being the formal, and the second the +material, cause of all things; these conceptions he gleaned probably from +some criticisms of Aristotle on the archaic doctrines of Heraclitus and +Thales as to the origin of the universe. + +It is no marvel that a writer, gifted with so bizarre and imaginative a +temper, so restless and greedy of knowledge, sitting down to work with +such a projection before him, should have produced the richest, and at +the same time the most chaotic, collection of the facts of Natural +Philosophy that had yet issued from the press. The erudition and the +industry displayed in the gathering together of these vast masses of +information, and in their verification by experiment, are indeed amazing; +and, in turning over his pages, it is impossible to stifle regret that +Cardan's confused method and incoherent system should have rendered his +work comparatively useless for the spread of true knowledge, and qualified +it only for a place among the _labores ineptiarum_. + +Cardan begins with a definition of Subtilty. "By subtilty I mean a certain +faculty of the mind by which certain phenomena, discernible by the senses +and comprehensible by the intellect, may be understood, albeit with +difficulty." Subtilty, as he understood it, possesses a threefold +character: substance, accident, and manifestation. With regard to the +senses he admits but four to the first rank: touch, sight, smell, and +hearing; the claims of taste, he affirms, are open to contention. He then +passes on to discuss the properties of matter: fire, moisture, cold, +dryness, and vacuum. The last-named furnishes him with a text for a +discourse on a wonderful lamp which he invented by thinking out the +principle of the vacuum. This digression on the very threshold of the work +is a sample of what the reader may expect to encounter all through the +twenty-one books of the _De Subtilitate_ and the seventeen of the _De +Varietate_. Regardless of the claims of continuity, he jumps from +principle to practice without the slightest warning. Intermingled with +dissertations on abstract causes and the hidden forces of Nature are to be +found descriptions of taps and pumps and syphons, and of the water-screw +of Archimedes, the re-invention of which caused poor Galeazzo Rosso, +Fazio's blacksmith friend, to go mad for joy. There are diagrams of +furnaces, of machinery for raising sunken ships, and of the common +steelyard. Cardan finds no problem of the universe too recondite to essay, +and in like manner he sets down information as to the most trivial details +of every-day economy: how to kill mice, why dogs bay the moon, how to make +vinegar, why a donkey is stupid, why flint and steel produce fire, how to +make the hands white, how to tell good mushrooms from bad, and how to mark +household linen. He treats of the elements, Earth, Air, and Water, +excluding Fire, because it produces nothing material; of the heavens and +light: metals, stones, plants, and animals. Marvellous stories abound, and +the most whimsical theories are advanced to account for the working of +Nature. He tells how he once saw a man from Porto Maurizio, pallid, with +little hair on his face, and fat in person, who had in his breasts milk +enough to suckle a child. He was a soldier, and this strange property +caused him no slight inconvenience. Sages, he affirms, on account of their +studious lives, are little prone to sexual passion. With them the vital +power is carried from the heart to a region remote from the genitals, +_i.e._ to the brain, and for this reason such men as a rule beget children +weak and unlike themselves. Diet has a valid effect on character, as the +Germans, who subsist chiefly on the milk of wild cows, are fierce and bold +and brutal. Again, the Corsicans, who eat young dogs, wild as well as +domestic, are notably fierce, cruel, treacherous, fearless, nimble, and +strong, following thus the nature of dogs. He argues at length to show +that man is neither an animal nor a plant, but something between the two. +A man is no more an animal than an animal is a plant. The animal has the +_anima sensitiva_ which the plant lacks, and man transcends the animal +through the gift of the _anima intellectiva_, which, as Aristotle +testifies, differs from the _sensitiva_. Some maintain that man and the +animals must be alike in nature and spirit, because it is possible for man +to catch certain diseases from animals. But animals take certain +properties from plants, and no one thinks of calling an animal a plant. +Man's nature is threefold: the Divine, which neither deceives nor is +deceived; the Human, which deceives, but is not deceived; the Brutish, +which does not deceive, but is deceived. Dissertations on the various +sciences, the senses, the soul and intellect, things marvellous, demons +and angels, occupy the rest of the chapters of the _De Subtilitate_. + +At the end of the last book of _De Varietate_, Cardan gives a table +showing the books of the two works arranged in parallel columns so as to +exhibit the relation they bear to each other. A comparison of the +treatment accorded to any particular branch of Natural Philosophy in the +_De Subtilitate_ with that given in the _De Varietate_, will show that in +the last-named work Cardan used his most discursive and anecdotic method. +Mechanics are chiefly dealt with in the _De Subtilitate_, and all through +this treatise he set himself to observe in a certain degree the laws of +proportion, and kept more or less to the point with which he was dealing, +a system of treatment which left him with a vast heap of materials on his +hands, even after he had built up the heavy tome of the _De Subtilitate_. +Perhaps when he began his work upon the fresh volume he found this _ingens +acervus_ too intractable and heterogeneous to be susceptible of +symmetrical arrangement, and was forced to let it remain in confusion. Few +men would sit down with a light heart to frame a well-ordered treatise out +of the _débris_ of a heap of note-books, and it would be unjust to +censure Cardan's literary performance because he failed in this task. +Probably no other man living in his day would have achieved a better +result. It is certain that he expended a vast amount of labour in +attempting to reduce his collected mass of facts even to the imperfect +form it wears in the _De Varietate Rerum_.[120] + +Considering that this book covers to a great extent the same ground as its +predecessor, Cardan must be credited with considerable ingenuity of +treatment in presenting his supplementary work without an undue amount of +repetition. In the _De Varietate_ he always contrives to bring forward +some fresh fact or fancy to illustrate whatever section of the universe he +may have under treatment, even though this section may have been already +dealt with in the _De Subtilitate_. The characteristic most strongly +marked in the later book is the increased eagerness with which he plunges +into the investigation of certain forces, which he professes to appreciate +as lying beyond Nature, and incapable of scientific verification in the +modern sense, and the fabled manifestations of the same. He loses no +opportunity of trying to peer behind the curtain, and of seeking--honestly +enough--to formulate those various pseudo-sciences, politely called +occult, which have now fallen into ridicule and disrepute with all except +the charlatan and the dupe, who are always with us. Where he occupies in +the _De Subtilitate_ one page in considering those things which lie +outside Nature--demons, ghosts, incantations, succubi, incubi, +divinations, and such like--he spends ten in the _De Varietate_ over +kindred subjects. There is a wonderful story[121] told by his father of a +ghost or demon which he saw in his youth while he was a scholar in the +house of Giovanni Resta at Pavia. He searches the pages of Hector +Boethius, Nicolaus Donis, Rugerus, Petrus Toletus, Leo Africanus, and +other chroniclers of the marvellous, for tales of witchcraft, prodigies, +and monstrous men and beasts, and devotes a whole chapter to +chiromancy,[122] a subject with which he had occupied his plenteous +leisure when he was waiting for patients at Sacco. The diagram of the +human hand given by him does not differ greatly from that of the +contemporary hand-books of the "Art," and the leading lines are just the +same. The heavenly bodies are as potent here as in Horoscopy. The thumb is +given to Mars, the index finger to Jupiter, the middle finger to Saturn, +the ring finger to the Sun, and the little finger to Venus. Each +finger-joint has its name, the lowest being called the procondyle, the +middle the condyle, and the upper the metacondyle. He passes briefly over +as lines of little import, the _via combusta_ and the _Cingulus Orionis_, +but lays some stress on the character of the nails and the knitting +together of the hand, declaring that hands which can be bent easily +backward denote effeminacy or a rapacious spirit. He teaches that lines +are most abundant in the hands of children, on account of the tenderness +of the skin, and of old men on account of the dryness, a statement which +might suggest the theory that lines come into existence through the +opening and closing of the hand. But the adoption of this view would have +proved more disastrous to chiromancy than ridicule or serious criticism; +so he straightway finds an explanation for this fact in the postulate that +lines in young people's hands speak as to the future, and in old men's as +to the past. Later he goes on to affirm that lines in the hand cannot be +treated as mere wrinkles arising from the folding of the skin, unless we +are prepared to admit that wrinkled people are more humorous than others, +alluding no doubt to the lines in the face caused by laughter, a +proposition which does not seem altogether convincing or consequential, +unless we also postulate that all humorous men laugh at every joke. There +is a line in the hand which he calls the _linea jecoraria_, and the +triangle formed by this and the _linea vitæ_ and the _linea cerebri_, +rules the disposition of the subject, due consideration being given to the +acuteness or obtuseness of the angles of this triangle. Cardan seems to +have based his treatise on one written by a certain Ruffus Ephesius, and +it is without doubt one of the dullest portions of his work.[123] + +It is almost certain that Cardan purposed to let the _De Varietate_ come +forth from the press immediately after the _De Subtilitate_, but before +the MS. was ready, it came to pass that he was called to make that +memorable journey to Scotland in order to find a remedy for the ailment +which was troubling the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a journey which has +given to Britons a special interest in his life and work. In dealing with +the Cosmos in the _De Subtilitate_ he had indeed made brief mention of +Britain; but, writing then, he had no personal relations with either +England or Scotland, or the people thereof; and, but for his subsequent +visit, he would not have been able to set down in the pages of his second +book so many interesting and suggestive notes of what he had seen and +heard, and his ideas of the politics of the time. Again, if he had not +been urged by the desire all men feel to read what others may have to say +about places they have visited, it is not likely that he would have +searched the volumes of Hector Boethius and other early writers for +legends and stories of our island. Writing of Britain[124] in the _De +Subtilitate_ he had praised its delicate wool and its freedom from +poisonous beasts: a land where the wolf had been exterminated, and where +the sheep might roam unvexed by any beast more formidable than the fox. +The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days[125] to have led +to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to +that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of men yet living. +But besides this one, he records, in the _De Subtilitate_, few facts +concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in +support of the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in +intellect,[126] and he likewise notices the use of a fertilizing +earth--presumably marl--in agriculture,[127] and the longevity of the +people, some of whom have reached their hundred and twentieth year.[128] +The first notice of us in the _De Varietate_ is in praise of our forestry, +forasmuch as he remarked that the plane tree, which is almost unknown in +Italy through neglect, thrives well in Scotland, he himself having seen +specimens over thirty feet high growing in the garden of the Augustinian +convent near Edinburgh. The lack of fruit in England he attributes rather +to the violence of the wind than to the cold; but, in spite of our cruel +skies, he was able to eat ripe plums in September, in a district close to +the Scottish border. He bewails the absence of olives and nuts, and +recommends the erection of garden-walls in order to help on the +cultivation of the more delicate fruits. + +In a conversation with the Archbishop of St. Andrews he was told that the +King of Scots ruled over one hundred and sixty-one islands, that the +people of the Shetland Islands lived for the most part on fish prepared by +freezing or sun-drying or fire, and had no other wealth than the skins of +beasts. Cardan pictures the Shetlanders of that time as leading an ideal +life, unvexed by discord, war, or ambition, labouring in the summer for +the needs of winter, worshipping Christ, visited only once a year by a +priest from Orkney, who came over to baptize the children born within the +last twelve months, and was remunerated by a tenth of the catch of fish. +He speaks of the men of Orkney as a very lively, robust, and open-hearted +crew, furnished with heads strong enough to defy drunkenness, even after +swallowing draughts of the most potent wine. The land swarms with birds, +and the sheep bring forth two or even three lambs at a time. The horses +are a mean breed, and resemble asses both as to their size and their +patience. Some one told him of a fish, often seen round about the islands, +as big or even bigger than a horse, with a hide of marvellous toughness, +and useful for the abundance of oil yielded by its carcase. He attributes +the bodily strength of these northerners to the absence of four +deleterious influences--drunkenness, care, heat, and dry air. Cardan seems +to have been astonished at the wealth of precious stones he found in +Scotland--dark blue stones, diamonds, and carbuncles[129]--"maxime juxta +academiam Glaguensis oppidi in Gludisdalia regione," and he casts about to +explain how it is that England produces nothing of the kind, but only +silver and lead. He solves the question by laying down an axiom that the +harder the environment, the harder the stone produced. The mountains of +Scotland are both higher and presumably harder than those of England, +hence the carbuncles. + +He was evidently fascinated with the wealth of local legend and story +which haunted the misty regions he visited. In dealing with demons and +familiar spirits he cites the authority of Merlin, "whose fame is still +great in England," and tells a story of a young woman living in the +country of Mar.[130] This damsel was of noble family and very fair in +person, but she displayed a great unwillingness to enter the marriage +state. One day it was discovered that she was pregnant, and when the +parents went to make inquisition for the seducer, the girl confessed that, +both by day and night, a young man of surpassing beauty used to come and +lie with her. Who he was and whence he came she knew not. They, though +they gave little credit to her words, were informed by her handmaid, some +three days afterwards, that the young man was once more with her; +wherefore, having broken open the door, they entered, bearing lights and +torches, and beheld, lying in their daughter's arms, a monster, fearsome +and dreadful beyond human belief. All the neighbours ran quickly to behold +the grisly sight, and amongst them a good priest, well acquainted with +pagan rites. When he had come anear, and had said some verses of the +Gospel of Saint John, the fiend vanished with a terrible noise, bearing +away the roof of the chamber, and leaving the bed in flames. In three +days' time the girl gave birth to a monstrous child, more hideous than +anything heretofore seen in Scotland, wherefore the nurses, to keep off +disgrace from the family, caused it to be burnt on a pile of wood. There +is another story of a youth living about fourteen miles from Aberdeen, who +was visited every night by a demon lady of wonderful loveliness, though he +bolted and locked his chamber-door; but by fasting and praying and +keeping his thoughts fixed on holy things he rid himself at last of the +unclean spirit.[131] He quotes from Boethius the whole story of +Macbeth,[132] and tells how "Duffus rex" languished and wasted under the +malefic arts of certain witches who made an image of the king in wax and, +by using various incantations, let the same melt slowly away before the +fire. The unhappy king came near to die, but, as soon as these nefarious +practices were discovered, the image was destroyed, whereupon the king was +restored to health.[133] + +When Cardan received the first letter from Scotland the manuscript of the +_De Varietate_ must have been ready or nearly ready for the printer; but, +for some reason or other, he determined to postpone the publication of the +work until he should have finished with the Archbishop, and took his +manuscript with him when he set forth on his travels. In 1550 there came +another break in Cardan's life as Professor at Pavia, the reason being the +usual one of dearth of funds.[134] In 1551 he went back for a short time, +but the storms of war were rising on all sides, and the luckless city of +Pavia was in the very centre of the disturbance. The French once more +crossed the Alps, pillaging and devastating the country, their ostensible +mission being the vindication of the rights of Ottavio Farnese to the +Duchy of Parma. Ottavio had quarrelled with Pope Julius III., who called +upon the Emperor for assistance. War was declared, and Charles set to work +to annex Parma and Piacenza as well to the Milanese. Cardan withdrew to +Milan at the end of the year. Gian Battista had now completed his medical +course, so there was now no reason why he should continue to live +permanently at Pavia. Moreover at this juncture he seems to have been +strongly moved to augment the fame which he had already won in Mathematics +and Medicine by some great literary achievement, and he worked diligently +with this object in view.[135] + +At the beginning of November 1551, a letter came to him from +Cassanate,[136] a Franco-Spanish physician, who was at that time in +attendance upon the Archbishop of St. Andrews, requesting him to make the +journey to Paris, and there to meet the Archbishop, who was suffering from +an affection of the lungs. The fame of Cardan as a physician had spread as +far as Scotland, and the Archbishop had set his heart on consulting him. +Cassanate's letter is of prodigious length. After a diffuse exordium he +proceeds to praise in somewhat fulsome terms the _De Libris Propriis_ and +the treatises _De Sapientia_[137] and _De Consolatione_, which had been +given to him by a friend when he was studying at Toulouse in 1549. He had +just read the _De Subtilitate_, and was inflamed with desire to become +acquainted with everything which Cardan had ever written. But what struck +Cassanate more than anything was a passage in the _De Sapientia_ on a +medical question, which he extracts and incorporates in his epistle. +Cardan writes there: "But if my profession itself will not give me a +living, nor open out an avenue to some other career, I must needs set my +brains to work, to find therein something unknown hitherto, for the charm +of novelty is unfailing, something which would prove of the highest +utility in a particular case. In Milan, while I was fighting the battle +against hostile prejudice, and was unable to earn enough to pay my way (so +much harder is the lot of manifest than of hidden merit, and no man is +honoured as a prophet in his own country), I brought to light much fresh +knowledge, and worked my hardest at my art, for outside my art there was +naught to be done. At last I discovered a cure for phthisis, which is also +known as Phthoe, a disease for many centuries deemed incurable, and I +healed many who are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the +_Gallicus morbus_. I also discovered a cure for intercutaneous water in +many who still survive. But in the matter of invention, Reason will be the +leader, but Experiment the Master, the stimulating cause of work in +others. If in any experiment there should seem to be an element of danger, +let it be performed gently, and little by little."[138] It is not +wonderful that the Archbishop, who doubtless heard all about Cardan's +asserted cure of phthisis from Cassanate, should have been eager to submit +his asthma to Cardan's skill. After acknowledging the deep debt of +gratitude which he, in common with the whole human race, owed to Cardan in +respect to the two discoveries aforesaid, Cassanate comes to the business +in hand, to wit, the Archbishop's asthma. Not content with giving a most +minute description of the symptoms, he furnishes Cardan also with a theory +of the operations of the distemper. He writes: "The disease at first took +the form of a distillation from the brain into the lungs, accompanied with +hoarseness, which, with the help of the physician in attendance, was cured +for a time, but the temperature of the brain continued unfavourable, being +too cold and too moist, so that certain unhealthy humours were collected +in the head and there remained, because the brain could neither +assimilate its own nutriment, nor disperse the humours which arose from +below, being weakened through its nutriment of pituitous blood. After an +attack of this nature it always happened that, whenever the body was +filled with any particular matter, which, in the form of substance, or +vapour, or quality, might invade the brain, a fresh attack would certainly +arise, in the form of a fresh flow of the same humour down to the lungs. +Moreover these attacks were found to agree almost exactly with the +conjunctions and oppositions of the moon."[139] + +Cassanate goes on to say that his patient had proved somewhat intractable, +refusing occasionally to have anything to do with his medical attendants, +and that real danger was impending owing to the flow of humour having +become chronic. Fortunately this humour was not acrid or salt; if it were, +phthisis must at once supervene. But the Archbishop's lungs were becoming +more and more clogged with phlegm, and a stronger effort of coughing was +necessary to clear them. Latterly much of the thick phlegm had adhered to +the lungs, and consequently the difficulty of breathing was great. +Cassanate declares that he had been able to do no more than to keep the +Archbishop alive, and he fears no one would be able to work a complete +cure, seeing that the air of Scotland is so moist and salt, and that the +Archbishop is almost worried to death by the affairs of State. He next +urges Cardan to consent to meet the Archbishop in Paris, a city in which +learning of all sorts flourishes exceedingly, the nurse of many great +philosophers, and one in which Cardan would assuredly meet the honour and +reverence which is his due. The Archbishop's offer was indeed magnificent +in its terms. Funds would be provided generous enough to allow the +physician to travel post the whole of the journey, and the goodwill of all +the rulers of the states _en route_ would be enlisted in his favour. +Cassanate finishes by fixing the end of January 1552 as a convenient date +for the _rendezvous_ in Paris, and, as time and place accorded with +Cardan's wishes, he wrote to Cassanate accepting the offer. + +The Archbishop of St. Andrews was John Hamilton, the illegitimate brother +of James, Earl of Arran, who had been chosen Regent of the kingdom after +the death of James V. at Flodden, and the bar sinister, in this case as in +many others, was the ensign of a courage and talent and resource in which +the lawful offspring was conspicuously wanting. Any student taking a +cursory glance at the epoch of violence and complicated intrigue which +marked the infancy of Mary of Scotland, may well be astonished that a man +so weak and vain and incompetent as James Hamilton--albeit his footing was +made more secure by his position as the Queen's heir-presumptive--should +have held possession of his high dignities so long as he did. Alternately +the tool of France and of England, he would one day cause his great rival +Cardinal Beatoun to be proclaimed an enemy of his country, and the next +would meet him amicably and adopt his policy. After becoming the partisan +of Henry VIII. and the foe of Rome, he finally put the coping-stone to his +inconsistencies by becoming a convert to Catholicism in 1543. But in spite +of his indolence and weakness, he was still Regent of Scotland, when his +brother, the Archbishop, was seized with that attack of periodic asthma +which threatened to change vitally the course of Scottish politics. A very +slight study of contemporary records will show that Arran had been +largely, if not entirely, indebted to the distinguished talents and to the +ambition of his brother for his continued tenure of the chief power of the +State. If confirmation of this view be needed, it will be found in the +fact that, as soon as the Archbishop was confined to a sick-room, Mary of +Guise, the Queen Mother, supported by her brothers in France and by the +Catholic party at home, began to undermine the Regent's position by +intrigue, and ultimately, partly by coaxing, partly by threats, won from +him a promise to surrender his power into her hands. + +In the meantime Cardan was waiting for further intelligence and directions +as to his journey. The end of January had been fixed as the date of the +meeting at Paris, and it was not until the middle of February that any +further tidings came to him. Then he received a letter from Cassanate and +a remittance to cover the expenses of his journey.[140] He set out at once +on February 22, undaunted by the prospect of a winter crossing of the +Simplon, and, having travelled by way of Sion and Geneva, arrived at Lyons +on March 13. In Cassanate's first letter Paris had been named as the place +of meeting; but, as a concession to Cardan's convenience, Lyons was added +as an alternative, in case he should find it impossible to spare time for +a longer journey. Cardan accordingly halted at Lyons, but neither +Archbishop nor physician was there to meet him. After he had waited for +more than a month, Cassanate appeared alone, and brought with him a heavy +purse of money for the cost of the long journey to Scotland, which he now +begged Cardan to undertake, and a letter from the Archbishop himself, who +wrote word that, though he had fully determined in the first instance to +repair to Paris, or even to Lyons, to meet Cardan, he found himself at +present mastered by the turn of circumstances, and compelled to stay at +home. He promised Cardan a generous reward, and a reception of a nature to +convince him that the Scots are not such Scythians as they might perchance +be deemed in Milan.[141] Cardan's temper was evidently upset by this turn +of affairs, and his suspicions aroused; for he sets down his belief that +patient and physician had from the first worked with the intention of +dragging him all the way to Scotland, but that they had waited till he was +across the Alps before showing their hand, fearing lest if the word +Scotland should have been used at the outset, he would never have moved +from Milan.[142] In describing his journey he writes:--"I tarried in Lyons +forty-six days, seeing nothing of the Archbishop, nor of the physician +whom I expected, nevertheless I gained more than I spent. I met there +Ludovico Birago, a gentleman of Milan, and commander of the King's +foot-soldiers, and with him I contracted a close friendship, so much so +that, had I been minded to take service under Brissac, the King's +lieutenant, I might have enjoyed a salary of one thousand crowns a year. +Shortly afterwards Guglielmo Cassanate, the Archbishop's physician, +arrived in Lyons and brought with him three hundred other golden crowns, +which he handed to me, in order that I might make the journey with him to +Scotland, offering in addition to pay the cost of travel, and promising me +divers gifts in addition. Thus, making part of our journey down the +Loire, I arrived at Paris. While I was there I met Orontius; but he for +some reason or other refused to visit me. Under the escort of +Magnienus[143] I inspected the treasury of the French Kings, and the +Church of Saint Denis. I saw likewise something there, not so famous, but +more interesting to my mind, and this was the horn of a unicorn, whole and +uninjured. After this we met the King's physicians, and we all dined +together, but I declined to hold forth to them during dinner, because +before we sat down they were urgent that I should begin a discussion. I +next set forth on my journey, my relations with Pharnelius and Silvius, +and another of the King's physicians,[144] whom I left behind, being of a +most friendly nature, and travelled to Boulogne in France, where, by the +command of the Governor of Sarepont, an escort of fourteen armed horsemen +and twenty foot-soldiers was assigned to me, and so to Calais. I saw the +tower of Cæsar still standing. Then having crossed the narrow sea I went +to London, and at last met the Archbishop at Edinburgh on the +twenty-ninth of June. I remained there till the thirteenth of September. I +received as a reward four hundred more gold crowns; a chain of gold worth +a hundred and twenty crowns, a noble horse, and many other gifts, in order +that no one of those who were with me should return empty-handed."[145] + +The Archbishop's illness might in itself have supplied a reason for his +inability to travel abroad and meet Cardan as he had agreed to do; but the +real cause of his change of plan was doubtless the condition of public +affairs in Scotland at the beginning of 1552. In the interval of time +between Cassanate's first letter to Cardan and the end of 1551, the Regent +had half promised to surrender his office into the hands of the Guise +party in Scotland, wherefore it was no wonder that the Primate, +recognizing how grave was the danger which threatened the source of his +power, should have resolved that, sick or sound, his proper place was at +the Scottish Court. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[112] Vesalius had certainly lectured on anatomy at Pavia, but it would +appear that Cardan did not know him personally, seeing that he writes in +_De Libris Propriis_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 138): "Brasavolum ... nunquam +vidi, ut neque Vesalium quamquam intimum mihi amicum." + +[113] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 99. + +[114] In describing Fazio, Jerome writes: "Erat Euclidis operum studiosus, +et humeris incurvis: et filius meus natu major ore, oculis, incessu, +humeris, illi simillimus."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iii. p. 8. In the same +chapter Fazio is described as "Blæsus in loquendo; variorum studiorum +amator: ruber, oculis albis et quibus noctu videret." + +[115] "At uxor mea imaginabatur assidue se videre calvariam patris, qui +erat absens dum utero gereret Jo: Baptistam."--_Paralipomenon_, lib. iii. +c. 21. + +[116] _De Utilitate_, p. 832. + +[117] "Post ex geminatis somniis, scripsi libros de Subtilitate quos +impressos auxi et denuo superauctos tertio excudi curavi."--_De Vita +Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175. + +[118] "Libros de Rerum varietate anno MDLVIII edidi: erant enim reliquiæ +librorum de subtilitate."--_De Vita Propria_, p. 176. "Reversus in +patriam, perfeci libros XVII de Rerum varietate quos jampridem +inchoaveram."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110. He had collected much material +during his life at Gallarate. + +[119] Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, book I. ch. v., contains an examination of +the Pythagorean doctrine which maintains Number to be the Substance of all +things:--[Greek: all' auto to apeiron kai auto to hen ousian einai toutôn +ôn katêgorountai.] + +[120] "Sed nullus major labor quam libri de Rerum Varietate quem cum +sæpius mutassem, demum traductis quibuscunque insignioribus rebus in +libros de Subtilitate, ita illum exhausi, ut totus denuo conscribendus +fuerit atque ex integro restituendus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 74. + +He seems to have utilized the services of Ludovico Ferrari in compiling +this work.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 64. + +[121] _De Varietate_, p. 661. + +[122] Book XV. ch. lxxix. + +[123] He gives one example of his skill as a palmist in the _De Vita +Propria_: "Memini me dum essem adolescens, persuasum fuisse cuidam Joanni +Stephano Biffo, quod essem Chiromanticus, et tamen nil minus: rogat ille, +ut prædicam ei aliquid de vita; dixi delusum esse a sociis, urget, veniam +peto si quicquam gravius prædixero: dixi periculum imminere brevi de +suspendio, intra hebdomadam capitur, admovetur tormentis: pertinaciter +delictum negat, nihilominus tandem post sex menses laqueo vitam +finivit."--ch. xlii. p. 156. + +[124] "Ergo nunc Britannia inclyta vellere est. Nec mirum cum null[u=] +animal venenat[u=] mittat, imò nec infestum præter vulpem, olim et lupum: +nunc vero exterminatis etiam lupis, tutò pecus vagat. Rore coeli sitim +sedant greges, ab omni alio potu arcentur, quod aquæ ibi ovibus sint +exitiales: quia tamen in pabulo humido vermes multi abundant, cornic[u=] +adeo multitudo crevit, ut ob frugum damna nuper publico consilio illas +perdentibus proposita præmia sint: ubi enim pabulum, ibi animalia sunt quæ +eo vescuntur, atque immodicè tunc multiplicantur cum ubique abundaverit. +Caret tamen ut dixi, serpentibus, tribus ex causis: nam pauci possunt +generari ob frigus immensum."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 298. + +[125] Æneas Sylvius in describing his visit to Britain a century earlier +says that rooks had been recently introduced, and that the trees on which +they roosted and built belonged to the King's Exchequer. + +[126] "Ejusdem insulæ accola fuit Ioannes, ut dixi, Suisset [Richard +Swineshead] cognom[e=]to Calculator; in cujus solius unius argumenti +solutione, quod contra experiment[u=] est de actione mutua tota laboravit +posteritas; quem senem admodum, nec inventa sua dum legeret intelligentem, +flevisse referunt. Ex quo haud dubium esse reor, quod etiam in libro de +animi immortalite scripsi, barbaros ingenio nobis haud esse inferiores: +quandoquidem sub Brumæ cælo divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tam clari +ingenii viros emiserit."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 444. + +[127] _Ibid.,_ p. 142. + +[128] p. 369. + +[129] The fame of Scots as judges of precious stones had spread to Italy +before Cardan's time. In the _Novellino_ of Masuccio, which was first +printed in 1476, there is a passage in the tenth novel of the first part, +in which a rogue passes as "grandissimo cognoscitore" of gems because he +had spent much time in Scotland. + +[130] _De Varietate_, p. 636. + +[131] _De Varietate_, p. 637. + +[132] _Ibid.,_ p. 637. + +[133] _Ibid.,_ p. 565. + +[134] "Peracto L anno quod stipendium non remuneraretur mansi +Mediolani."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[135] About this time he wrote the _Liber Decem Problematum_, and the +treatise _Delle Burle Calde_, one of his few works written in +Italian.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 109. + +[136] Cassanate's letter is given in full (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 89). + +[137] The quotation from the _De Sapientia_ differs somewhat from the +original passage which stands on p. 578 of the same volume. + +[138] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 89. + +[139] In a subsequent interview with Cardan, Cassanate modifies this +statement.--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 124. + +[140] "Accepique antequam discederem aureos coronatos Gallicos 500 et +M.C.C. in reditu."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16. + +[141] "Difficillimis causis victus venire non potui." The Archbishop's +letter is given in _Opera_, tom. i. p. 137. + +[142] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 469. + +[143] He mentions this personage in _De Varietate_, p. 672: "Johannes +Manienus medicus, vir egregius et mathematicaram studiosus." He was +physician to the monks of Saint Denis. + +[144] The reception given to Cardan in Paris was a very friendly one. +Orontius was a mechanician and mathematician; and jealousy of Cardan's +great repute may have kept him away from the dinner, but the physicians +were most hospitable. Pharnelius [Fernel] was Professor of Medicine at the +University, and physician to the Court. Sylvius was an old man of a +jocular nature, but as an anatomist bitterly opposed to the novel methods +of Vesalius, who was one of Cardan's heroes. With this possibility of +quarrelling over the merits of Vesalius, it speaks well for the temper of +the doctors that they parted on good terms. Ranconet, another Parisian who +welcomed Cardan heartily, was one of the Presidents of the Parliament of +Paris. He seems to have been a man of worth and distinguished attainments, +and Cardan gives an interesting account of him in _Geniturarum Exempla_, +p. 423. + +[145] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 75. Cardan refers more than once to +the generosity of the Archbishop. He computes (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 93) +that his visit must have cost Hamilton four talents of gold; that is to +say, two thousand golden crowns. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +CARDAN, as he has himself related, arrived at Edinburgh on June 29, 1552. +The coming of such a man at such a time must have been an event of +extraordinary interest. In England the Italy of the Renaissance had been +in a measure realized by men of learning and intellect through the reports +of the numerous scholars--John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Henry Parker, +Lord Morley, Howard Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyat, may be taken as +examples--who had wandered thither and come back with a stock of histories +setting forth the beauty and charm, and also the terror and wickedness, of +that wonderful land. Some echoes of this legend had doubtless drifted down +to Scotland, and possibly still more may have been wafted over from +France. Ascham had taken up his parable in the _Schoolmaster_, describing +the devilish sins and corruptions of Italy, and now the good people of +Edinburgh were to be given the sight of a man coming thence, one who was +fabled to have gathered together more knowledge, both of this world and of +that other hidden one which was to them just as real, than any mortal man +alive. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Cardan should +have been regarded rather as a magician than as a doctor, and in the +_Scotichronicon_[146] it is recorded that the Primate was cured of a +lingering asthma by the incantations of an astrologer named Cardan, from +Milan. Cardan in his narrative speaks of Edinburgh as the place where he +met his patient, and does not mention any other place of sojourn, but the +record just quoted goes on to say that he abode with the Primate for +eleven weeks at his country residence at Monimail, near Cupar, Fife, where +there is a well called to this day Cardan's Well. + +Cardan, as it has been noticed already, refused to commit himself to any +opinion as to the character of the Archbishop's distemper over the +dinner-table where he and Cassanate had been entertained by the French +King's physicians. Cassanate had set forth his views in full as to the +nature of the asthma which had to be dealt with in his letter to Cardan, +and it is highly probable that he would again bring forward these views in +the hearing of the Paris doctors. It is certain that some of the French +physicians had, previous to this, prescribed a course of treatment for the +Archbishop, probably without seeing him, and that the course was being +tried when Cardan arrived in Edinburgh.[147] For the first six weeks of +his stay he watched the case, and let the treatment aforesaid go +on--whether it differed from that which Cassanate recommended or not there +is no evidence to show. But no good result came of it. The Archbishop +wasted in body and became fretful and disturbed in mind, and, at last, +Cardan was obliged to let his opinion of the case be known; and, as this +was entirely hostile to the treatment which was being pursued, the +inevitable quarrel between the doctors burst forth with great violence. +The Archbishop was irate with his ordinary medical attendant, probably the +physician who was left in charge during Cassanate's absence--and this man +retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's +position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full +of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory +conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself +getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of +this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this +proposition the Primate took in very ill part. + +Cassanate in his first diagnosis had traced the Archbishop's illness to an +excess of coldness and humidity in the brain. Now Cardan, on the other +hand, maintained that the brain was too hot. He found Cassanate's +treatment too closely fettered by his theory as to the causes of periodic +asthma, but he did not venture to exhibit his own course of treatment till +after he had gained some knowledge of the Archbishop's temper and habits. +He came to the conclusion that his patient was overwrought with the cares +of State, that he ate too freely, that he did not sleep enough, and that +he was of a temper somewhat choleric. Cardan set forth this view of the +case in a voluminous document, founding the course of treatment he +proposed to pursue upon the aphorisms of Galen. He altogether rejected +Cassanate's view as to the retention of the noxious humours in the head. +The Archbishop had the ruddy complexion of a man in good health, a +condition which could scarcely co-exist with the loading of the brain +with matter which would certainly putrify if retained for any long time. +Cardan maintained that the serous humour descended into the lungs, not by +the passages, but by soaking through the membranes as through linen.[148] +After describing the origin and the mode of descent of this humour, he +goes on to search for an auxiliary cause of the mischief, and this he +finds in the imperfect digestive powers of the stomach and liver. If the +cause lay entirely in the brain, how was it that all the cerebral +functions were not vitiated? In fine, the source of the disease lay, not +in the weakness of the brain, but in an access of heat, caused possibly by +exposure to the sun, by which the matter of the brain had become so +rarefied that it showed unhealthy activity in absorbing moisture from the +other parts. This heat, therefore, must be reduced. + +To accomplish this end three lines of treatment must be followed. First, a +proper course of diet; second, drugs; and third, certain manual +operations. As to diet, the Archbishop was ordered to take nothing but +light and cooling food, two to four pints of asses' milk in the early +morning, drawn from an ass fed on cooling herbs, and to use all such foods +as had a fattening tendency; tortoise or turtle-soup,[149] distilled +snails, barley-water and chicken-broth, and divers other rich edibles. The +purging of the brain was a serious business; it was to be compassed by an +application to the coronal suture of an ointment made of Greek pitch, +ship's tar, white mustard, euphorbium, and honey of anathardus: the +compound to be sharpened, if necessary, by the addition of blister fly, or +rendered less searching by leaving out the euphorbium and mustard. Cardan +adds, that, by the use of this persuasive application, he had sometimes +brought out two pints of water in twenty-four hours. The use of the +shower-bath and plentiful rubbing with dry cloths was also recommended. + +The purging of the body was largely a question of diet. To prevent +generation of moisture, perfumes were to be used; the patient was to sleep +on raw silk and not upon feathers, and to let an hour and a half come +between supper and bed-time. Sleep, after all, was the great thing to be +sought. The Archbishop was counselled to sleep from seven to ten hours, +and to subtract time from his studies and his business and add the same to +sleep.[150] + +Cardan's treatment, which seems to have been suggested as much by the man +of common-sense as by the physician, soon began to tell favourably upon +the Archbishop. He remained for thirty-five days in charge of his patient, +during which time the distemper lost its virulence and the patient gained +flesh. In the meantime the fame of his skill had spread abroad, and +well-nigh the whole nobility of Scotland flocked to consult him,[151] and +they paid him so liberally that on one day he made nineteen golden crowns. +But when winter began to draw near, Cardan felt that it was time to move +southward. He feared the cold; he longed to get back to his sons, and he +was greatly troubled by the continued ill-behaviour of one of the servants +he had brought with him--"maledicus, invidus, avarissimus, Dei +contemptor;" but he found his patient very loth to let him depart. The +Archbishop declared that his illness was alleviated but not cured, and +only gave way unwillingly when Cardan brought forward arguments to show +what dangers and inconveniences he would incur through a longer stay. +Cardan had originally settled to return by way of Paris, but letters which +he received from his young kinsman, Gasparo Cardano, and from Ranconet, +led him to change his plans. The country was in a state of anarchy, the +roads being infested with thieves, and Gasparo himself had the bad fortune +to be taken by a gang of ruffians. In consequence of these things Cardan +determined to return by way of Flanders and the Empire. + +It was not in reason that Cardan would quit Scotland and resign the care +of his patient without taking the stars into his counsel as to the future. +He cast the Archbishop's horoscope, and published it in the _Geniturarum +Exempla_. It was not a successful feat. In his forty-eighth year, _i.e._ +in 1560, the astrologer declared that Hamilton would be in danger of +poison and of suffering from an affection of the heart. But the time of +the greatest peril seemed to lie between July 30 and September 21, 1554. +The stars gave no warning of the tragic fate which befell Archbishop +Hamilton in the not very distant future. For the succeeding six years he +governed the Church in Scotland with prudence and leniency, but in 1558 he +began a persecution of the reformers which kindled a religious strife, +highly embarrassing to the Catholic party then holding the reins of +power. His cruelties were borne in mind by the reformers when they got the +upper hand. In 1563 he was imprisoned for saying mass. In 1568 Mary, after +her escape from Loch Leven, gave the chief direction of her affairs into +the hands of the Archbishop, who was the bitter foe of the Regent Murray. +Murray having defeated the Queen's forces at Langside, Hamilton took +refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which was surprised and captured in 1571, when +the Archbishop was taken to Stirling and hanged. In the words of the +_Diurnal of Occurrants_: "as the bell struck six hours at even, he was +hangit at the mercat cross of Stirling upon a jebat."[152] His enemies +would not let him rest even there, for the next day, fixed to the tree, +were found the following verses: + + "Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto + Frondibus ut nobis talia poma feras." + +To return to Cardan. Having at last won from his patient leave to depart, +he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most +generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment +which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the French +Viceroy, he contrasts it with the liberal rewards granted to him in what +must then have been the poorest of the European kingdoms;[153] and in the +Preface of the _De Astrorum Judiciis_ (Basel, 1554) he writes in +sympathetic and grateful terms of the kind usage he had met in the +North.[154] It must have been a severe disappointment to him that he was +unable to revisit Paris on his way home, for letters from his friend +Ranconet told him that a great number of illustrious men had proposed to +repair to Paris for the sake of meeting him; and many of the nobles of +France were anxious to consult him professionally, one of them offering a +fee of a thousand gold crowns. But Cardan was so terrified by the report +given by Gasparo of the state of France, that he made up his mind he would +on no account touch its frontiers on his homeward journey. + +Before he quitted Scotland there had come to him letters from the English +Court entreating him to tarry there some days on his way home to Italy, +and give his opinion on the health of Edward VI., who was then slowly +recovering from an attack of smallpox and measles. The young King's +recovery was more apparent than real, for he was, in fact, slowly sinking +under the constitutional derangement which killed him a few months later. +Cardan could hardly refuse to comply with this request, nor is there any +evidence to show that he made this visit to London unwillingly. But he +soon found out that those about the Court were anxious to hear from him +something more than a statement of his opinion as to Edward's health. They +wanted, before all else, to learn what the stars had to say as to the +probable duration of the sovereign's life. During his stay in Scotland +Cardan would certainly have gained some intelligence of the existing +state of affairs at the English Court; how in the struggle for the custody +of the regal power, the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Protector, the +King's uncles, had lost their heads; and how the Duke of Northumberland, +the son of Dudley, the infamous minion of Henry VII. and the destroyer of +the ill-fated Seymours, had now gathered all the powers and dignities of +the kingdom into his own hands, and was waiting impatiently for the death +of Edward, an event which would enable him to control yet more completely +the supreme power, through the puppet queen whom he had ready at hand to +place upon the throne. An Italian of the sixteenth century, steeped in the +traditions of the bloody and insidious state-craft of Milan and the +Lombard cities, Cardan would naturally shrink from committing himself to +any such perilous utterance: all the more for the reason that he had +already formed an estimate of the English as a fierce and cruel people. +With his character as a magician to maintain he could scarcely keep entire +silence, so he wrote down for the satisfaction of his interrogators a +horoscope: a mere perfunctory piece of work, as we learn afterwards. He +begins by reciting the extraordinary nature of the King's birth, repeating +the legend that his mother was delivered of him by surgical aid, and only +lived a few hours afterwards; and declares that, in his opinion, it would +have been better had this boy never been born at all. "Nevertheless, +seeing that he had come into this world and been duly trained and +educated, it would be well for mankind were he to live long, for all the +graces waited upon him. Boy as he was, he was skilled in divers tongues, +Latin, English, and French, and not unversed in Greek, Italian, and +Spanish; he had likewise knowledge of dialectics, natural philosophy, and +music. His culture is the reflection of our mortal nature; his gravity +that of kingly majesty, and his disposition is worthy of so illustrious a +prince. Speaking generally, it was indeed a strange experience to realize +that this boy of so great talent and promise was being educated in the +knowledge of the affairs of men. I have not set forth his accomplishments, +tricked out with rhetoric so as to exceed the truth; of which, in sooth, +my relation falls short." Cardan next draws a figure of Edward's +horoscope, and devotes several pages to the customary jargon of +astrologers; and, under the heading "De animi qualitatibus," says: "There +was something portentous about this boy. He had learnt, as I heard, seven +languages, and certainly he knew thoroughly his own, French, and Latin. He +was skilled in Dialectic, and eager to be instructed in all subjects. When +I met him, he was in his fifteenth year, and he asked me (speaking Latin +no less perfectly and fluently than myself), 'What is contained in those +rare books of yours, _De rerum varietate_?' for I had dedicated these +manuscripts to his name.[155] Whereupon I began by pointing out to him +what I had written in the opening chapter on the cause of the comets which +others had sought so long in vain. He was curious to hear more of this +cause, so I went on to tell him that it was the collected light of the +wandering stars. 'Then,' said he, 'how is it, since the stars are set +going by various impulses, that this light is not scattered, or carried +along with the stars in their courses?' I replied: 'It does indeed move +with them, but at a speed vastly greater on account of the difference of +our point of view; as, for instance, when the prism is cast upon the wall +by the sun and the crystal, then the least motion of the crystal will +shift the position of the reflection to a great distance.' The King said: +'But how can this be done when no _subjectum_ is provided? for in the case +you quote the wall is the _subjectum_ to the reflection.' I replied: 'It +is a similar effect to that which we observe in the Milky Way, and in the +reflection of light when many candles are lighted in a mass; these always +produce a certain clear and lucent medium. _Itaque ex ungue leonem_.' + +"This youth was the great hope of good and learned men everywhere, by +reason of his frankness and the gentleness of his manners. He began to +take an interest in the Arts before he understood them, and to understand +them before he had full occasion to use them. The production of such a +personality was an effort of humanity; and, should he be snatched away +before his time, not only England, but all the world must mourn his loss. + +"When he was required to show the gravity of a king, he would appear to be +an old man. He played upon the lyre; he took interest in public affairs; +and was of a kingly mind, following thus the example of his father, who, +while he was over-careful to do right, managed to exhibit himself to the +world in an evil light. But the son was free from any suspicion of such a +charge, and his intelligence was brought to maturity by the study of +philosophy." + +Cardan next makes an attempt to gauge the duration of the King's life, and +when it is considered that he was a skilled physician, and Edward a sickly +boy, fast sinking into a decline, it is to be feared that he let sincerity +give way to prudence when he proclaimed that, in his fifty-sixth year the +King would be troubled with divers illnesses. "Speaking generally of the +whole duration of his life he will be found to be steadfast, firm, +severe, chaste, intelligent, an observer of righteousness, patient under +trouble, mindful both of injuries and benefits, one demanding reverence +and seeking his own. He would lust as a man, but would suffer the curse of +impotence. He would be wise beyond measure, and thereby win the admiration +of the world; very prudent and high-minded; fortunate, and indeed a second +Solomon." + +Edward VI. died on July 6, 1553, about six months after Cardan had +returned to Milan; and, before the publication of the _Geniturarum +Exempla_ in 1554, the author added to the King's horoscope a supplementary +note, explaining his conduct thereanent and shedding some light upon the +tortuous and sinister intrigues which at that time engaged the ingenuity +of the leaders about the English Court. Now that he was safe from the +consequences of giving offence, he wrote in terms much less guarded as to +the state of English affairs. It must be admitted that his calculations as +to the King's length of days, published after death, have no special value +as calculations; but his impressions of the probable drift of events in +England are interesting as the view of a foreigner upon English politics, +and moreover they exhibit in strong light the sinister designs of +Northumberland. Cardan records his belief that, in the fourth month of his +fifteenth year, the King had been in peril of his life from the plottings +of those immediately about him. On one occasion a particular disposition +of the sun and Mars denoted that he was in danger of plots woven by a +wicked minister, nay, there were threatenings even of poison.[156] He does +not shrink from affirming that this unfortunate boy met his death by the +treachery of those about him. As an apology for the horoscope he drew +when he was in England, he lays down the principle that it is inexpedient +to give opinions as to the duration of life in dealing with the horoscopes +of those in feeble health, unless you shall beforehand consult all the +directions and processes and ingresses of the ruling planets, "and if I +had not made this reservation in the prognostic I gave to the English +courtiers, they might justly have found fault with me." + +He next remarks that he had spent much time in framing this +horoscope--albeit it was imperfect--according to his usual practice, and +that if he had gone on somewhat farther, and consulted the direction of +the sun and moon, the danger of death in which the King stood would +straightway have manifested itself. If he had still been distrustful as to +the directions aforesaid, and had gone on to observe the processes and +ingresses, the danger would have been made clear, but even then he would +not have dared to predict an early death to one in such high position: he +feared the treacheries and tumults and the transfer of power which must +ensue, and drew a picture of all the evils which might befall himself, +evils which he was in no mood to face. Where should he look for protection +amongst a strange people, who had little mercy upon one another and would +have still less for him, a foreigner, with their ruler a mere boy, who +could protect neither himself nor his guest? It might easily come about +that his return to Italy would be hindered; and, supposing the crisis to +come to the most favourable issue, what would he get in return for all +this danger and anxiety? He calls to mind the cases of two soothsayers who +were foolish enough to predict the deaths of princes, Ascletarion, and a +certain priest, who foretold the deaths of Domitian and Galeazzo Sforza; +and describes their fate, which was one he did not desire to call down +upon himself. Although his forecast as to Edward's future was incomplete +and unsatisfactory, he foresaw what was coming upon the kingdom from the +fact that all the powers thereof, the strong places, the treasury, the +legislature, and the fleet, were gathered into the hands of one man +(Northumberland). "And this man, forsooth, was one whose father[157] the +King's father had beheaded; one who had plunged into confusion all the +affairs of the realm; seeing that he had brought to the scaffold, one +after the other, the two maternal uncles of the King. Wherefore he was +driven on both by his evil disposition and by his dread of the future to +conspire against his sovereign's life. Now in such a season as this, when +all men held their tongues for fear (for he brought to trial whomsoever he +would), when he had gained over the greater part of the nobles to his side +by dividing amongst them the spoil of the Church; when he, the most bitter +foe of the King's title and dignity, had so contrived that his own will +was supreme in the business of the State, I became weary of the whole +affair; and, being filled with pity for the young King, proved to be a +better prophet on the score of my inborn common-sense, than through my +skill in Astrology. I took my departure straightway, conscious of some +evil hovering anigh, and full of tears."[158] + +The above is Cardan's view of the machinations of the statesmen in high +places in the English Court during the last months of Edward's life. +Judged by the subsequent action of Northumberland it is in the main +correct; and, taking into consideration his associations and environment +during his stay in London, this view bears evident traces of independent +judgment. Sir John Cheke, the King's former preceptor, and afterwards +Professor of Greek at Cambridge, had received him with all the courtesy +due to a fellow-scholar, and probably introduced him at Court. Cheke was a +Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and just about this time was appointed Clerk +to the Privy Council, wherefore he must have been fully acquainted with +the aims and methods of the opposing factions about the Court. His +fellow-clerk, Cecil, was openly opposed to Northumberland's designs, and +prudently advanced a plea of ill health to excuse his absence from his +duties: but Cheke at this time was an avowed partisan of the Duke, and of +the policy which professed to secure the ascendency of the anti-Papal +party. Cardan, living in daily intercourse with Cheke, might reasonably +have taken up the point of view of his kind and genial friend; but no,--he +evidently rated Northumberland, from beginning to end, as a knave and a +traitor, and a murderer at least in will. + +When he quitted England in the autumn of 1552 Cardan did not shake himself +entirely free from English associations. In an ill-starred moment he +determined to take back to Italy with him an English boy.[159] He was +windbound for several days at Dover, and the man with whom he lodged seems +to have offered to let him take his son, named William, aged twelve years, +back to Italy. Cardan was pleased with the boy's manner and appearance, +and at once consented; but the adventure proved a disastrous one. The boy +and his new protector could not exchange a word, and only managed to make +each other understand by signs, and that very imperfectly. The boy was +resolute to go on while Cardan wanted to be rid of him; but his conscience +would not allow him to send him home unless he should, of his own free +will, ask to be sent, and by way of giving William a distaste for the life +he had chosen, he records that he often beat him cruelly on the slightest +pretext. But the boy was not to be shaken off. He persisted in following +his venture to the end, and arrived in Cardan's train at Milan, where he +was allowed to go his own way. The only care for his training Cardan took +was to have him taught music. He chides the unhappy boy for his +indifference to learning and for his love of the company of other youths. +What with his literary work and the family troubles which so soon fell +upon him, Cardan's hands were certainly full; but, all allowance being +made, it is difficult to find a valid excuse for this neglect on his part. +William grew up to be a young man, and was finally apprenticed to a tailor +at Pavia, but his knavish master set him to work as a vinedresser, +suspecting that Cardan cared little what happened so long as the young man +was kept out of his sight. William seems to have been a merry, +good-tempered fellow; but his life was a short one, for he took fever, and +died in his twenty-second year.[160] + +Besides chronicling this strange and somewhat pathetic incident, Cardan +sets down in the _Dialogus de Morte_ his general impressions of the +English people. Alluding to the fear of death, he remarks that the +English, so far as he has observed, were scarcely at all affected by it, +and he commends their wisdom, seeing that death is the last ill we have to +suffer, and is, moreover, inevitable. "And if an Englishman views his own +death with composure, he is even less disturbed over that of a friend or +kinsman: he will look forward to re-union in a future state of +immortality. People like these, who stand up thus readily to face death +and mourn not over their nearest ones, surely deserve sympathy, and this +boy (William) was sprung from the same race. In stature the English +resemble Italians, they are fairer in complexion, less ruddy, and broad in +the chest. There are some very tall men amongst them: they are gentle in +manner and friendly to travellers, but easily angered, and in this case +are much to be dreaded. They are brave in battle, but wanting in caution; +great eaters and drinkers, but in this respect the Germans exceed them, +and they are prone rather than prompt to lust. Some amongst them are +distinguished in talent, and of these Scotus and Suisset[161] may be given +as examples. They dress like Italians, and are always fain to declare that +they are more nearly allied to us than to any others, wherefore they try +specially to imitate us in habit and manners as closely as they can. They +are trustworthy, freehanded, and ambitious; but in speaking of bravery, +nothing can be more marvellous than the conduct of the Highland Scots, +who are wont to take with them, when they are led to execution, one +playing upon the pipes, who, as often as not, is condemned likewise, and +thus he leads the train dancing to death." Like as the English were to +Italians in other respects, Cardan was struck with the difference between +the two nations as soon as the islanders opened their mouths to speak. He +could not understand a single word, but stood amazed, deeming them to be +Italians who had lost their wits. "The tongue is curved upon the palate; +they turn about their words in the mouth, and make a hissing sound with +their teeth." He then goes on to say that all the time of his absence his +mind was full of thoughts of his own people in Italy, wherefore he sought +leave to return at once. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[146] _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 286 [ed. G. F. S. Gordon, Glasgow, +1867]. Naudé, in his _Apologie pour les grands hommes soupçonnez_ de +Magie, writes: "Ceux qui recherchoiant les Mathématiques et les Sciences +les moins communes étoient soupçonnez d'être enchanteurs et +Magiciens."--p. 15. + +[147] "Curam agebat Medicus ex constituto Medicorum Lutetianorum."--_De +Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 137. Cardan makes no direct mention of any other +physician in Scotland besides Cassanate; but the Archbishop would +certainly have a body physician in attendance during Cassanate's absence. + +[148] "Per totam tunicam sicut in linteis."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 128. + +[149] "Accipe testudinem maximam et illam incoque in aqua, donec +dissolvatur, deinde abjectis corticibus accipiantur caro, et ossa et +viscera omnia mundata."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 140. + +[150] Another piece of advice runs as follows: "De venere certe non est +bona, neque utilis, ubi tamen contingat necessitas, debet uti ea inter +duos somnos, scilicet post mediam noctem, et melius est exercere eam ter +in sex diebus pro exemplo ut singulis duobus diebus semel, quam bis in una +die, etiam quod staret per decem dies."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 135. + +[151] "Interim autem concurrebant multi, imo pené tota +nobilitas."--_Opera_, tom. l. p. 93. + +[152] _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 234. Larrey in his _History of England_ +seems to have given currency to the legend that Cardan foretold the +Archbishop's death. "S'il en faut croire ce que l'Histoire nous dit de ce +fameux Astrologe, il donna une terrible preuve de sa science à +l'Archevêque qu'il avoit gueri, lorsque prenait congé de lire, il lui tint +ce discours: 'Qu'il avoit bien pu le guerir de sa maladie; mais qu'il +n'étoit pas en son pouvoir de changer sa destinée, ni d'empêcher qu'il ne +fût pendu.'"--Larrey, _Hist. d'Angleterre_, vol. ii. p. 711. + +[153] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 101. + +[154] "Scotic[u=] nomen antea horruer[a=], eorum exemplo qui prius +coeperunt odisse quam cognoscere. Nunc cum ipsa gens per se humanissima +sit atque supra existimationem civilis, tu tamen tantum illi addis +ornamenti, ut longe nomine tuo jam nobilior evadat."--_De Astrorum +Judiciis_, p. 3. + +[155] Cardan evidently carried the MS. with him, for he writes (_Opera_, +tom. i. p. 72): "Hoc fuit quod Regi Angliæ Edoardo sexto admodum +adolescenti dum redirem a Scotia ostendi." + +[156] "Cumque ibi esset nodus eti[a=] venenum, quod utin[a=] +abfuerit."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 411. + +[157] Edmund Dudley, the infamous minister of Henry VII. + +[158] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 412. + +[159] In the prologue to _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 673, he +gives a full account of this transaction. Of the boy himself he writes: +"hospes ostendit mihi filium nomine Guglielmum, ætatis annorum duodecim, +probum, scitulum, et parentibus obsequentem. Avus paternus nomine +Gregorius adhuc vivebat, et erat Ligur: pater Laurentius, familia nobili +Cataneorum." + +[160] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 119. Cardan here calls him "Gulielmus _Lataneus_ +Anglus adolescens mihi charissimus." In the _De Morte_, however, he speaks +of him as "ex familia Cataneorum" (see last page). + +[161] Cardan writes (_De Subtilitate_, p. 444) that Suisset [Richard +Swineshead], who lived about 1350, was known as the Calculator; but +Kästner [_Gesch. der Math._ I. 50] maintains that the title Calculator +should be applied to the book rather than to the author, and hints that +this misapprehension on Cardan's part shows that he knew of Suisset only +by hearsay. The title of the copy of Suisset in the British Museum stands +"Subtilissimi Doctoris Anglici Suiset. Calculationes Liber," Padue [1485]. +Brunet gives one, "Opus aureum calculationum," Pavia, 1498. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +CARDAN travelled southward by way of the Low Countries. He stayed some +days at Antwerp, and during his visit he was pressed urgently to remain in +the city and practise his art. A less pleasant experience was a fall into +a ditch when he was coming out of a goldsmith's shop. He was cut and +bruised about the left ear, but the damage was only skin-deep. He went on +by Brussels and Cologne to Basel, where he once more tarried several days. +He had a narrow escape here of falling into danger, for, had he not been +forewarned by Guglielmo Gratarolo, a friend, he would have taken up his +quarters in a house infected by the plague. He was received as a guest by +Carlo Affaidato, a learned astronomer and physicist, who, on the day of +departure, made him accept a valuable mule, worth a hundred crowns. +Another generous offer of a similar kind was made to him shortly +afterwards by a Genoese gentleman of the family of Ezzolino, who fell in +with him accidentally on the road. This was the gift of a very fine horse +(of the sort which the English call Obinum), but, greatly as Cardan +desired to have the horse, his sense of propriety kept him back from +accepting this gift.[162] + +He went next to Besançon, where he was received by Franciscus Bonvalutus, +a scholar of some note, and then by Berne to Zurich. He must have crossed +the Alps by the Splugen Pass, as Chur is named in his itinerary, and he +also describes his voyage down the Lake of Como on the way to Milan, where +he arrived on January 3, 1553. Cardan was a famous physician when he set +out on his northward journey; but now on his return he stood firmly placed +by the events of the last few months at the head of his profession. +Writing of the material results of his mission to Scotland, he declares +that he is ashamed to set down the terms upon which he was paid, so +lavishly was he rewarded for his services. The offers made to him by so +many exalted personages to secure his permanent and exclusive attention +would indeed have turned the heads of most men. There was the offer from +the King of Denmark; another, in 1552, from the King of France at a salary +of thirteen hundred crowns a year; and yet another made by the agents of +Charles V., who was then engaged in his disastrous attack upon Metz. All +of them he refused: he had no inclination to share the perils of the +leaguer of Metz, and his sense of loyalty forbad him to join himself to +the power which was at that time warring against his sovereign. He speaks +also of another offer made to him by the Queen of Scotland of a generous +salary if he would settle in Scotland; but the country was too remote for +his taste. There is no authority for this offer except the _De Vita +Propria_, and it is there set down in terms which render it somewhat +difficult to identify the Queen aforesaid.[163] + +As soon as he entered Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Governor, desired to +secure his services as physician to the Duke of Mantua, his brother, +offering him thirty thousand gold crowns as honorarium; but, in spite of +the Governor's persuasions and threats, he would not accept the office. +When the news had come to Paris that Cardan was about to quit Britain, +forty of the most illustrious scientists of France repaired to Paris in +order to hear him expound the art of Medicine; but the disturbed state of +the country deterred him from setting foot in France. He refers to a +letter from his friend Ranconet as a testimony of the worship that was +paid to him, and goes on to say that, in his journeying through France and +Germany, he fared much as Plato fared at the Olympic games. + +In a passage which Cardan wrote shortly after his return from Britain, he +lets it be seen that he was not ill-satisfied with the figure he then made +in the world. He writes--"Therefore, since all those with whom I am +intimate think well of me for my truth and probity, I can let my envious +rivals indulge themselves as they list in the shameful habit of +evil-speaking. With regard to folly, if I now utter, or ever have uttered, +foolish words, let those who accuse me show their evidence. I, who was +born poor, with a weakly body, in an age vexed almost incessantly by wars +and tumults, helped on by no family influence, but forced to contend +against the bitter opposition of the College at Milan, contrived to +overcome all the plots woven against me, and open violence as well. All +the honours which a physician can possess I either enjoy, or have refused +when they were offered to me. I have raised the fortunes of my family, and +have lived a blameless life. I am well known to all men of worship, and to +the whole of Europe. What I have written has been lauded; in sooth, I +have written of so many things and at such length, that a man could +scarcely read my works if he spent his life therewith. I have taken good +care of my domestic affairs, and by common consent I have come off victor +in every contest I have tried. I have refused always to flatter the great; +and over and beyond this I have often set myself in active opposition to +them. My name will be found scattered about the pages of many writers. I +shall deem my life long enough if I come in perfect health to the age of +fifty-six. I have been most fortunate as the discoverer of many and +important contributions to knowledge, as well as in the practice of my art +and in the results attained; so much so that if my fame in the first +instance has raised up envy against me, it has prevailed finally, and +extinguished all ill-feeling."[164] + +These words were written before the publication of the _Geniturarum +Exempla_ in 1554. Cardan's life for the six years which followed was busy +and prosperous, but on the whole uneventful. The Archbishop of St. Andrews +wrote to him according to promise at the end of two years to give an +account of the results of his treatment. His letter is worthy of remark as +showing that he, the person most interested, was well satisfied with +Cardan's skill as a physician. Michael, the Archbishop's chief +chamberlain, was the bearer thereof, and as Hamilton speaks of him as +"epistolam vivam," it is probable that he bore likewise certain verbal +messages which could be more safely carried thus than in writing. A +sentence in the _De Vita Propria_,[165] mixed up with the account of +Hamilton's cure, seems to refer to this embassy, and to suggest that +Michael was authorized to promise Cardan a liberal salary if he would +accept permanent office in the Primate's household. Moreover, Hamilton +writes somewhat querulously about Cassanate's absence abroad on a visit to +his family, a fact which would make him all the more eager to secure +Cardan's services. His letter runs as follows--"Two of your most welcome +letters, written some months ago, I received by the hand of an English +merchant; others came by the care of the Lord Bishop of Dunkeld, together +with the Indian balsam. The last were from Scoto, who sent at the same +time your most scholarly comments on that difficult work of Ptolemy.[166] +To all that you have written to me I have replied fully in three or four +letters of my own, but I know not whether, out of all I have written, any +letter of mine has reached you. But now I have directed that a servant of +mine, who is known to you, and who is travelling to Rome, shall wait upon +you and salute you in my name, and bear to you my gratitude, not only for +the various gifts I have received from you, but likewise because my health +is well-nigh restored, the ailment which vexed me is driven away, my +strength increased, and my life renewed. Wherefore I rate myself debtor +for all these benefits, as well as this very body of mine. For, from the +time when I began to take these medicines of yours, selected and +compounded with so great skill, my complaint has afflicted me less +frequently and severely; indeed, now, as a rule, I am not troubled +therewith more than once a month; sometimes I escape for two months."[167] + +In the following year (1555) Cardan's daughter Chiara, who seems to have +been a virtuous and well-conducted girl, was married to Bartolomeo Sacco, +a young Milanese gentleman of good family, a match which proved to be +fortunate. Cardan had now reached that summit of fame against which the +shafts of jealousy will always be directed. The literary manners of the +age certainly lacked urbanity, and of all living controversialists there +was none more truculent than Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who had begun his +career as a man of letters by a fierce assault upon Erasmus with regard to +his _Ciceronianus_, a leading case amongst the quarrels of authors. +Erasmus he had attacked for venturing to throw doubts upon the suitability +of Cicero's Latin as a vehicle of modern thought; this quarrel was over a +question of form; and now Scaliger went a step farther, and, albeit he +knew little of the subject in hand, published a book of _Esoteric +Exercitations_ to show that the _De Subtilitate_ of Cardan was nothing but +a tissue of nonsense.[168] The book was written with all the heavy-handed +brutality he was accustomed to use, but it did no hurt to Cardan's +reputation, and, irritable as he was by nature, it failed to provoke him +to make an immediate rejoinder, a delay which was the cause of one of the +most diverting incidents in the whole range of literary warfare. + +Scaliger sat in his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no +notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the +spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Cæsar +the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of +abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was +touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal +result of his onslaught; still there can be little doubt that his mind was +filled with a certain satisfaction when he reflected that he was in sooth +a terrible assailant, and that his fist was heavier than any other man's. +In any case, he felt that it behoved him to make some sign, wherefore he +sat down and penned a funeral oration over his supposed victim, which is +worth giving at length.[169] + +"At this season, when fate has dealt with me in a fashion so wretched and +untoward that it has connected my name with a cruel public calamity, when +a literary essay of mine, well known to the world, and undertaken at the +call of duty, has ensued in dire misfortune, it seems to me that I am +bound to bequeath to posterity a testimony that, sharp as may have been +the vexation brought upon Jerome Cardan by my trifling censures, the grief +which now afflicts me on account of his death is ten times sharper. For, +even if Cardan living should have been a terror to me, I, who am but a +single unit in the republic of letters, ought to have postponed my own and +singular convenience to the common good, seeing how excellent were the +merits of this man, in every sort of learning. For now the republic is +bereft of a great and incomparable scholar, and must needs suffer a loss +which, peradventure, none of the centuries to come will repair. What +though I am a person of small account, I could count upon him as a +supporter, a judge, and (immortal gods) even a laudator of my +lucubrations; for he was so greatly impressed by their weighty merits, +that he deemed he would best defend himself by avoiding all comment on the +same, despairing of his own strength, and knowing not how great his powers +really were. In this respect he was so skilful a master, that he could +assuredly have fathomed the depths of every method and every device used +against him, and would thereby have made his castigation of myself to +serve as an augmentation of his own fame. He, in sooth, was a man of such +quality that, if he had deemed it a thing demanded of him by equity, he +would never have hesitated to point out to other students the truth of +those words which I had written against him as an accusation, while, on +the other hand, this same constancy of mind would have made him adhere to +the opinions he might have put forth in the first instance, so far as +these opinions were capable of proof. I, when I addressed my +_Exercitations_ to him during his life--to him whom I knew by common +report to be the most ingenious and learned of mortal men--was in good +hope that I might issue from this conflict a conqueror; and is there +living a man blind enough not to perceive that what I looked for was +hard-earned credit, which I should certainly have won by finding my views +confirmed by Cardan living, and not for inglorious peace brought about by +his death? And indeed I might have been suffered to have share in the +bounty and kindliness of this illustrious man, whom I have always heard +described as a shrewd antagonist and one full of confidence in his own +high position, for it was an easy task to win from him the ordinary rights +of friendship by any trifling letter, seeing that he was the most +courteous of mankind. It is scarcely likely that I, weary as I was, one +who in fighting had long been used to perils of all sorts, should thus +cast aside my courage; that I, worn out by incessant controversies and +consumed by the daily wear and tear of writing, should care for an +inglorious match with so distinguished an antagonist; or that I should +have set my heart upon winning a bare victory in the midst of all this +dust and tumult. For not only was the result which has ensued unlooked for +in the nature of things and in the opinion of all men qualified to judge +in such a case; it was also the last thing I could have desired to happen, +for the sake of my good name. My judgment has ever been that all men (for +in sooth all of us are, so to speak, little less than nothing) may so lose +their heads in controversy that they may actually fight against their own +interests. And if such a mischance as this may happen to any man of +eminence--as has been my case, and the case of divers others I could +recall--it shall not be written down in the list of his errors, unless in +aftertimes he shall seek to justify the same. It is necessary to advance +roughness in the place of refinement, and stubborn tenacity for +steadfastness. No man can be pronounced guilty of offence on the score of +some hasty word or other which may escape his lips; such a charge should +rather be made when he defends himself by unworthy methods. Therefore if +Cardan during his life, being well advised in the matter, should have kept +silent over my attempts to correct him, what could have brought me greater +credit than this? He would have bowed to my opinion in seemly fashion, and +would have taken my censures as those of a father or a preceptor. But +supposing that he had ventured to engage in a sharper controversy with me +over this question, is there any one living who would fail to see that he +might have gone near to lose his wits on account of the mental agitation +which had afflicted him in the past? But as soon as his superhuman +intellect had thoroughly grasped the question, it seemed to him that he +must needs be called upon to bear what was intolerable. He could not pluck +up courage enough to bear it by living, so he bore it by dying. Moreover, +what he might well have borne, he could not bring himself to bear, to wit +that he and I should come to an agreement and should formulate certain +well-balanced decisions for the common good. For this reason I lament +deeply my share in this affair, I who had most obvious reasons for +engaging in this conflict, and the clearest ones for inventing a story as +to the victory I hoped to gain; reasons which a man of sober temper could +never anticipate, which a brave man would never desire. + +"Cardan's fame has its surest foundation in the praise of his adversaries. +I lament greatly this misfortune of our republic: the causes of which the +parliament of lettered men may estimate by its particular rules, but it +cannot rate this calamity in relation to the excellences of this +illustrious personality. For in a man of learning three properties ought +to stand out pre-eminently--a spotless and gentle rule of life; manifold +and varied learning; and consummate talent joined to the shrewdest +capacity for forming a judgment. These three points Cardan attained so +completely that he seemed to have been made entirely for himself, and at +the same time to have been the only mortal made for mankind at large. No +one could be more courteous to his inferiors or more ready to discuss the +scheme of the universe with any man of mark with whom he might chance to +foregather. He was a man of kingly courtesy, of sympathetic loftiness of +mind, one fitted for all places, for all occasions, for all men and for +all fortunes. In reference to learning itself, I beg you to look around +upon the accomplished circle of the learned now living on the earth, in +this most fortunate age of ours; here the combination of individual talent +shows us a crowd of illustrious men, but each one of these displays +himself as occupied with some special portion of Philosophy. But Cardan, +in addition to his profound knowledge of the secrets of God and Nature, +was a consummate master of the humaner letters, and was wont to expound +the same with such eloquence that those who listened to him would have +been justified in affirming that he could have studied nothing else all +his life. A great man indeed! Great if he could lay claim to no other +excellence than this; and forsooth, when we come to consider the quickness +of his wit, his fiery energy in everything he undertook, whether of the +least or the greatest moment, his laborious diligence and unconquerable +steadfastness, I affirm that the man who shall venture to compare himself +with Cardan may well be regarded as one lacking in all due modesty. I +forsooth feel no hostility towards one whose path never crossed mine, nor +envy of one whose shadow never touched mine; the numerous and weighty +questions dealt with in his monumental work urged me on to undertake the +task of gaining some knowledge of the same. After the completion of the +Commentaries on Subtlety, he published as a kind of appendix to these that +most learned work the _De Rerum Varietate_. And in this case, before news +was brought to me of his death, I followed my customary practice, and in +the course of three days compiled an Excursus in short chapters. When I +heard that he was dead I brought them together into one little book, in +order that I also might lend a hand in this great work of his, and this +thing I did after a fashion which he himself would have approved, +supposing that at some time or other he might have held discourse with me, +or with some other yet more learned man, concerning his affairs."[170] + +It is a matter of regret that this cry of _peccavi_ was not published till +all the chief literary contemporaries of Scaliger were in their graves. As +it did not appear till 1621, the men of his own time were not able to +enjoy the shout of laughter over his discomfiture which would surely have +gone up from Paris and Strasburg and Basel and Zurich. Estienne and +Gessner would hardly have felt acute sorrow at a flout put upon Julius +Cæsar Scaliger. Crooked-tempered as he was, Cardan, compared with +Scaliger, was as a rose to a thistle, but there were reasons altogether +unconnected with the personalities of the disputants which swayed the +balance to Cardan's advantage. The greater part of Scaliger's criticism +was worthless, and the opinion of learned Europe weighed overwhelmingly on +Cardan's side. Thuanus,[171] who assuredly did not love him, and Naudé, +who positively disliked him, subsequently gave testimony in his favour. He +did not follow the example of Erasmus, and let Scaliger's abuse go by in +silence, but he took the next wisest course. He published a short and +dignified reply, _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, in which, from +title-page to colophon, Scaliger's name never once occurs. The gist of +the book may best be understood by quoting an extract from the criticism +of Cardan by Naudé prefixed to the _De Vita Propria_. He writes: "This +proposition of mine will best be comprehended by the man who shall set to +work to compare Cardan with Julius Cæsar Scaliger, his rival, and a man +endowed with an intellect almost superhuman. For Scaliger, although he +came upon the stage with greater pomp and display, and brought with him a +mind filled with daring speculation, and adequate to the highest flights, +kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical +philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of +argument he might find most advantageous in any other of the fields of +learning. Moreover, if any one shall give daily study to these celebrated +_Exercitations_, he will find therein nothing to show that Cardan is +branded by any mark of shame which may not be removed with the slightest +trouble, if the task be undertaken in a spirit of justice. For, in the +first place, who can maintain that Scaliger was justified in publishing +his _Exercitations_ three years after the issue of the second edition of +the _Libri de Subtilitate_, without ever having taken the trouble to read +this edition, and without exempting from censure the errors which Cardan +had diligently expunged from his book in the course of his latest +revision, lest he (Scaliger) should find that all the mighty labour +expended over his criticisms had been spent in vain? Besides, who does not +know that Cardan, in his _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, blunted the point +of all his assailant's weapons, swept away all his objections, and broke +in pieces all his accusations, in such wise that the very reason of their +existence ceased to be? Cardan, in sooth, was a true man, and held all +humanity as akin to him. There is small reason why we should marvel that +he erred now and again; it is a marvel much greater that he should only +have gone astray so seldom and in things of such trifling moment. Indeed I +will dare to affirm, and back my opinion with a pledge, that the errors +which Scaliger left behind him in these _Exercitations_ were more in +number than those which he so wantonly laid to Cardan's charge, having +sweated nine years over the task. And this he did not so much in the +interests of true erudition as with the desire of coming to blows with all +those whom he recognized as the chiefs of learning." + +During the whole dispute Cardan kept his temper admirably. Scaliger was a +physician of repute; and it is not improbable that the spectacle of +Cardan's triumphal progress back to Milan from the North may have aroused +his jealousy and stimulated him to make his ill-judged attack. But even on +the ground of medical science he was no match for Cardan, while in +mathematics and philosophy he was immeasurably inferior. Cardan felt +probably that the attack was nothing more than the buzzing of a gadfly, +and that in any case it would make for his own advantage and credit, +wherefore he saw no reason why he should disquiet himself; indeed his +attitude of dignified indifference was admirably calculated to win for him +the approval of the learned world by the contrast it furnished to the +raging fury of his adversary.[172] + +After the heavy labour of editing and issuing to the world the _De Rerum +Varietate_, and of re-editing the first issue of the _De Subtilitate_, +Cardan might well have given himself a term of rest, but to a man of his +temper, idleness, or even a relaxation of the strain, is usually irksome. +The _De Varietate_ was first printed at Basel in 1553, and, as soon as it +was out of the press, it brought a trouble--not indeed a very serious +one--upon the author. The printer, Petrus of Basel (who must not be +confused with Petreius of Nuremberg) took it upon him to add to Chapter +LXXX of the work some disparaging remarks about the Dominican +brotherhoods, making Cardan responsible for the assertion that they were +rapacious wolves who hunted down reputed witches and despisers of God, not +because of their offences, but because they chanced to be the possessors +of much wealth. Cardan remonstrated at once--he always made it his +practice to keep free from all theological wrangling,--but Petrus treated +the whole question with ridicule,[173] and it does not seem that Cardan +could have had any very strong feeling in the matter, for the obnoxious +passage is retained in the editions of 1556 and 1557. The religious +authorities were however fully justified in assuming that the presence of +such a passage in the pages of a book so widely popular as the _De +Varietate_ would necessarily prove a cause of scandal, and give cause to +the enemy to blaspheme. For Reginald Scot, in the eighth chapter of +_Discoverie of Witchcraft_, alludes to the passage in question in the +following terms: "Cardanus writeth that the cause of such credulitie +consisteth in three points: to wit in the imagination of the melancholike, +in the constancie of them that are corrupt therewith, and in the deceipt +of the Judges; who being inquisitors themselves against heretikes and +witches, did both accuse and condemne them, having for their labour the +spoile of their goods. So as these inquisitors added many fables hereunto, +least they should seeme to have doone injurie to the poore wretches, in +condemning and executing them for none offense. But sithens (said he) the +springing up of Luther's sect, these priests have tended more diligentlie +upon the execution of them; bicause more wealth is to be caught from them; +insomuch as now they deale so looselie with witches (through distrust of +gaines) that all is seene to be malice, follie, or avarice that hath beene +practised against them. And whosoever shall search into this cause, or +read the cheefe writers hereupon, shall find his words true." + +In 1554 Cardan published also with Petrus of Basel the _Ptolemæi de +astrorum judiciis_ with the _Geniturarum Exempla_, bound in one volume, +but he seems to have written nothing but a book of fables for the young, +concerning which he subsequently remarks that, in his opinion, grown men +might read the same with advantage. It is a matter of regret that this +work should have disappeared, for it would have been interesting to note +how far Cardan's intellect, acute and many-sided as it was, was capable of +dealing with the literature of allegory and imagination. He has set down +one fact concerning it, to wit that it contained "multa de futuris +arcana." The next year he produced only a few medical trifles, but in 1557 +he brought out two other scientific works which he characterizes as +admirable--one the _Ars parva curandi_, and the other a treatise _De +Urinis_. In the same year he published the book which, in forming a +judgment of him as a man and a writer, is perhaps as valuable as the _De +Vita Propria_ and the _De Utilitate_, to wit the _De Libriis Propriis_. +This work exists in three forms: the first, a short treatise, "cui titulus +est ephemerus," is dedicated to "Hieronymum Cardanum medicum, affinem +suum," and has the date of 1543. The second has the date of 1554, and, +according to Naudé, was first published "apud Gulielmum Rovillium sub +scuto Veneto, Lugduni, 1557." The third was begun in 1560,[174] and +contains comments written in subsequent years. The first is of slight +interest, the second is a sort of register of his works, amplified from +year to year, while the third has more the form of a treatise, and +presents with some degree of symmetry the crude materials contained in the +first. Having finished with his writings up to the year 1564, Cardan +lapses into a philosophizing strain, and opens his discourse with the +ominous words, "Sed jam ad institutum revertamur, déque ipso vitæ humanæ +genere aliquo dicamus." He begins with a disquisition on the worthlessness +of life, and repeats somewhat tediously the story of his visit to +Scotland. He gives a synopsis of all the sciences he had ever +studied--Theology, Dialectics, Arithmetic, Music, Optics, Astronomy, +Astrology, Geometry, Chiromancy, Agriculture, Medicine, passing on to +treat of Magic, portents and warnings, and of his own experience of the +same at the crucial moments of his life. He ends by a reference to an +incident already chronicled in the _De Vita Propria_,[175] how he escaped +death or injury from a falling mass of masonry by crossing the street in +obedience to an impulse he could not explain, and speculates why God, who +was able to save him on this occasion with so little trouble, should have +let him rush on and court the overwhelming stroke which ultimately laid +him low. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 100. + +[163] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16: "cum Scotorum Regina cujus levirum +curaveram." Cardan had probably prescribed for a brother of the Duc de +Longueville, the first husband of Mary of Guise, during his sojourn in +Paris. + +[164] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 459. + +[165] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 137. + +[166] _Commentaria in Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis_ (Basil, 1554). He +wrote these notes while going down the Loire in company with Cassanate on +his way from Lyons to Paris in 1552.--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175. + +He gives an interesting account (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110) as to how the +book first came under his notice. The day before he quitted Lyons with +Cassanate, a school-master came to ask for advice, which Cardan gave +gratis. Then the patient, knowing perhaps the physician's taste for the +marvellous, related how there was a certain boy in the place who could see +spirits by looking into an earthen vessel, but Cardan was little impressed +by what he saw, and began to talk with the school-master about Archimedes. +The school-master brought out a work of the Greek philosopher with which +was bound up the _Ptolemæi Libri de Judiciis_. Cardan fastened upon it at +once, and wanted to buy it, but the school-master insisted that he should +take it as a gift. He declares that his Commentaries thereupon are the +most perfect of all his writings. The book contains his famous Nativity of +Christ. A remark in _De Libris Propriis_ (cf. _Opera_, tom. i. p. 67) +indicates that there was an earlier edition of Ptolemy, printed at Milan +at Cardan's own cost, because when he saw the numerous mistakes made by +Ottaviano Scoto in printing the _De Malo Medendi_ and the _De +Consolatione_, he determined to go to another printer. + +[167] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 93. + +[168] Cardan notices the attack in these words--"His diebus quidam +conscripserat adversus nostrum de Subtilitate librum, Opus ingens. +Adversus quem ego Apologiam scripsi."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 117. Scaliger +absurdly calls his work the _fifteenth_ book of _Exercitations_, and +wished the world to believe that he had written, though not printed, the +fourteen others. + +[169] It was not printed until many years after the deaths of both +disputants, and appeared for the first time in a volume of Scaliger's +letters and speeches published at Toulouse in 1621, and it was afterwards +affixed to the _De Vita Propria_. + +[170] "Si Scaliger avoit eu un peu moins de démangeaison de contre dire, +il auroit acquis plus de gloire, qu'il n'a fait dans ce combat: mais, ce +que les Grecs ont apellé [Greek: ametria tês antholkês], une passion +excessive de prendre le contrepied des autres, a fait grand tort à +Scaliger. C'est par ce principe qu'il a soutenu que le perroquet est une +très laide bête. Si Cardan l'eût dit, Scaliger lui eût opposé ce qu'on +trouve dans les anciens Poètes touchant la beauté de cet oiseau. Vossius a +fait une Critique très judicieuse de cette humeur contrariante de +Scaliger, et a marqué en même temps en quoi ces deux Antagonistes étoient +supérieurs et inférieures, l'un à l'autre."--(Scaliger, in _Exercitat.,_ +246.) "Quia Cardanus psittacum commendarat a colorum varietate ac præterea +fulgore, quod et Appuleius facit in secundo Floridorum, contra contendit +esse deformem, non modo ob foeditatem rostri, ac crurum, et linguæ, sed +etiam quia sit coloris fusci ac cinericii, qui tristis. Quid faciamus +summo Viro? Si Cardanus ea dixisset, provocasset ad judicia poëtarum, +atque adeo omnium hominum. Nunc quia pulchri dixit coloris, ille deformis +contendit. Hoc contradictionis studium, quod ubique in hisce +exercitationibus se prodit, sophista dignius est, quamque +philosopho."--Bayle: Article "Cardan." (Sir Thomas Browne, in one of his +Commonplace Books, observes--"If Cardan saith a parrot is a beautiful +bird, Scaliger will set his wits on work to prove it a deformed animal.") + +Naudé (_Apologie_, ch. xiii.) says that of the great men of modern times +Scaliger and Cardan each claimed the possession of a guardian spirit, and +hints that Scaliger may have been moved to make this claim in order not to +be outdone by his great antagonist. It should, however, be remembered that +Cardan did not seriously assert this belief till long after his +controversy with Scaliger. Naudé sums up thus: "D'où l'on peut juger +asseurement, que lui et Scaliger n'ont point eu d'autre Genie que la +grande doctrine qu'ils s'étoient acquis par leurs veilles, par leurs +travaux, et par l'expérience qu'ils avoient des choses sur lesquelles +venant à élever leur jugement ils jugeoint pertinemment de toutes +matières, et ne laissoient rien échapper qui ne leur fust conneu et +manifeste." + +[171] Thuanus, ad Annum MDLXXVI, part of the Appendix to the _De Vita +Propria_. + +[172] Cardan does not seem to have harboured animosity against Scaliger. +In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xlviii. p. 198, he writes: "Julius Cæsar +Scaliger plures mihi titulos ascribit, quam ego mihi concedi postulassem, +appellans _ingenium profundissimum, felicissimum, et incomparabile_." + +[173] "Quid tua interest quod quatuor verba adjecerim? an hoc tantum +crimen est! quid facerem absens absenti?" Cardan writes on in meditative +strain: "Coeterum cum non ignorem maculatos fuisse codices B. Hieronimi, +atque aliorum patrum nostrorum, ab his qui aliter sentiebant, erroremque +suum auctoritate viri tegere voluerunt: ut ne quis in nostris operibus +hallucinetur vel ab aliis decipiatur, sciant omnes me nullibi Theologum +agere, nec velle in alienam messem falcem ponere."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +112. + +Johannes Wierus, one of the first rationalists on the subject of +witchcraft, has quoted largely from Chapter LXXX of _De Varietate_ in his +book _De Præstigiis Dæmonum_, in urging his case against the orthodox +view. + +[174] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 96. "Annus hic est Salutis millesimus +quingentesimus ac sexagesimus." + +[175] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 78. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE year 1555 may be held to mark the point of time at which Cardan +reached the highest point of his fortunes. After a long and bitter +struggle with an adverse world he had come out a conqueror, and his rise +to fame and opulence, if somewhat slow, had been steady and secure. He +longed for wealth, not that he might figure as a rich man, but so that he +might win the golden independence which permits a student to prosecute the +task which seems to subserve the highest purposes of true learning, and +frees him from the irksome battle for daily bread. He loved, indeed, to +spend money over beautiful things, and there are few more attractive +touches in the picture he draws of himself than the confession of his +passion for costly penholders, gems, rare books, vessels of brass and +silver, and painted spheres.[176] In this brief season of ease and +security, there were no flaming portents in the sky to foretell the cruel +stroke of evil fortune which was destined so soon to fall upon him. + +Cardan has left a very pathetic sketch of his own miserable boyhood in the +strangely ordered home in Milan, with his callous, tyrannical father, his +quick-tempered mother, and the superadded torment of his Aunt Margaret's +presence. Fazio Cardano was a man of rigorous sobriety, and he seems +moreover to have atoned for his early irregularities by the practice of +that austere piety which Jerome notices more than once as a characteristic +of his old age.[177] The discipline was hard, and the life unlovely, but +the home was at least decent and orderly, and no opportunities or +provocations to loose manners or ill doing existed therein. In Cardan's +own case it is to be feared that, after Lucia's death, the affairs of his +household fell into dire confusion, in spite of the presence of his +mother-in-law, Thadea, who had come to him as housekeeper--her husband, +Altobello, having died soon after the marriage of his daughter with +Cardan. He was an ardent lover of music, and, as a consequence, his house +would be constantly filled with singing men and boys, a tribe of somewhat +sinister reputation.[178] Then, when he was not engaged with music, he +would be gambling in some fashion or other. After lamenting the vast +amount of time he has wasted over the game of chess, he goes on: "But the +play with the dice, an evil far more noxious, found its way into my house; +and, after my sons had learned to play the same, my doors always stood +open to dicers. I can find no excuse for this practice except the trivial +one, that, what I did, I did in the hope of relieving the poverty of my +children."[179] In a home of this sort, ruled by a father who was +assuredly more careful of his work in the study and class-room than of his +duties as paterfamilias, it is not wonderful that the two young men, Gian +Battista and Aldo, should grow up into worthless profligates. It has been +recorded how Cardan, during a journey to Genoa, wrote a Book of Precepts +for his children,[180] a task the memory of which afterwards wrung from +him a cry of despair. There never was compiled a more admirable collection +of maxims; but, excellent as they were, it was not enough to write them +down on paper; and the young men, if ever they took the trouble to read +them, must have smiled as they called to mind the difference between their +father's practices and the precepts he had composed for their guidance. +Furthermore, he had written at length, in the _De Consolatione_, on the +folly which parents for the most part display in the education of their +children. "They show their affection in such foolish wise, that it would +be nearer the mark to say they hate, rather than love, their offspring. +They bring them up not to follow virtue, but to occupy themselves with all +manner of hurtful things; not to learning, but to riot; not to the worship +of God, but to foster in them the desire to drain the cup of lustful +pleasure; not for the life eternal, but to the enticements of +lechery."[181] + +At this time Gian Battista had gained the doctorate of medicine at Pavia, +and had made his contribution to medical knowledge by the publication of +an insignificant tract, _De cibis foetidis non edendis_. Cardan was +evidently full of hope for his elder son's career, but Aldo seems to have +been a trouble from the first. Yet, in casting Aldo's horoscope (probably +at the time of his birth) Cardan predicts for him a flourishing +future.[182] Never was there made a worse essay in prophecy. Aldo's +childhood had been a sickly one. He had well-nigh died of convulsions, and +later on he had been troubled with dysentery, abscesses of the brain, and +a fever which lasted six months. Moreover, he could not walk till he was +three years old. With a weakly body, his nature seems to have put forth +all sorts of untoward growths. There is a story which Naudé brings forward +as part of his indictment against Cardan, that the father being irritated +beyond endurance by some ill conduct of his younger son during supper, cut +off his ear by way of punishment. It was a most barbarous act; one going +far beyond the range of any tradition of the early _patria potestas_, +which may have yet lingered in Italy; and scarcely calculated to bring +about reformation in the youth thus punished. In any case, Aldo went on +from bad to worse; at one time his father found it necessary to place him +under restraint, and the last record of him is that one in Cardan's +testament, by which he was disinherited. + +Gian Battista's failings were doubtless grave and numerous, but he had at +least sufficient industry to qualify himself as a physician. He was +certainly his father's favourite child, and on this account the eulogies +written of him in those dark hours when Cardan's reason was reeling under +the accumulated blows of private grief and public disgrace, must be +accepted with caution. There is no evidence to show he was in intellect +anything like the budding genius his father deemed him; as to conduct and +manner of life, his carriage was exactly what the majority of youths, +brought up in a similar fashion, would have adopted. There must have been +something in the young man's humours which from the first made his father +apprehensive as to the future, for Cardan soon came to see that an early +marriage would be the surest safeguard for Gian Battista's future. With +his mind bent on this scheme, he pointed out to his son various damsels of +suitable station, any one of whom he would be ready to welcome into his +family, but Gian Battista always found some excuse for declining +matrimony. He declared that he was too closely engaged with his work; and, +over and beyond this, it would not be seemly to bring home a bride into a +house like their own, full of young men, for Cardan, as usual, had several +pupils living with him. It was at the end of 1557 that the first +forebodings of misfortune appeared. To Cardan, according to custom, they +came in the form of a portent, for he records how he lay awake at midnight +on December 20, and was suddenly conscious that his bed was shaking. He at +once attributed this to a shock of an earthquake, and in the morning he +demanded of the servant, Simone Sosia, who occupied the truckle bed in the +room, whether he had felt the same. Simone replied that he had, whereupon +Cardan, as soon as he arose, went to the piazza and asked of divers +persons he met there, whether they had also been disturbed, but no one had +felt anything of the shock he alluded to. He went home, and while the +family were at table, a messenger, sent, as he afterwards records, by a +certain woman of the town,[183] entered the room, and told him that his +son was going to be married immediately after breakfast. Cardan asked who +the bride might be, but the messenger said he knew not, and departed. It +is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon +as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst +over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and +setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good +family, of whom two were certainly enamoured of him. Any one of the four +would have been acceptable as a daughter-in-law, but he declared that now +he would insist upon having full information as to the antecedents of any +other bride his son might have selected, before admitting her to the +shelter of his roof. Over and over again had he counselled Gian Battista +that he must on no account marry in haste, or without his advice, or +without making sure that his income would be sufficient to support the +responsibilities of the married state; rather than this should happen, he +would willingly allow the young man to keep a mistress in the house for +the sake of offspring, for he desired beyond all else to rear +grandchildren from Gian Battista, because he nursed the belief that, as +the son resembled his grandfather Fazio, so the son's children would +resemble their grandfather--himself. When he was questioned, Gian Battista +declared he knew nothing about the report, and was fully as astonished as +his father; but two days later Gian Battista's own servant came to the +house, and announced that his master had been married that same +morning,[184] but that he knew not the name of the bride. Cardan now +ascertained that Gian Battista's disinclination for matrimony had arisen +from the fact that he had been amusing himself with a girl who was nothing +else than an attractive and finely-dressed harlot, named Brandonia Seroni, +the last woman in all Milan whom he could with decency receive into his +house. And the pitiful story was not yet complete. In marrying her the +foolish youth had burdened himself with her mother, two or more sisters, +and three brothers, the last-named being rough fellows without any calling +but that of common soldiers. The character of the girl herself may be +judged by the answer given by her father Evangelista Seroni to Cardan +during the subsequent trial. When Seroni was asked whether he had given +his daughter as a virgin in marriage, he answered frankly in the negative. + +Cardan at once made up his mind to shut his door upon the newly-married +pair; but the unconquerable tenderness he felt for Gian Battista urged him +on to send to the young man all the ready money he had saved. After two +years of married life, two children, a boy and a girl, were born: husband +and wife alike were in ill health, and every day brought its domestic +quarrel. In the meantime sinister whispers were heard, set going in the +first instance by the mother and sister of Brandonia, that Gian Battista +was the father neither of the first nor of the second child. They even +went so far as to designate the men to whom they rightly belonged, and +contrived that this rumour should come to the ears of the injured husband. +The consequence of their malignant tale-bearing was a quarrel more violent +than ever, and the rise of a resolution in Gian Battista's mind to rid +himself at all hazard of the accursed burden he had bound upon his +shoulders. + +Until the end of 1559 Cardan continued to live in Milan, vexed no doubt by +the ever-present spectacle of the wretched case into which his beloved son +had fallen. He records how the young wife, unknown to her husband, handed +over to her father the wedding-ring which he (Cardan) had given to his +son, along with a piece of silken stuff, in order to pledge them for +money. This outrage, joined to the certain conviction that his wife was +false to him, proved a provocation beyond the limits of Gian Battista's +patience, and finally incited him to make a criminal attempt upon +Brandonia's life. Hitherto he had been earnest enough in his desire to rid +himself of his wife so long as she raged against him; but, on the +restoration of peace, his anger against her would vanish. Now he had lost +all patience; he laid his plans advisedly, and set to work to execute them +by enlisting the cooperation of the servant who had been with him ever +since his marriage, and by taking to live with him in his own house +Seroni, his wife, and son and daughter.[185] It cannot be said that the +would-be murderer displayed at this juncture any of the traditional +Italian craft in setting about his deadly task. The day before the attempt +was made he took out of pawn the goods which Evangelista Seroni had +pledged, and promised his servant a gift of clothes and money if he would +compass the death of Brandonia, who was still ailing from the effects of +her second confinement. To this suggestion the servant, who had also +warned Gian Battista of his wife's misconduct, at once assented. + +But even on the very day when he had fully determined to make his essay in +murder he vacillated again and again, and it seemed likely that Brandonia +would once more be reprieved. When he entered her bed-chamber, full of his +resolve to strike for freedom, he found her lying gravely ill with an +attack of fever, shivering violently, and cold at the extremities. His +anger forthwith vanished, and his hand was stayed; but as if urged on by +ruthless fate, the mother-in-law, and the sister, and Brandonia herself, +ill as she was, attacked Gian Battista with the foulest abuse and +reproaches; this was the last straw. He went out and sought his servant, +and told the fellow at once to make a cake and put a poison therein. The +date of this fatal action was some day early in 1560. + +On October 1, 1559, Cardan had left Milan, and gone back to Pavia to +resume his work as professor, taking Aldo with him. He threw himself into +the discharge of his office and the life of the city with his customary +ardour. Over and above his work of teaching he completed his treatise _De +Secretis_, and likewise found time to hold a long disputation on the +decisions of Galen with Andrea Camutio, one of the most illustrious +physicians of the age. Concerning this episode he writes: "In disputation +I showed myself so keen of wit that all men marvelled at the instances I +brought forward, but for a long time no one ventured to put me to the +proof. Thus I escaped the trouble of any such undertaking until two +accidents both unforeseen involved me therein. At Pavia, Branda Porro, my +whilom teacher in Philosophy, interrupted me one day when I was disputing +with Camutio[186] on some matter of Philosophy, for, as I have said +before, my colleagues were wont to lead me on to argue in philosophy +because they were well assured that it would be vain to try to get the +better of me in Medicine. Now Branda began by advancing Aristotle as an +authority, whereupon I, when he brought out his citation, said, 'Take +care, you have left out the "_non_" which should stand after "_album_."' +Then Branda contradicted me, and I, spitting out the phlegm with which I +am often troubled, told him quietly that he was in the wrong. He sent for +the Codex in great rage, and when it was brought I asked that it might be +given to me. I then read out the words just as they stood; but he, as if +he suspected that I was reading falsely, snatched the volume out of my +hands, and declared that I was puting a cheat upon my hearers. When he +came to the word in dispute he held his tongue forthwith, and all the +others looked at me in amazement."[187] + +It is certain that Cardan was still vexed in mind by the trouble he had +left behind him at Milan. If he had not forgiven Gian Battista, he was +full of kindly thought of him. He sent him from Pavia a new silk cloak, +such as physicians wear, so that he might make a better show in his +calling, and doubtless continued his supplies of money. Just a week before +the quarrel last recorded, Aldo, against his father's wish, left Pavia and +returned to Milan. Cardan used every argument he could bring forward to +keep his younger son with him, but in vain; and, as he was unwilling to +put constraint upon him, Aldo departed. Cardan says that he was within an +ace of going with him, for the University was then in vacation: then the +crowning catastrophe might have been averted, but the same fate which was +driving on the son to destruction, kept the father at Pavia. Thus it +happened that Aldo was an inmate of his brother's house when the poisoned +cake was made. Cardan has written down a detailed account of the +perpetration of this squalid tragedy, and no clearer presentation can be +given than the one which his own words supply. + +He writes: "Thus my son and the servant went together to make the cake, +and the servant put therein secretly some of the poison which had been +given him. After the cake had been made, a small piece was given to my +son's wife, who was very ill at the time, but her stomach rejected it at +once. Her mother ate some of it, and likewise vomited after taking it. +Though Gian Battista saw what happened he did not believe that the cake +was really poisoned, for two reasons. First, because he had not, in truth, +ordered that the poison should be mixed therewith; and second, because his +brother-in-law (Bartolomeo Sacco) had said to him, before the cake was +finished, 'See that you make it big enough, for I also am minded to taste +it.' Next he gave some to his father-in-law, who straightway vomited, and +complained of a pricking of the tongue. He warned my son; but he, still +holding that the cake was harmless, ate thereof somewhat greedily; and, +after having been sick, had to lie by for some time. On the second day +after this Gian Battista, and his brother, and the servant as well were +taken in hold: and on the Sunday following I, having been informed of what +had happened, went to Milan in great anxiety as to what I should do." + +The news which had been brought to Cardan at Pavia told him, over and +beyond what is written above, that his son's wife was dead, poisoned as +every one believed through having eaten the cake, which had caused nausea +and pain to every one else who had tasted it.[188] The catastrophe was +accompanied by the usual portents. Some weeks previous to the attempt Gian +Battista had chanced to walk out to the Porta Tonsa, clad in the smart +silk gown which his father had recently given him, and as he was passing a +butcher's shop, a certain pig, one of a drove which was there, rose up out +of the mud and attacked the young physician and befouled his gown. The +butcher and his men, to whom the thing seemed portentous, drove off the +hog with staves, but this they could only do after the beast had wearied +itself, and after Gian Battista had gone away. Again, at the beginning of +February following, while Cardan was in residence as a Professor at Pavia, +he chanced to look at the palm of his hand, and there, at the root of the +third finger of the right hand, he beheld a mark like a bloody sword. That +same evening a messenger arrived from Milan with the news of his son's +arrest, and a letter from his son-in-law, begging him to come at once. The +mark on his hand grew and grew for fifty-three days, gradually mounting up +the finger, until the last fatal day, when it extended to the tip of the +finger, and shone bright like fiery blood. The morning after Gian +Battista's execution the mark had almost vanished, and in a day or two no +sign of it remained. + +Cardan hurried to Milan to hear from Bartolomeo Sacco, his son-in-law, the +full extent of the calamity. Probably there were few people in the city +who did not regard Gian Battista as a worthless fellow, whose death would +be a gain to the State and a very light loss to his immediate friends, but +Cardan was not of this mind. He turned his back upon his professional +engagements at Pavia, and threw himself, heart and soul, into the fight +for his son's life. He could not make up his mind as to Gian Battista's +recent conduct; if he ate of the cake, he surely could not have put in +poison himself, or directed others to do so; if, on the other hand, he had +poisoned the cake, Cardan feared greatly that, in the simplicity of his +nature, he would assuredly let his accusers know what he had done. And his +mind was greatly upset by the prodigies of which he had recently had +experience. For some reason or other he did not visit the accused in +prison, or give him any advice as to what course he should follow, a piece +of neglect which he cites as a reproach against himself afterwards; but +certain associates of Gian Battista, and his fellow-captives as well, +urged him to assert his innocence, a course which Cardan recognized as the +only safe one. At the first examination the accused followed this counsel; +at the second he began to waver when the servant deposed that his master +had given him a certain powder to mix with Brandonia's food in order to +increase her flow of milk; and, later on, when confronted with the man +from whom he had received the poison, he confessed all; and, simpleton as +he was, admitted that for two months past his mind had been set upon the +deed, and that on two previous occasions he had attempted to administer to +her the noxious drug against the advice of his servant. From the first +Cardan had placed his hopes of deliverance in the intervention of the +Milanese Governor, the Duca di Sessa, who had not long ago consulted him +as physician,[189] but the Duke refused to interfere. The intervention of +an executive officer in the procedure of a Court of Justice was no rare +occurrence at that period, and Cardan was deeply disappointed at the +squeamishness or indolence of his whilom patient. He records afterwards +how the Duke met his full share of the calamities which fell upon all +those who were concerned in Gian Battista's condemnation;[190] and in the +_Dialogus Tetim_, a work which he wrote immediately after the trial, he +bewails afresh the inaction of this excellent ruler and the consequent +loss of his son.[191] + +For twenty days and more, while Gian Battista lay in prison, Cardan, +almost mad with apprehension and suspense, spent his time studying in the +library at Milan. Sitting there one day, he heard a warning voice which +told him that the thing he most feared had indeed come to pass. He felt +that his heart was broken, and, springing up, he rushed out into the +court, where he met certain of the Palavicini, the friends with whom he +was staying, and cried out, "Alas, alas, he was indeed privy to the death +of his wife, and now he has confessed it all, therefore he will be +condemned to death and beheaded." Then having caught up a garment he went +out to the piazza, and, before he had gone half-way he met his son-in-law, +who asked him in sorrowful tones whither he was going. Cardan answered +that he was troubled with apprehensions lest Gian Battista should have +confessed his crime, whereupon Bartolomeo Sacco told him that what he +feared had indeed come to pass. Gian Battista had admitted the truth of +the charge against him: he was ultimately put on his trial before the +Senate of Milan,[192] the President of the Court being one Rigone, a man +whom Cardan afterwards accused of partiality and of a hostile bias towards +the prisoner. Cardan himself stood up to defend his son; but with a full +confession staring him in the face, he was sorely puzzled to fix upon a +line of defence. This he perceived must of necessity be largely +rhetorical; and, after he had grasped the entire situation, he set to work +to convince the Court on two main points, first, that Gian Battista was a +youth of simple guileless character; and, second, there was no proof that +Brandonia had died of poison. A physician of good repute, Vincenzo +Dinaldo, swore that she had died of fever (_lipyria_), and not from the +effect of poison; and five others, men of the highest character, declared +that she bore no signs of poison, either externally or internally. Her +tongue and extremities and her body were not blackened, nor was the +stomach swollen, nor did the hair and nails show any signs of falling, +nor were the tissues eaten away. In the opening of his defence Cardan +attempted to discredit the character of Brandonia. He showed how great +were the injuries and provocations which Gian Battista had received from +her, and that she was a dissolute wanton; her father himself, when under +examination, having refused to say that she was a virgin when she left his +house to be married. He claimed justification for the husband who should +slay his wife convicted of adultery; and here, in this case, Brandonia was +convicted by her own confession. He maintained that, if homicide is to be +committed at all, poison is preferable to the knife, and then he went on +to weave a web of ineffectual casuistry in support of his view, which +moved the Court to pity and contempt. He cited the _Lex Cornelia_, which +doomed the common people to the arena, and the patricians to exile, and +claimed the penalty last-named as the one fitting to the present +case.[193] Then he proceeded to show that the woman had really died from +natural causes; for, even granting that she had swallowed arsenic in the +cake, she had vomited at once, and the poison would have no time to do its +work; moreover there was no proof that Gian Battista had given specific +directions to anybody to mix poison with the ingredients of the cake. The +most he had done was to utter some vague words thereanent to his servant, +who forthwith took the matter into his own hands.[194] If Gian Battista +had known, if he had merely been suspicious that the cake was poisoned, +would he have let a crumb of it pass his lips; and if any large quantity +of poison had been present, would he and the other persons who had eaten +thereof have recovered so quickly? Cardan next went on to argue that, +whatever motive may have swayed Gian Battista at this juncture, it could +not have been the deliberate intent to kill his wife, because forsooth the +wretched youth was incapable of deliberate action of any sort. He could +never keep in the same mood for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch. He +nursed alternately in his heart vengeance and forgiveness, changing as +discord or peace ruled in his house. Cardan showed what a life of misery +the wretched youth had passed since his marriage. Had this life continued, +the finger of shame would have been pointed at him, he must have lost his +status as a member of his profession, and have been cut off from the +society of all decent people; nay, he would most likely have died by the +hand of one or other of his wife's paramours. This was to show how +powerful was the temptation to which the husband was exposed, and again he +sang the praises of poison as an instrument of "removal"; because if +effectively employed, it led to no open scandal. + +He next brought forward the simple and unsophisticated character of the +accused, and the physical afflictions which had vexed him all his life, +giving as illustrations of his son's folly the headlong haste with which +he had rushed into a marriage, his folly in giving an ineffectual dose, if +he really meant to poison his wife, in letting his plot be known to his +servant, and in confessing. Lastly, Cardan had in readiness one of his +favourite portents to lay before the Court. When Brandonia's brother had +come into the house and found his father and sister sick through eating +the cake, he suspected foul play and rushed at Gian Battista and at Aldo +who was also there, and threatened them with his sword; but before he +could harm them he fell down in a fit, his hand having been arrested by +Providence. Providence had thus shown pity to this wretched youth, and now +Cardan besought the Senate to be equally merciful. + +Cardan's pleas were all rejected; indeed such issue was inevitable from +the first, if the Senate of Milan were not determined to abdicate the +primary functions of a judicial tribunal. Gian Battista was condemned to +death, but a strange condition was annexed to the sentence, to wit that +his life would be spared, if the prosecutors, the Seroni family, could be +induced to consent. But their consent was only to be gained by the payment +of a sum of money entirely beyond Cardan's means, their demand having been +stimulated through some foolish boasting of the family wealth by the +condemned prisoner.[195] Cardan was powerless to arrest the course of the +law, and Gian Battista was executed in prison on the night of April 7, +1560. + +In the whole world of biographic record it would be hard to find a figure +more pathetic than that of Cardan fighting for the life of his unworthy +son. No other episode of his career wins from the reader sympathy half so +deep. The experience of these terrible days certainly shook still further +off its balance a mind not over steady in its calmest moments. Cardan +wrote voluminously and laboriously over Gian Battista's fate, but in his +dirges and lamentations he never lets fall an expression of detestation or +regret with regard to the crime itself: all his soul goes out in +celebrating the charm and worth of his son, and in moaning over the ruin +of mind, body, and estate which had fallen upon him through this cruel +stroke of adverse fate. When he sat down to write the _De Vita Propria_, +Cardan was strongly possessed with the belief that all through his career +he had been subject to continuous and extraordinary persecution at the +hands of his enemies. The entire thirtieth chapter is devoted to the +description of these plots and assaults. In his earlier writings he +attributes his calamities to evil fate and the influences of the stars; +his wit was indeed great, and assuredly it was allied to madness, so it is +not impossible that these personal foes who dogged his steps were largely +the creatures of an old man's monomaniacal fancies. The persecution, he +affirms, began to be so bitter as to be almost intolerable after the +condemnation of Gian Battista. "Certain members of the Senate afterwards +admitted (though I am sure they would be loth that men should hold them +capable of such a wish) that they condemned my son to death in the hope +that I might be killed likewise, or at least might lose my wits, and the +powers above can bear witness how nearly one of these ills befell me. I +would that you should know what these times were like, and what practices +were in fashion. I am well assured that I never wrought offence to any of +these men, even by my shadow. I took advice how I might put forward a +defence of some kind on my son's behalf, but what arguments would have +prevailed with minds so exasperated against me as were theirs?"[196] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[176] _De Vita Propria_, p. 57. + +[177] "In ore illud semper ei erat: Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum, qui +ipse est fons omnium virtutum."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iii. p. 7. +Reginald Scot, in the _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, says that the aforesaid +exclamation of Fazio was the Paracelsian charm to drive away spirits that +haunt any house. There is a passage in _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. +p. 600) which gives Fazio's view of happiness after death:--"Memineram +patrem meum, Facium Cardanum, cum viveret, in ore semper habuisse, se +mortem optare, quod nullum suavius tempus experiretur, qu[a=] id in quo +profundissime dormiens omnium quæ in hac vita fiunt expers esset." + +[178] Cardan gives his impressions of musicians:--"Unde nostra ætate +neminem ferine musicum invenias, qui non omni redundat vitiorum genere. +Itaque hujusmodi musica maximo impedimento non solum pauperi et negotioso +viro est, sed etiam omnibus generaliter. Quin etiam virorum egregiorum +nostræ ætatis neminem musicum agnovimus, Erasmum, Alciatum, Budæum, +Jasonem, Vesalium, Gesnerum. At vero quod domum everterit meam, si dicam, +vera fatebor meo more. Nam et pecuniæ non levem jacturam feci, et quod +majus est, filiorum mores corrupi. Sunt enim plerique ebrii, gulosi, +procaces, inconstantes, impatientes, stolidi, inertes, omnisque libidinis +genere coinquinati. Optimi quique inter illos stulti sunt."--_De +Utilitate_, p. 362. + +[179] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xiii. p. 45. + +[180] "Quid profuit hæc tua industria, quis infelicior in filiis? quorum +alter male periit: alter nec regi potest nec regere?"--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +109. + +[181] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 614. + +[182] "In cæteris erit elegans, splendidus, humanus, gravis et qui ab +omnibus, potentioribusque, præsertim probetur."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. +464. + +[183] "A scorto nuntius venit."--_De Utilitate_, p. 833. + +[184] This incident is taken from the _De Utilitate_, which was written +soon after the events chronicled. The account given in the _De Vita +Propria_, written twenty years later, differs in some details. "Venio +domum, accurrit famulus admodum tristis, nunciat Johannem Baptistam +duxisse uxorem Brandoniam Seronam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 147. + +[185] Cardan in describing this action of Gian Battista, who was then +determined to murder his wife, says of him: "Erat enim natura clemens +admodum et gratus."--_De Utilitate_, p. 834. + +[186] "Triduana illa disceptatio Papiæ cum Camutio instituta, publicata +apud Senatum: ipse primo argumento primæ diei siluit."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xii. p. 37. This does not exactly tally with Camutio's version. With +regard to Cardan's assertion that his colleagues hesitated to meet him in +medical discussion it may be noted that Camutio printed a book at Pavia in +1563, with the following title: "Andrææ Camutii disputationes quibus +Hieronymi Cardani magni nominis viri conclusiones infirmantur, Galenus ab +ejusdem injuria vindicatur, Hippocratis præterea aliquot loca diligentius +multo quam unquam alias explicantur." In his version (_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xii. p. 37) Cardan inquires sarcastically: "Habentur ejusdem imagines +quædam typis excusæ in Camutii monumentis." + +[187] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 39. The Third Book of the +_Theonoston_ (_Opera_, tom. ii. p. 403) is in the form of a disputation, +"De animi immortalite," with this same Branda. + +[188] In his defence at the trial Cardan affirmed that, while Brandonia +was lying sick from eating the cake, her mother and the nurse quarrelled +and fought, and finally fell down upon the sick woman. When the fight was +over Brandonia was dead. In _Opera_, tom. ii. p. 311 (_Theonoston_, lib. +i.) he writes: "Obiit illa non veneno, sed vi morbi atque Fato quo tam +inclytus juvenis morte sua, omnia turbare debuerat." + +[189] "Vocatus sum enim ad Ducem Suessanum ex Ticinensi Academia accepique +C. aureos coronatos et dona ex serico."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. +138. + +[190] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 153. + +[191] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 671. He cites the names of former Governors of +Milan and other patrons, many of them harsh men, and not one as kind and +beneficent as the Duca di Sessa; to wit Antonio Leva, Cardinal Caracio, +Alfonso d'Avalos, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Cardinal of Trent, and the Duca +d'Alba. Yet the rule of his best friend brought him his worst misfortune. + +[192] There is a full account of the trial in an appendix to the _De +Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda_ (Basel, 1561). It is not included in the +edition hitherto cited. + +[193] Laudabatur ejus benignitas aC simul factum Io. Petri Solarii +tabellionis, qui cum filium spurium convictum haberet de veneficio, in +duas sorores legitimas, solum hæreditatis consequendæ causa, satis habuit +damnasse illum ad triremes."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33. + +[194] "Evasit nuper ob constantiam in tormentis famulus filii mei, qui +pretio venenum dederat dominæ sine causa: periit filius meus, qui nec +jusserat dari."--_De Utilitate_, p. 339. + +[195] Gian Battista seems to have boasted about the family wealth, and +thus stirred up the Seroni to demand an excessive and impossible sum. "Hæc +et alia hujusmodi cum protulissem, non valere, nisi eousque, ut decretum +sit, si impetrare pacem potuissem vitæ parceretur. Sed non potuit filii +stultitia, qui dum jactat opes quæ non sunt, illi quod non erat +exigunt."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 34. + +[196] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +CARDAN had risen to high and well-deserved fame, and this fact alone might +account for the existence of jealousy and ill-feeling amongst certain of +those whom he had passed in the race. Some men, it is true, rise to +eminence without making more than a few enemies, but Cardan was not one of +these. His foes must have been numerous and truculent, the assault they +delivered must have been deadly and overwhelming to have brought to such +piteous wreck fortunes which seemed to rest upon the solid ground of +desert. The public voice might accuse him of folly, but assuredly not of +crime; he was the victim and not the culprit; his skill as a physician was +as great as ever, but these considerations weighed little with the hounds +who were close upon his traces. Now that the tide of his fortune seemed to +be on the ebb they gathered around him. He writes: "And this, in sooth, +was the chief, the culminating misfortune of my life: forasmuch as I could +not with any show of decency be kept in my office, nor could I be +dismissed without some more valid excuse, I could neither continue to +reside in Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As I walked +about the city men looked askance at me; and whenever I might be forced to +exchange words with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus, +being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I shunned my friends. I +had no notion what I should do, or whither I should go. I cannot say +whether I was more wretched in myself than I was odious to my +fellows."[197] + +Cardan gathered a certain amount of consolation from meditating over the +ills which befell all those who were concerned in Gian Battista's fate. +The Senator Falcutius, a man of the highest character in other respects, +died about four months later, exclaiming with his dying breath that he was +undone through the brutal ignorance of a certain man, who had been eager +for the death sentence. One Hala shortly afterwards followed Falcutius to +the grave, having fallen sick with phthisis immediately after the trial. +Rigone, the President of the Court, lost his wife, and gave her burial +bereft of the usual decencies of the last rite, a thing which Cardan says +he could not have believed, had he not been assured of the same by the +testimony of many witnesses. It was reported too, that Rigone himself, +though a man of good reputation, was forced to feign death in order to +escape accusation on some charge or other. His only son had died shortly +before, so it might be said with reason that his house was as it were +thrown under an evil spell by the avenging Furies of the youth whom he had +sent to die in a dungeon. Again, within a few days the prosecutor himself, +Evangelista Seroni, the man who was the direct cause of his son-in-law's +death, was thrown into prison, and, having been deprived of his office of +debt collector, became a beggar. Moreover, the son whom he specially loved +was condemned to death in Sicily, and died on the gallows. Public and +private calamity fell upon the Duca di Sessa,[198] the Governor of Milan, +doubtless because he had allowed the law to take its course. Indeed every +person great or small who had been concerned in Gian Battista's +condemnation, was, by Cardan's showing, overtaken by grave misfortune. + +Cardan still held his Professorship at Pavia, and in spite of the +difficulties and embarrassments of his position he went back to resume his +work of teaching a few days after the fatal issue of his son's trial and +condemnation. By the pathetic simplicity of its diction the following +extract gives a vivid and piteous picture of the utter desolation and +misery into which he was cast: it shows likewise that, after a lapse of +fifteen years, the memory of his shame and sorrow was yet green, and that +a powerful stimulus had been given to his superstitious fancies by the +events lately chronicled. "In the month of May, in the year MDLX, a time +when sleep had refused to come to me because of my grief for my son's +death: when I could get no relief from fasting nor from the flagellation I +inflicted upon my legs when I rode abroad, nor from the game of chess +which I then played with Ercole Visconti, a youth very dear to me, and +like myself troubled with sleeplessness, I prayed God to have pity upon +me, because I felt that I must needs die, or lose my wits, or at least +give up my work as Professor, unless I got some sleep, and that soon. Were +I to resign my office, I could find no other means of earning my bread: if +I should go mad I must become a laughing-stock to all. I must in any case +lavish what still remained of my patrimony, for at my advanced age I could +not hope to find fresh employment. Therefore I besought God that He would +send me death, which is the lot of all men. I went to bed: it was already +late, and, as I must needs rise at four in the morning, I should not have +more than two hours' rest. Sleep, however, fell upon me at once, and +meseemed that I heard a voice speaking to me out of the darkness. I could +discern naught, so it was impossible to say what voice it was, or who was +the speaker. It said, 'What would you have?' or 'What are you grieving +over?' and added, 'Is it that you mourn for your son's death?' I replied, +'Can you doubt this?' Then the voice answered, 'Take the stone which is +hanging round your neck and place it to your mouth, and so long as you +hold it there you will not be troubled with thoughts of your son.' Here I +awoke, and at once asked myself what this beryl stone could have to do +with sleep, but after a little, when I found no other means of escape from +my trouble, I called to mind the words spoken of a certain man: 'He hoped +even beyond hope, and it was accounted to him as righteousness' (spoken of +Abraham), and put the stone in my mouth, whereupon a thing beyond belief +came to pass. In a moment all remembrance of my son faded from my mind, +and the same thing happened when I fell asleep a second time after being +aroused."[199] + +The record of Cardan's life for the next two years is a meagre one. His +rest was constantly disturbed either by the machinations of his foes or by +the dread thereof, the evil last-named being probably the more noxious of +the two. As long ago as 1557 he had begun the treatise _De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda_, a work giving evidence of careful construction, and +one which, as a literary performance, takes the first rank.[200] This book +had been put aside, either through pressure of other work or family +troubles, but now the circumstances in which he found himself seemed +perfectly congenial for the elaboration of a subject of this nature, so he +set to work to finish it, concluding with the chapter _De Luctu_, which +has been used largely as the authority for the foregoing narrative of Gian +Battista's crime and death. At this period, when his mind was fully stored +and his faculties adequately disciplined for the production of the best +work, he seems to have realized with sharp regret that the time before him +was so short, and that whatever fresh fruit of knowledge he might put +forth would prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his +replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him +problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack +of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In +his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three +very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a +marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? If he had written this +treatise when he was thirty he would straightway have risen to fame and +fortune, in spite of his poverty, his rivals, and his enemies. Then, in +ten years' space, he would have finished and brought out all those books +which were now lying unfinished around him in his old age; and moreover +would have won so great gain and glory, that no farther good fortune +would have remained for him to ask for. Another work which he had begun +about the same time (1558) was the treatise on _Dialectic_, illustrated by +geometrical problems and theorems, and likewise by the well-known logical +catch lines _Barbara Celarent_. During the summer vacation of 1561 he +returned to Milan, and began a _Commentary on the Anatomy of Mundinus_, +the recognized text-book of the schools up to the appearance of Vesalius. +In the preface to this work he puts forward a vigorous plea for the +extended use of anatomy in reaching a diagnosis.[201] He had likewise on +hand the _Theonoston_, a set of essays on Moral subjects written something +in the spirit of Seneca; and, after Gian Battista's death, he wrote the +dialogue _Tetim, seu de Humanis Consiliis_. In the year following, 1561, a +farther sorrow and trouble came upon him by the death of the English +youth, William. If he was guilty of neglect in the case of this young +man--and by his own confession he was--he was certainly profoundly grieved +at his death. In the Argument to the _Dialogus de Morte_ he laments that +he ever let the youth leave his house without sending him back to England, +and tells how he was cozened by Daldo, the crafty tailor, out of a premium +of thirty-one gold crowns, in return for which William was to be taught a +trade. "But during the summer, Daldo, who had a little farm in the +country, took the youth there and let him join in the village games, and +by degrees made him into a vinedresser. But if at any time it chanced that +William's services were also wanted at the tailor's shop, his master would +force him to return thereto in the evening (for the farm was two miles +distant), and sit sewing all the night. Besides this the boy would go +dancing with the villagers, and in the course of their merry-making he +fell in love with a girl. While I was living at Milan he was taken with +fever, and came to me; but, for various reasons, I did not give proper +attention to him, first, because he himself made light of his ailment; +second, because I knew not that his sickness had been brought on by +excessive toil and exposure to the sun; and third, because, when he had +been seized with a similar distemper on two or three occasions before +this, he had always got well within four or five days. Besides this I was +then in trouble owing to the running away of my son Aldo and one of my +servants. What more is there to tell? Four days after I had ordered him to +be bled, messengers came to me in the night and begged me to go and see +him, for he was apparently near his end. He was seized with convulsions +and lost his senses, but I battled with the disease and brought him round. +I was obliged to return to Pavia to resume my teaching, and William, when +he was well enough to get up, was forced to sleep in the workshop by his +master, who had been bidden to a wedding. There he suffered so much from +cold and bad food that, when he was setting out for Pavia to seek me, he +was again taken ill. His unfeeling master caused him to be removed to the +poor-house, and there he died the following morning from the violence of +the distemper, from agony of mind, and from the cold he had suffered. +Indeed I was so heavily stricken by mischance that meseemed I had lost +another son." + +It was partly as a consolation in his own grief, and partly as a monument +to the ill-fated youth, that Cardan wrote the _Dialogus de Morte_, a work +which contains little of interest beyond the record of Cardan's +impressions of Englishmen already quoted. But it was beyond hope that he +should find adequate solace for the gnawing grief and remorse which +oppressed him in this, or any other literary work. He was ill looked upon +at Milan, but his position at Pavia seems to have been still more irksome. +He grew nervous as to his standing as a physician, for, with the powerful +prejudice which had been raised against him both as to his public and his +private affairs, he felt that a single slip in his treatment of any +particular case would be fatal to him. In Milan he did meet with a certain +amount of gratitude from the wealthier citizens for the services he had +wrought them; but in Pavia, his birthplace, the public mind was strongly +set against him; indeed in 1562 he was subjected to so much petty +persecution at the hands of the authorities and of his colleagues, that he +determined to give up his Professorship at all cost. He describes at great +length one of the most notable intrigues against him. "Now in dealing with +the deadly snares woven against my life, I will tell you of something +strange which befell me. During my Professorship at Pavia I was in the +habit of reading in my own house. I had in my household at that time a +woman to do occasional work, the youth Ercole Visconti, two boys, and +another servant. Of the two boys, one was my amanuensis and well skilled +in music, and the other was a lackey. It was in 1562 that I made up my +mind to resign my office of teaching and quit Pavia, a resolution which +the Senate took in ill part, and dealt with me as with a man transported +with rage. But there were two doctors of the city who strove with all +their might to drive me away: one a crafty fellow who had formerly been a +pupil of mine; the other was the teacher extraordinary in Medicine, a +simple-minded man, and, as I take it, not evil by nature; but covetous and +ambitious men will stop at nothing, especially when the prize to be won is +an office held in high esteem. Thus, when they despaired of getting rid +of me through the action of the Senate--what though I was petitioning to +be relieved of my duties--they laid a plot to kill me, not by the dagger +for fear of the Senate and of possible scandal, but by malignant craft. My +opponent perceived that he could not be promoted to the post of principal +teacher unless I should leave the place, and for this reason he and his +allies spread their nets from a distance. In the first place, they caused +to be written to me, in the name of my son-in-law[202] and of my daughter +as well, a most vile and filthy letter telling how they were ashamed of +their kinship with me; that they were ashamed likewise for the sake of the +Senate, and of the College; and that the authorities ought to take +cognizance of the matter and pronounce me unworthy of the office of +teacher and cause me to be removed therefrom forthwith. Confounded at +receiving such an impudent and audacious reproof at the hands of my own +kindred, I knew not what to do or say, or what reply I should make; nor +could I divine for what reason this unseemly and grievous affront had been +put upon me. It afterwards came to light that the letter was written in +order to serve as an occasion for fresh attacks; for, before many days had +passed, another letter came to me bearing the name of one Fioravanti, +written in the following strain. This man was likewise shocked for the +sake of the city, the college, and the body of professors, seeing that a +report had been spread abroad that I was guilty of abominable offences +which cannot be named. He would call upon a number of his friends to take +steps to compel me to consider the public scandal I was causing, and would +see that the houses where these offences were committed should be pointed +out. When I read this letter I was as one stupefied, nor could I believe +it was the work of Fioravanti, whom I had hitherto regarded as a man of +seemly carriage and a friend. But this letter and its purport remained +fixed in my mind and prompted me to reply to my son-in-law; for I believed +no longer that he had aught to do with the letter which professed to come +from him; indeed I ought never to have harboured such a suspicion, seeing +that both then and now he has always had the most kindly care for me; nor +has he ever judged ill of me. + +"I called for my cloak at once and went to Fioravanti, whom I questioned +about the letter. He admitted that he wrote it, whereupon I was more than +ever astonished, for I was loth to suspect him of crooked dealing, much +more of any premeditated treachery. I began to reason with him, and to +inquire where all these wonderful plans had been concocted, and then he +began to waver, and failed to find an answer. He could only put forward +common report, and the utterances of the Rector of the Gymnasium, as the +source of them."[203] + +Cardan goes on to connect the foregoing incident, by reasoning which is +not very clear, with what he maintained to have been a veritable attempt +against his life. "The first act of the tragedy having come to an end, the +second began, and this threw certain light upon the first. My foes made it +their special care that I, whom they held up as a disgrace to my country, +to my family, to the Senate, to the Colleges of Milan and Pavia, to the +Council of Professors, and to the students, should become a member of the +Accademia degli Affidati, a society in which were enrolled divers +illustrious theologians, two Cardinals, and two princes, the Duke of +Mantua, and the Marquis Pescara. When they perceived how loth I was to +take this step they began to threaten. What was I to do, broken down by +the cruel fate of my son, and suffering every possible evil? Finally I +agreed, induced by the promise they made me, that, in the course of a few +days, I should be relieved of my duties as Professor; but I did not then +perceive the snare, or consider how it was that they should now court the +fellowship of one whom, less than fifteen days ago, all ranks of the +College had declared to be a monster not to be tolerated. Alas for faith +in heaven, for the barbarity of men, for the hatred of false friends, for +that shamelessness and cruelty more fell than serpent's bite! What more is +there to tell? The first time I entered the room of the Affidati I saw +that a heavy beam had been poised above in such fashion that it might +easily fall and kill whatsoever person might be passing underneath. +Whether this had been done by accident or design I cannot say. But +hereafter I attended as rarely as possible, making excuses for my absence; +and, when I did go, I went when no one looked for me, and out of season, +taking good heed of this trap the while. Wherefore no evil befell me +thereby, either because my foes deemed it unwise to work such wickedness +in public, or because they had not finally agreed to put their scheme in +operation, or because they were plotting some fresh evil against me. +Another attempt was made a few days later, when I was called to the ailing +son of one Piero Trono, a surgeon; they placed high over the door a leaden +weight which might easily be made to fall, pretending that it had been put +there to hold up the curtain. This weight did fall; and, had it struck me, +it would certainly have killed me: how near I was to death, God knows. +Wherefore I began to be suspicious of something I could not define, so +greatly was my mind upset. Then a third attempt was made, which was +evident enough. A few days later, when they were about to sing a new Mass, +the same rascally crew came to me, asking me whether I would lend them the +services of my two singing boys, for my enemies knew well enough that +these boys acted as my cup-bearers, and over and beyond this they made an +agreement with my hired woman that she should give me poison. They first +went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he, +suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his +fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one +of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on +getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for +we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one +of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' Then +Ercole said somewhat vaguely that he would ask his master. He came to me, +having fathomed and laid bare the whole intention of the plot, so that, if +I had not been stark mad and stupid, I might easily have seen through +their design. Fifteen days or so had passed when the same men once more +sought me out and begged me to let them have the two boys to help them in +the performance of a comedy. Then Ercole came to me and said, 'Now in +sooth the riddle is plain to read; they are planning to get all your +people away from your table, so that they may kill you with poison; nor +are they satisfied with plotting your death merely by tricks of this sort; +they are determined to kill you by any chance which may offer."[204] + +How far these plots were real, and how far they sprang from monomania it +is impossible to say. Cardan's relations with his brother physicians had +never been of the happiest, and it is quite possible that a set may have +been made in the Pavian Academy to get rid of a colleague, difficult to +live with at the best, and now cankered still more in temper by +misfortune, and likewise, in a measure, disgraced by the same. Surrounded +by annoyances such as these, and tormented by the intolerable memories and +associations of the last few years, it is not wonderful that he should +seek a way out of his troubles by a change of scene and occupation. + +As early as 1536 Cardan had had professional relations with certain +members of the Borromeo family, which was one of the most illustrious in +Milan, and in 1560 Carlo Borromeo was appointed Archbishop of Milan. There +is no record of the date when Cardan first made acquaintance with this +generous patron, who was the nephew of the reigning Pope, Pius IV., +himself a Milanese, but it is certain that Cardan had at an earlier date +successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,[205] wherefore it +is legitimate to assume that the physician was _persona grata_ to the +whole family. As soon as Cardan had determined to withdraw from Pavia he +applied to the Cardinal, who had just made a magnificent benefaction to +Bologna in the form of the University buildings. He espoused Cardan's +interests at once, and most opportunely, for the protection of a powerful +personage was almost as needful at Bologna, as the sequel shows, as it +would have been at Pavia. It was evident that Cardan had foes elsewhere +than in Pavia; indeed the early stages of the negotiation, which went on +in reference to his transfer to Bologna, suggest a doubt whether the +change would bring him any advantage other than the substitution of one +set of enemies for another. He writes: "When I was about to be summoned +to teach at Bologna, some persons of that place who were envious of my +reputation sent a certain officer (a getter-up of petitions) to Pavia. Now +this fellow, who never once entered the class-room, nor had a word with +any one of my pupils, wrote, on what authority I know not, a report in +these words: 'Concerning Girolamo Cardano, I am told that he taught in +this place, but got no pupils, always lecturing to empty benches: that he +is a man of evil life, ill regarded by all, and little less than a fool, +repulsive in his manners, and entirely unskilled in medicine. After he had +promulgated certain of his opinions he found no one in the city who would +employ him, nor did he practise his art.' + +"These words were read to the Senate by the messenger on his return in the +presence of the illustrious Borromeo, the Pope's Legate to the city. The +Senate were upon the point of breaking off all further negotiations, but +while the man was reading his report, some one present heard the words in +which he declared that I did not practise medicine. 'Hui!' he cried, 'I +know that is not true, for I myself have seen divers men of the highest +consideration going to him for help, and I--though I am not to be ranked +with them--have often consulted him myself.' Then the Legate took up the +parole and said, 'I too bear witness that he cured my own mother when she +was given up by every one else.' Then the first speaker suggested that +probably the rest of the tale was just as worthy of belief as this one +statement, the Legate agreeing thereto; whereupon the messenger aforesaid +held his tongue and blushed for shame. Ultimately the Senate determined to +appoint me Professor for one year, 'for,' they said, 'if he should prove +to be the sort of man the officer describes, or if his teaching should +profit us nothing, we can let him go; but if it be otherwise, the +contract may be ratified.' With regard to the salary, over which a dispute +had already arisen, the Legate gave his consent, and the business came to +an end. + +"But, disregarding this settlement, my opponents urged one of their number +to wait upon me as a delegate from the Senate, and this man would fain +have added to the terms already sanctioned by the Senate, others which I +could not possibly accept. He offered me a smaller stipend, no teaching +room was assigned to me, and no allowance for travelling expenses. I +refused to treat with him, whereupon he was forced to depart, and to +return to me later on with the terms of my engagement duly set +forth."[206] + +It was in June 1562 that Cardan finally resigned his position at Pavia, +but it was not until some months after this date that the final agreement +with the Bolognese Senate, lately referred to, was concluded, and in the +interim he was forced to suffer no slight annoyance and persecution at the +hands of his adversaries in Pavia, in Bologna, and in Milan as well. Just +before he resigned his Professorship he was warned by the portentous +kindling of a fire, seemingly dead,[207] that fresh mischief was afoot, +and he at once determined in his mind that his foes had planned +destruction against him afresh. So impressed was he at this manifestation +that he swore he would not leave home on the day following. "But early in +the morning there came to my house four or five of my pupils bidding me to +a feast, where all the chief Professors of the Gymnasium and the Academy +proposed to be present. I replied that I could not come, whereupon +they, knowing that it was not my wont to dine in the middle of the day, +and deeming that it was on this score that I refused to join them, said, +'Then for your sake we will make the feast a supper.' I answered that I +could not on any account make one of their party, and then they demanded +to know the cause of my refusal. I replied it was because of a strange +event which had befallen me, and of a vow I had made thereanent. At this +they were greatly astonished, and two of them exchanged significant +glances, and they urged me again and again that I should not be so firmly +set upon marring so illustrious a gathering by my absence, but I gave back +the same answer as before."[208] They came a second time, but Cardan was +not to be moved. He records, however, that he did break his vow after all +by going out after dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill. + +It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in what seems, by +contemporary daylight, to have been a complimentary invitation to dinner; +but to the old man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this +episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault against his life. He +finds some compensation, however, in once more recording the fact that all +these disturbers of his peace--like the men who were concerned in Gian +Battista's condemnation--came to a bad end. His rival, who had taken his +place as Professor, had not taught in the schools more than three or four +times before he was seized with disease and died after three months' +suffering. "Upon him there lay only the suspicion of the charge, but I +heard afterwards that a friend of his was certainly privy to the deed of +murder which they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup of +poisoned wine at the supper. In the same year died Delfino, and a little +while after Fioravanti."[209] + +In July Cardan withdrew to Milan, where, to add to his other troubles, he +was seized with an attack of fever. He was now thoroughly alarmed at the +look of his affairs. Many of his fears may have been imaginary, but the +burden of real trouble which he had to carry was one which might easily +bring him to the ground, and, when once a man is down, the crowd has +little pity or scruple in trampling him to death. He set about to review +his position, and to spy out all possible sources of danger. He writes: "I +called to mind all the books I had written, and, seeing that in them there +were many obscure passages upon which an unfavourable meaning might be put +by the malice of my enemies, I wrote to the Council, submitting all my +writings to its judgment and will and pleasure. By this action I saved +myself from grave danger and disgrace in the future."[210] The Council to +which Cardan here refers was probably the Congregation of the Index +appointed by the Council at Trent for the authoritative examination of all +books before allowing them to be read by the faithful. Before the close of +the Council (1563) these duties had been handed over to the Pope (Pius +IV.), who published the revised and definite Roman Index in 1564. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[197] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71. + +[198] "Quin etiam dominus ac Princeps alioquin generosus et humanus, cum +ipsum ob invidiam meam et accusatorum multitudinem deseruisset, et ipse +multis modis conflictatus est gravibus morbis, cæde propriæ neptis à +conjuge suo, litibus gravibus: tum etiam subsecuta calamitas publica, +Zotophagite insula amissa, classe regia dissipata."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xli. p. 153. The island alluded to must have been _Lotophagites +insula_, an island near the Syrtes Minor on the African coast, and the +loss of the same probably refers to some disaster during the Imperialist +wars against the Moors. + +[199] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 160. + +[200] Cardan rates it as his best work on an ethical subject.--_Opera_, +tom i. p. 146. And on p. 115 he writes: "Utinam contigisset absolvere ante +errorem filii; neque enim ille errasset, nec errandi causam aliquam +habuisset: nec, etiamsi errasset, periisset." He also quotes a letter full +of sound and loving counsels which he had sent to Gian Battista six months +before he fell into the snare. + +[201] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 129. + +[202] Bartolomeo Sacco was evidently living at Pavia at this date. + +[203] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 83. + +[204] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 86. + +[205] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 55. + +[206] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 54. + +[207] _Ibid.,_ ch. xxx. p. 88. There is also a long account of this +occurrence in _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459. + +[208] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 89. + +[209] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 90. + +[210] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 460. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +WHILE Cardan was lying sick at Milan, a messenger came from Pavia, begging +him to hasten thither to see his infant grandson, who had been ailing when +he left Pavia, and was now much worse. The journey under the burning sun +of the hottest summer known for many years aggravated his malady, but he +brought the child out of danger. He caught erysipelas in the face, and to +this ailment succeeded severe trouble with the teeth. If it had not been +for the fact that the time of the new moon had been near, he says that he +must have submitted to blood-letting; but after the new moon his health +mended, and thus he escaped the two-fold danger--that of the disease, and +that of the lancet. He tells of an attempt made against his life by a +servant for the sake of robbery, an attempt which came very near success; +and of a severe attack of gout in the knee. After a month's confinement to +his house he began to practise Medicine; and, finding patients in plenty, +he nourished a hope that Fortune had done her worst, and that he might be +allowed to repair his shattered fortunes by the exercise of his calling, +but the activity of his adversaries--which may or may not have been +provoked solely by malignity--was unsleeping. He hints at further attempts +against his good name and his life, and gives at length some painful +details of another charge made against him of an infamous character. It +is almost certain that his way was made all the harder for him from the +complaints which he had put in print about the indifference of the Duca di +Sessa to his interests at the time of Gian Battista's trial. The Milanese +doctors had no love for him, and every petulant word he might let fall +would almost surely be brought to the Governor's ears. By Cardan's own +admission it appears that utterances of this sort were both frequent and +acrid. There was a certain physician of the city who wished to place his +son gratis in Cardan's household. Cardan, however, refused, whereupon the +physician in question called attention to a certain book in which Cardan +had made some remarks to the effect that the friendship of the Duca di +Sessa had been a fatal one to him, inasmuch as, having trusted too +entirely to this friendship for his support, he had let go other interests +which might have served him better. The physician aforesaid made a second +application to Cardan to receive his son, offering this time to intercede +with the Governor on his behalf. This proposition roused the old man's +anger, and he exclaimed that he had no need of such friendship or +protection; that in fact the interruption of their good understanding had +come about more by his own act than the Governor's, who had been either +unable or unwilling to save Gian Battista's life. The doctor replied, in +the presence of divers persons, that Gian Battista had perished through +his own foolishness: if he had not confessed he would never have been +condemned; that the Senate had condemned him and not the Duca di Sessa, +and that Cardan was now slandering this prince most unjustly. A lot of +busy-bodies had by this time been attracted by the wrangle, and these +heard the doctor's accusations in full, but gathered a very imperfect +notion of Cardan's reply. He indignantly denied this charge, and in his +own account of the scene he affirms that he won the approbation of all who +listened, by the moderation of his bearing and speech. + +Four days after this occurrence he again met this physician, who declared +he knew for certain that a kinsman of the Duca di Sessa, a hot-tempered +man, had just read some slanders written by Cardan about the Duke, and had +declared he would cut the writer in half and throw his remains into the +jakes; the physician went on to say that he had appeased this gentleman's +resentment, and that Cardan had now no cause for fear. Cardan at once saw +through the dishonesty of the fellow, who was not content with bringing +forward an unjust accusation, but must likewise subject him to these +calumnies and the consequent dangers. After a bout of wrangling, in which +the physician sought vainly to win from him an acknowledgment of the +service he had wrought, the malicious fellow shouted out to the crowd +which had gathered around them that Cardan persisted in his infamous +slanders against the Governor. Wanton as the charge was, Cardan felt that +with his present unpopularity it might easily grow into a fatal danger. +Might was right in Milan as far as he was concerned, but he determined +that he must make a stand against this pestilent fellow. By good luck he +met some friends, to whom he told the adventure; and while he was +speaking, the gentleman who was said to have threatened him, and the +slanderous physician as well, joined the gathering; whereupon one of +Cardan's friends repeated the whole story to the gentleman; who, as he was +quite unversed in letters, was hugely diverted at hearing himself set down +as a student, and told the physician that he was a fool, thereby +delivering Cardan at least from this annoyance. + +He had refused the terms which the party opposed to him in the Senate at +Bologna had sent for his acceptance, and was still waiting to hear whether +they would carry out their original propositions. It was during this time +of suspense that he was subjected to strange and inexplicable treatment at +the hands of the Milanese Senate, treatment which, viewed by the light of +his own report--the only one extant--seems very harsh and unjust. He +writes: "At the time when I was greatly angered by the action of the +Bolognese agent, four of the Senators persuaded me to seek practice once +more in Milan, wherefore I, having altered my plans, began to try to earn +an honest living, for I reckoned that the Senate of Milan knew that I had +rejected the offers from Bologna, since these offers were unjust in +themselves, and put before me in unjust fashion. But afterwards, although +the same iniquitous terms were offered to me, I accepted them, not indeed +because I was satisfied therewith, but because of my necessity, and so +that I might be free from those dangers which, as I have before stated, +pressed upon me in those days. The reason why I took this step was that +the Senate, by most unexpected action, removed my name from the lists of +those licensed to teach; nor was this all. They warned me by a message +that they had recently given hearing to a double charge against me of very +grave offences, and that nothing but my position, and the interests of the +College, kept them back from laying me in hold. Nevertheless, influenced +by these considerations, they had been moved to reduce my punishment to +that of exile. But neither my good fortune nor God deserted me; for on the +same day certain things came to pass by means of which I was able, with a +single word, to free myself from all suspicion upon either charge, and to +prove my innocence. Moreover, I forced them to admit that no mention of +this affair had ever been made before the Senate, although two graduates +had informed me that it had been discussed."[211] + +The Senate, however, was reluctant to stultify its late action, and +refused to restore Cardan's name to the list of teachers. But he was put +right in the sight of the world by the sharp censure pronounced by the +Senate upon those busy-bodies who had ventured to speak in its name. +Cardan's last days in Milan were cheered with a brief gleam of good +fortune. His foes seem to have overshot the mark, and to have aroused +sympathy for the old man, who, whatever his faults, was alike an honour to +his country and the victim of fortune singularly cruel. The city took him +under its protection, assured of his innocence as to the widespread +charges against him, and pitying his misfortunes. His friend Borromeo had +probably been forwarding his interests at the Papal Court, for he records +that, just at this time, certain Cardinals and men of weight wrote to him +from Rome in kindly and flattering terms. On November 16, 1562, the +messenger from the Senate of Bologna arrived at Milan, bearing an offer of +slightly more liberal terms. They were not so favourable as Cardan wished +for; but, even had they been worse, he would probably have closed with +them. In spite of the benevolent attitude of his well-wishers in Milan, it +irked him to be there; the faces in the streets, the town gossip, all +tended to recall to him the death of his son, so he departed at once to +take up his duties. + +At Bologna Cardan went first to live in a hired house in the Via Gombru. +Aldo was nominally a member of his household; but his presence must have +been a plague rather than a comfort to his father, and he took with him +likewise his orphan grandson, the son of Gian Battista and Brandonia, whom +he destined to make his heir on account of Aldo's ill conduct.[212] This +young man seems to have been a hopeless scoundrel from the first. The +ratio in which fathers apportion their affection amongst their offspring +is a very capricious one, and Cardan may have been fully as wide of the +mark in chiding his younger as he was in lauding the talents and virtues +of his elder son. But it is certain that on several occasions the +authorities shared Cardan's view of Aldo's ill behaviour. More than once +he alludes to the young reprobate's shameful conduct, and the intolerable +annoyance caused by the same. Many of the ancient rights of parents over +their children, which might to-day be deemed excessive, were still +operative in the cities of Italy, and Cardan readily invoked the help of +them in trying to work reformation of a sort upon Aldo, whom he caused to +be imprisoned more than once, and finally to be banished.[213] The +numerous hitches which delayed his final call to Bologna were probably due +to the fact that a certain party amongst the teachers there were opposed +to his appointment, and things did not run too smoothly after he had taken +up his residence in his new home. It was not in Cardan's nature, however +much he may have been cowed and broken down by misfortune, to mix with men +inimical to himself without letting them have a taste of his quality. He +records one skirmish which he had with Fracantiano, the Professor of the +Practice of Medicine, a skirmish which, in its details, resembles so +closely his encounter with Branda Porro, at Pavia, some time before, that +it suggests a doubt whether it ever had a separate existence, and was not +simply a variant of the Branda legend. "It happened that he (Fracantiano) +was giving an account of the passage of the gall into the stomach, and was +speaking in Greek before the whole Academy (he was making the while an +anatomical dissection), when I cried out, 'There is an "[Greek: ou]" +wanting in that sentence.' And as he delayed making any correction of his +error, and I kept on repeating my remark in a low voice, the students +cried out, 'Let the _Codex_ be sent for.' Fracantiano sent for it gladly. +It was brought at once, and when he came to read the passage, he found +that what I had affirmed was true to a hair. He spake not another word, +being overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment. Moreover the students, +who had almost compelled me to come to the lecture, were even more +impressed by what had happened. But from that day forth my opponent +avoided all meeting with me; nay, he even gave orders to his servants that +they should warn him whenever they might see me approaching, and thus he +contrived that we should never foregather. One day when he was teaching +Anatomy, the students brought me, by a trick, into the room, whereupon he +straightway fled, and having entangled his feet in his robe, he fell down +headlong. This accident caused no little confusion, and shortly afterwards +he left the place, being then a man well advanced in years."[214] + +He had not lived long in Bologna before he was fated to experience another +repetition of one of the untoward episodes of his past life, to wit the +fall of a house. It was not his own house this time, but it was +sufficiently near to induce him to change his abode without delay. Next +door to the house he had hired in the Via Gombru stood a palace belonging +to a certain Gramigna. "The entire house fell, and was ruined in a single +night, and together with the house perished the owner thereof." It was +believed that this man had divers powerful enemies, and, in order that he +might secure his position, he contrived to bring certain of his foes into +his house, having first made a mine of gunpowder under the portico, and +set a match thereto. But for some reason or other the plot miscarried the +night when he destined to carry it out. Gramigna went to see what was +amiss, and at that very moment the mine exploded and brought the house to +the ground. After this explosion Cardan moved to a house in the Galera +quarter, belonging to the family of Ranucci; but he did not find this +dwelling perfect, as he was forced to vacate the rooms which were most to +his taste on account of the bad state of the ceilings, the plaster of +which, more than once, fell down upon his head. + +In his _Paralipomena_, "the last fruit off an old tree," which he put +together about this time, there are numerous stories of prodigies and +portents; of doors which would not close, and doors which opened of their +own accord; of rappings on the walls, and of mysterious thunderings and +noises during the night. He tells, at length, the story, already referred +to, of the strange thing which happened to him, on the eve of his +departure from Pavia in 1562, while he was awaiting tidings from Rome as +to his appointment at Bologna. "I wore on the index finger of my right +hand a selenite stone set in a ring, and on my left a jacinth, which I +never took off my finger, this stone being large and hexagonal in shape. +I took the selenite from my finger and put it beneath my pillow, for I +fancied it kept off sleep, wearing still the jacinth because it appeared +to have the opposite effect. I slept until midnight, when I awoke and +missed the ring from my left hand. I called Jacopo Antonio, a boy of +fifteen years of age who acted as my servant and slept in a truckle bed, +and bade him look for my rings. He found the selenite at once where I had +placed it; but though we both of us sought closely for the jacinth we +could not find it. I was sorrowful to death on account of this omen, and +despair seized upon my soul when I remembered the dire consequences of +similar signs, all of which I had duly noted in my writings. I could +scarcely believe this to be a thing happening in the order of nature. +After a short delay I collected my thoughts, and told the servant to bring +a light from the hearth. He replied that he would rather not do this, that +he was afraid of the darkness, and that the fire was always extinguished +in the evening. I bade him light a candle with the flint, when he told me +that we had neither matches nor tinder nor sulphur. I persisted, and +determined that a light should be got by one means or another, for I knew +that, if I should go to sleep under so dire an omen, I must needs perish. +So I ordered him to get a light as best he could. He went away and raked +up the ashes, and found a bit of coal about the bigness of a cherry all +alight, and caught hold of it with the tongs. At the same time I had +little hope of getting a light, but he applied it to the wick of a lamp +and blew thereon. The wick was lighted without any flame issuing from the +live coal, which thing seemed to me a further marvel." + +After a search with the candle the ring was found on the floor under the +middle of the bed, but the marvel was not yet worked out: the ring could +not possibly have got into such a place unless it had been put there by +hand. It could not have rolled there, on account of its shape, nor could +it have fallen from the bed, because the pillow was closely joined to the +head of the bed, round which ran a raised edge with no rift therein. +Cardan concludes: "I know that much may be said over this matter, but +nothing, forsooth, which will convince a man, ever so little inclined to +superstition, that there was no boding sign manifested thereby, +foretelling the ruin of my position and good name. Then, having soothed my +mind, albeit I was well-nigh hopeless, I consoled myself with the belief +that God still protected me." After pondering long and anxiously over the +possible significance of this sign he took a more sanguine view of the +future. He next put the jacinth ring on his finger and bade the boy try to +pull it off, but he tried in vain, so well and closely did the ring fit +the finger. From this time forth Cardan laid aside this ring, after having +worn it for many years as a safeguard against lightning, plague, +wakefulness, and palpitation of the heart.[215] + +Many other instances of a like character might be given from the +_Paralipomena_; but the foregoing will suffice to show that the natural +inclination of Cardan's temper towards the marvellous had been aggravated +by his recent troubles. Also the belief that all men's hands were against +him never slumbered, but for this disposition there may well have been +some justification. Scarcely had he settled in Bologna before an intrigue +was set in motion against him. "After the events aforesaid, and after I +had gone to teach in Bologna, my adversaries, by a trick, managed to +deprive me of the use of a class-room, that is to say they allotted to me +an hour just about the time of dinner, or they gave the class-room at the +very same hour, or a little earlier, to another teacher. When I perceived +that the authorities were unwilling to accede to three distinct +propositions which I made to them, namely, that this other teacher should +begin his lecture sooner and leave off sooner: or that he should teach +alternately with me: I so far got my own way at the next election that the +other lecturer had to do his teaching elsewhere."[216] + +It would appear that the intrigues, of which Cardan gives so many +instances, must have been the work of certain individuals, jealous of his +fame and perhaps smarting under some caustic speech or downright insult, +rather than of the authorities; the Senate of Bologna showed no hostility +to him, but on the other hand procured for him the privileges of +citizenship. While the negotiations were going on at Bologna for the +further regulation of his position as a teacher, he tells a strange story +how, on three or four different occasions, certain men came to him by +night, in the name of the Senate and of the Judicial officers, and tried +to induce him to recommend that a certain woman, who had been condemned +for blasphemy, and for poisoning or witchcraft as well, should be +pardoned, both by the temporal and spiritual authorities, bringing forward +specially the argument that, in the sight of philosophers, such things as +demons and spirits did not exist. They likewise urged him to procure the +release from prison of another woman, who had not yet been condemned, +because a certain sick man had died under the hands of some other doctors. +They brought also a lot of nativities for him to read, as if he had been +a soothsayer, and not a teacher of medicine, but he would have nothing to +say to them.[217] + +It is somewhat strange that Cardan should have detected no trace of the +snare of the enemy in this manoeuvre. Bearing in mind the character of the +request made, and the fact that Cardan was by no means a _persona grata_ +to the petitioners, it seems highly probable that they might have been +more anxious to draw from Cardan a profession of his disbelief in +witchcraft, than to procure the enlargement of the accused persons whose +cause they had nominally espoused. At this period it was indeed dangerous +to be a wizard, but it was perhaps still more dangerous to pose as an +avowed sceptic of witchcraft. At the end of the fifteenth century the +frequency of executions for sorcery in the north of Italy had provoked a +strong outburst of popular feeling against this wanton bloodshed; but +Spina, writing in the interest of orthodox religion, deplores that +disbelief in the powers of Evil and their manifestations, always +recognized by the Church, should have led men on to profess by their +action any doubt as to the truth of witchcraft. But in spite of the +fulminations of men of this sort, from this time onwards the more +enlightened scholars of Europe began to modify their opinions on the +subject of demoniac possession, and of witchcraft in general. The first +book in which the new views were enunciated was the treatise _De +Præstigiis Dæmonum_, by Johann Wier, a physician of Cleves, published in +1563. The step in advance taken by this reformer was not a revolutionary +one. He simply denied that witches were willing and conscious instruments +of the malefic powers, asserting that what evil they wrought came about by +reason of the delusions with which the evil spirits infected the persons +said to be possessed. The devil afflicted his victims directly, and then +threw the suspicion of the evil deed upon some old woman. Wier's book was +condemned and denounced by the clergy--he himself was a Protestant--but +the most serious counterblast against it came from the pen of Jean Bodin, +the illustrious French philosopher and jurist. He held up Wier to +execration as an impious blasphemer, and asserted that the welfare of +Christendom must needs suffer great injury through the dissemination of +doctrines so detestable as those set forth in his book.[218] + +Seeing that such a spirit was dominant in the minds of men like Bodin, it +will be evident that a charge of impiety or atheism might well follow a +profession of disbelief, or even scepticism, as to the powers of witches +or of evil spirits. A maxim familiar as an utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, +"Ubi tres medici duo athei," was, no doubt, in common use in Cardan's +time; and he, as a doctor, would consequently be ill-looked upon by the +champions of orthodoxy, who would certainly not be conciliated by the fact +that he was the friend of Cardinal Morone. This learned and enlightened +prelate had been imprisoned by the savage and fanatical Paul IV., on a +charge of favouring opinions analogous to Protestantism, but Pius IV., the +easy-going Milanese jurisconsult, turned ecclesiastic, enlarged him by one +of the first acts of his Papacy, and restored him to the charge of the +diocese of Modena. + +Besides enjoying at Bologna the patronage of princes of the Church like +Borromeo and Morone, Cardan found there an old friend in Ludovico +Ferrari, who was at this time lecturing on mathematics. He also received +into his house a new pupil, a Bolognese youth named Rodolfo Sylvestro, who +was destined hereafter to bring as great credit to his teacher's name in +Medicine as Ferrari had already brought thereto in Mathematics. Rodolfo +proved to be one of the most faithful and devoted of friends; he remained +at Bologna as long as Cardan continued to live there, sharing his master's +ill-fortune, and ultimately accompanied him to Rome in 1571. He gives the +names of two other Bolognese students, Giulio Pozzo and Camillo Zanolino, +but of all his surviving pupils he rates Sylvestro as the most gifted. + +The records of Cardan's life at this period are scant and fragmentary, few +events being chronicled except dreams and portents. In giving an account +of one of these manifestations, which happened in September 1563, he +incidentally lets light upon certain changes and vicissitudes in his own +affairs. He was at this time living in an apartment in the house of the +Ranucci, next door to a half-ruined palace of the Ghislieri. One night he +awoke from sleep, and found that the neck-band of his shirt had become +entangled with the cord by which he kept his precious emerald and a +written charm suspended round his neck. He tried to disentangle the knot, +but in vain, so he left the complication as it was, purposing to unravel +it by daylight. He did not fall asleep; but, after lying quiet for a +little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot, +when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit. +"This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty +difficulties, and at the same time proved, as I have often said elsewhere, +that there must have been present something else unperceived by me. For +my affairs were in this condition: my son-in-law at Milan had the +administration of the scant remains of my property, and I received no +rents therefrom for a whole year. My literary work was lying at the +printer's, but it was not printed. Here, at Bologna, I was forced to +lecture without having a fixed hour assigned to me. A crowd of enemies +were intriguing against me. My son Aldo was in prison, and of little +profit to me. But immediately after this portent I learned that my two +chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the +lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to +live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next +describe what came to pass with regard to the others. + +"During the next July (1564), through the help of Francesco Alciati,[219] +the secretary of Pope Pius IV., a man to whom I am indebted for almost +every benefit I have received since 1561, I began to enjoy my own again. +On August 26 I received from the printer my books all printed with the +greatest care, and by reason of the dispatch of this business my income +was greatly increased. The next day my chief opponent resigned his office, +and left vacant a salary of seven hundred gold crowns. The only +manifestation of adverse fortune left to trouble me was the conspiracy of +the doctors against me, but there were already signs that this would +disappear before long, and in sooth it came to an end after the lapse of +another year."[220] + +During this portion of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived +comparatively alone, and to have spent his weary leisure in brooding over +his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the _De Libris +Propriis_, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over +Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily +come as a friend to those whose lives are wretched, he begins to speculate +whether, after all, he ought not to rejoice rather than mourn over his +son's death. "Certes he is rid of this miserable life of danger and +difficulty, vain, sorrowful, brief, and inconstant; these times in which +the major part of the good things of the world fall to the trickster's +share, and all may be enjoyed by those who are backed up by wealth or +power or favour. Power is good when it is in the hands of those who use it +well, but it is a great evil when murderers and poisoners are allowed to +wield it. To the ill-starred, to the ungodly, and to the foolish, death is +a boon, freeing them from numberless dangers, from heavy griefs, from +fatal troubles, and from infamy; wherefore in such cases it ought not to +be spoken of as something merely good or indifferent, but rated as the +best of fortune. Shall I not declare to God (for He willed the deed), to +myself, and to my surviving family, that my son's death was a thing to be +desired, for God does all justly, wisely, and lovingly? He lets me stand +as an example to show others that a good and upright man cannot be +altogether wretched. I am poor, infirm, and old; bereaved by a cruel wrong +of my best-loved son, a youth of the fairest promise, and left only with +the faintest hope of any ray of future good fortune, or of seeing my race +perpetuated after my death, for my daughter, who has been nine years +married, is barren. + +"At one time I was prosperous in every relation of life: in my +friendships, in my children, and in my health. In my youth I seemed to be +one raised up to realize the highest hopes. I was accustomed to all the +good things--nay, to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched, +despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable, +I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I +neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work +as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for +this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs +better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book which I +have lately published with those which I wrote some time ago, he will not +fail to perceive how vastly my intellect has gained in richness, in +vivacity, and in purity." + +Though the note of sorrow or even of despair is perceptible in these +sentences, there is no sign that the virile and elastic spirit of the +writer is broken. But there are manifest signs of an increasing tendency +towards mental detachment from the world which had used him so ill. With +the happiest of men the almost certain prospect of extinction at the end +of a dozen years usually tends to foster the growth of a conviction that +the world after all is a poor affair, and that to quit it is no great +evil. How strongly therefore must reflections of a kindred nature have +worked upon a man so cruelly tried as Cardan! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[211] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462. + +[212] "Sed filius minor natu adeò malè se gessit, ut malim transire in +nepotem ex primo filio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvi. p. 112. + +[213] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71. + +[214] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 40. + +[215] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459. + +[216] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56. + +[217] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxiii. p. 104. + +[218] This opinion prevailed with men of learning far into the next +century. Sir Thomas Browne writes: "They that doubt of these, do not only +deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sect not +of infidels, but atheists."--_Religio Medici, Works_, vol. ii. p. 89. + +[219] This was the Cardinal, the nephew of Andrea the great jurist, who +was also a good friend of Cardan. + +[220] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 463. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +AT the beginning of the year 1565 Cardan had a narrow escape from death by +burning, for his bed from some unknown cause caught fire twice in the same +night while he was asleep. The servant was disturbed by the smoke, and +having aroused his master, told him what was amiss, whereupon Cardan flew +into a violent rage, for he deemed that the youth must be drunk. But he +soon perceived the danger, and then they both set to work to extinguish +the flames. His own description of the occurrence is highly +characteristic. "Having put out the fire, I settled myself again to sleep, +and, while I was dreaming of alarms, and that I was flying from some +danger, it happened that either these terrifying dreams, or the fire and +smoke again aroused me, and, looking around, I found that the bed was once +more alight, and the greater part of it consumed. The vari-coloured +coverlet, the leather hangings, and all the covering of the bed was +unhurt. Thus this great alarm and danger and serious disturbance caused +only a trifling loss; less than half of the bed-linen was burnt, but the +blankets were entirely consumed. On the first alarm the flames burnt out +twice or thrice with little smoke, and caused scarcely any damage. The +second time the fire and the mishap forced me to rise just before dawn, +the fire lasting altogether about seven hours." + +There was naturally a warning sign to be found in this accident.[221] The +smoke, Cardan said, denoted disgrace; the fire, peril and fear; the flame, +a grave and pressing danger to his life. The smouldering fire signified +secret plots which were to be put into execution against him by his +servants while he lay in bed. And the fact that he set fire to the bed +himself, denoted that he would be able to meet any coming danger alone and +without assistance. The indictment against him was foreshadowed by the +fire and the flames and the smoke. Poison and assault were not to be +feared. Men might indeed ask questions as to what kind of danger it could +be which only arose from those about him, and fell short of poison and +violence. The fire, he goes on to say, signifies the Magistrate. More than +once it seemed to be extinct, but it always revived. Danger seemed to +threaten him less from open hostility than from the cunning flattery of +foes, and from over-confidence on his own part. His books, which he had +lately caused to be printed, appeared to be in grave peril, but a graver +one overhung his life. He deemed that he would quit the tribunal condemned +by the empty scandal of the crowd, suffering no slight loss, and worsted +chiefly through putting faith in false friends, and through his own +instability. On the whole, the loss would prove inconsiderable; the danger +moderate, but the vexation exceedingly heavy. These results might have +sprung from causes other than natural ones; but, on the other hand, such +things often come about through chance. They might prove to be a warning +to him to keep clear of hostile prejudice, and to make friends of those +in authority, care being taken not to let himself become involved in their +private affairs, and not to seek too close an acquaintance.[222] + +Up to this date, Cardan, when he visited his patients, had either walked +or ridden a mule. In 1562 he began to use a carriage, but this change of +habit brought ill luck with it, for, in this same year, his horses ran +away; he was thrown out of the vehicle, and sustained an injury to one of +the fingers of his right hand, and to the right arm as well.[223] The +finger soon healed, but the damage to the right arm shifted itself over to +the left side, leaving the right arm sound. The foregoing details, taken +chiefly from the _Paralipomena_ (Book III. ch. xii.), are somewhat +significant in respect to the serious trouble which came upon him soon +afterwards. + +Though he had now secured a class-room for himself, the malice of his +enemies was not yet abated. Just before the end of his term, certain of +them went to Cardinal Morone and told him that it would be inexpedient to +allow Cardan to retain his Professorship any longer, seeing that scarcely +any pupils went to listen to him. The terms Cardan used in describing this +hostile movement against him,[224] rouse a suspicion that there may have +been some ground for the assertion of his adversaries; but he declares +that, at any rate, he had a good many pupils from the beginning of the +session up to the time of Lent. He gives no clue whereby the date of this +intrigue may be exactly ascertained, but it probably happened near the end +of his sojourn at Bologna, because in his account of it he describes +likewise the cessation of his public teaching, and makes no mention of any +resumption of the same. He declares that he was at last overborne by the +multitude of his foes, and their cunning plots. Under the pretence that, +in seeking Cardan's removal, they were really acting for his benefit, they +succeeded in bringing Cardinal Morone round to their views. Cardan's final +words in dealing with this matter help to fix the date of this episode as +some time in 1570. Speaking of his enemies, he writes: "Nay indeed they +have given me greater leisure for the codification of my books, they have +lengthened my days, they have increased my fame, and, by procuring my +removal from the work which was too laborious for me, they secured for me +the pleasure I now enjoy in the discovery and investigation of divers of +the secrets of Nature. Therefore I constantly tell myself that I do not +hate these men, nor deem them blameworthy, because they wrought me an ill +turn, but because of the malignancy they had in their hearts."[225] + +It is almost certain that this removal of Cardan from his office of +teacher was part and parcel of a carefully-devised plot against him, and a +prelude to more serious trouble in the near future. Early in April 1570 he +had occasion to put into writing a certain medical opinion which was to be +sent to Cardinal Morone. He describes the episode: "It chanced that one of +the sheets of my manuscript fell from the table down upon the floor, and +then flew by itself up to the cornice of the room, where it hung, fixed to +the woodwork. Greatly amazed, I called for Rodolfo, and pointed out to him +this marvel. He did not indeed see it fly up, and at that time I was +ignorant as to what it might foretell, for I had no foreboding of the many +ills which were about to molest me. But now I see that the meaning of this +portent must have been that, after the approaching shipwreck of my +fortunes, my bark would be sped along with a more favouring breeze. It was +during the month following, unless I am mistaken, that, when I was once +more writing a letter to Cardinal Morone, I looked for a certain +powder-box which had been missing for some long time, and, when I lifted +up a sheet of paper in order to powder it with dust gathered up from the +floor of the room, there was the powder-box, hidden beneath the sheet. How +could it have come there on the level writing-desk? This sign confirmed +the hope I had already conceived of the Cardinal's wisdom and humanity; +that he would plead with the Pope, the best of men, in such wise that I +should find a prosperous end to my toilsome life."[226] + +The blow thus foreshadowed fell on October 6, 1570, when he was suddenly +arrested and put under restraint. He speaks of a bond which he gave for +eighteen hundred gold crowns; and says that, while he was in hold, all his +estate was administered by the civil authorities. Rodolfo Sylvestro was +constantly with him during his incarceration, and on January 1, 1571, he +was released, just at nightfall, and allowed to return to his own house. +While he was in prison in the month of October some mysterious knockings +at the door supplied him with a fulfilment and explanation of the +portents lately chronicled. The knockings appeared furthermore to warn him +of approaching death, and he began to bewail his misery; but, having +gathered courage, he heartened himself to face his doom, which could be +nothing worse than death. Young men, leaders of armies, courted death in +battle to win the favour of their sovereigns; wherefore he, a decrepit old +man, might surely await his end with calmness. He then wanders off into a +long disquisition on the philosophy of Polybius, and forgets entirely to +set down further details of his imprisonment, or to explain the cause +thereof. + +Pius IV. had died at the end of 1565, and had been succeeded by Michele +Ghislieri, the Cardinal of Alessandria, as Pius V. Like his predecessor, +the new Pope was a Milanese by birth, but in character and aims the two +Popes were entirely different. Pius. V. identified himself completely with +the work of the Holy Office, and straightway set in operation all its +powers for the extirpation of the heretical opinions which, on account of +the easy-going character of the late Pope, had made much progress in +Italy, and nowhere more than in Bologna. Von Ranke, in the _History of the +Popes_, gives an extract (vol. i. p. 97) from the compendium of the +Inquisitors, which sets forth that "Bologna was in a very perilous state, +because there the heretics were especially numerous; amongst them was a +certain Gian Battista Rotto, who enjoyed the friendship and support of +many persons of weight, such as Morone, Pole, and the Marchesa Pescara +(Vittoria Colonna). Rotto made himself very active in collecting money, +which he distributed amongst the poor folk of Bologna who were heretics." + +It will be remembered that in 1562, while he was waiting in Milan for the +appointment as Professor at Bologna, Cardan submitted his books to the +Congregation of the Index for approval. He was known to be a +fellow-citizen and friend of the reigning Pope: the _corpus_ of his work +had by that time reached a portentous size, wherefore it is quite possible +that the official readers may have been lenient, or cursory, over their +work; but when Pius V., the strenuous ascetic foe of heresy, stepped into +the place of the indolent Pius IV., jurist and politician rather than +Churchman, it is more than probable that certain amateur inquisitors at +Bologna, fully as anxious to work Cardan's ruin as to safeguard the faith, +may have busied themselves in hunting through his various works for +passages upon which to base a charge of unorthodoxy. Such passages were +not hard to find. There was the horoscope of Jesus Christ, which +subsequently affronted the piety of De Thou. There was the passage already +noticed in which he said such hard things of the Dominicans (_De Varietate +Rerum_, 1557, p. 572). He had indeed disclaimed it, but there it stood +unexpunged in the subsequent editions of the book; and, while considering +this detail, it may be remarked that Pius V. began his career as a member +of the Dominican Order, the practices of which Cardan had impugned. In the +first and second editions of the _De Subtilitate_ was another passage in +which the tenets of Islam and the circumstances of the birth of Christ +were handled in a way which caused grave scandal and offence.[227] This +passage indeed was expunged in the edition of 1560. The _Paralipomena_ +were not in print and available, but what can be read in them to-day +doubtless reflects with accuracy the attitude of Cardan's mind towards +religious matters in 1570. Though the _Paralipomena_ were locked in his +desk, it is almost certain that the spirit with which they were inspired +would have infected Cardan's brain, and prompted him to repeat in words +the views on religion and a future state which he had already put on +paper, for he rarely let discretion interfere with the enunciation of any +opinion he favoured. In the _Paralipomena_ are many passages written in +the spirit of universalism, and treating of the divine principle as +something which animates wise men alone, wise men and philosophers of +every age and every clime, Aristotle being the head and chief. Plato and +Socrates and the Seven Sages adorn this illustrious circle, which includes +likewise the philosophers of Chaldea and Egypt. Opinions like these were +no longer the passport to Papal favour or even toleration. The age of the +humanist Popes was past, and the Puritan movement, stimulated into life by +the active competition of the Reformers, was beginning to show its +strength, so that a man who spoke in terms of respect or reverence +concerning Averroes or Plato would put himself in no light peril. Thus for +those of Cardan's enemies who were minded to search and listen it must +have been an easy task to formulate against him a charge of heresy, +specious enough to carry conviction to such a burning zealot as Pius V. +This Pope, in his new regulations for the maintenance of Church +discipline, requisitioned the services of physicians in the detection of +laxity of religious practices, or of unsoundness. "We forbid," he says in +one of his bulls, "every physician, who may be called to the bedside of a +patient, to visit for more than three days, unless he receives an +attestation that the sick man has made fresh confession of his sins."[228] +Cardan, with his irritable temper, may very likely have treated this +regulation as an unwarrantable interference with his profession, and have +paid no attention to it. Again, he evidently followed Hippocrates in +rejecting the supernatural origin of disease; a position greatly in +advance of that held by certain of the leading physiologists of the +time.[229] Thus in more ways than one he may have laid himself open to +some charge of disrespect shown to religion or to the spiritual powers. +The absence of any other specific accusation and the circumstances of his +incarceration, taken in conjunction with the foregoing considerations, +almost compel the conclusion that his arrest and imprisonment in 1570 were +brought about by a charge of impiety whispered by some envious tongue +which will never now be identified. The sanction given by the authorities +of the Church to his writings in 1562, operated without doubt to mitigate +the punishment which fell upon him, and suffered him, after due purgation +of his offences, to enjoy for the residue of his days a life comparatively +quiet and prosperous under the patronage of Pius V. + +Though he was let out of prison he was not yet a free man. For some twelve +weeks longer he remained a prisoner in his own house, the bond for +eighteen hundred gold crowns having doubtless been given on this account. +Almost his last reflection about his life at Bologna is one in which he +records his satisfaction that all the men who plotted against him there +met their death soon after their attempt, thus sharing the fate of his +enemies at Milan and Pavia. If he is to be believed in this matter, the +Fates, though they might not shield him from attack, proved themselves to +be diligent and remorseless avengers of his wrongs. At the end of +September he turned his back upon Bologna and the cold hospitality it had +given him, and set forth on his last journey. He travelled by easy stages, +and entered Rome on October 7, 1571, the day upon which Don John of +Austria annihilated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto. + +There are evidences in his later writings beyond those already cited, that +Cardan's views on religion had undergone change during his sojourn at +Bologna. It was the custom, even with theologians of the time, to +illustrate freely from the classics, wherefore the spectacle of the names +of the great men of Greek and Roman letters, scattered thickly about the +pages of any book, would not prove or even suggest unorthodoxy. Cardan +quotes Plato or Aristotle or Plotinus twenty times for any saint in the +Calendar. He does not mention the Virgin more than once or twice in the +whole of the _De Vita Propria_; and, in discoursing on the immortality of +the soul, he cites the opinion of Avicenna, but makes no mention of either +saint or father.[230] The world of classic thought was immeasurably nearer +and more real to Cardan than it can be to any modern dweller beyond the +Alps: to him there had been no solution of continuity between classic +times and his own. When he sat down to write in the _Theonoston_ his +meditations on the death of his son, in the vain hope of reaping +consolation therefrom, he invoked the golden rule of Plotinus, which lays +down that the future is foreseen and arranged by the gods. Being thus +arranged, it must needs be just, for God is the highest expression of +justice. Against a fate thus settled for us we have no right to complain, +lest we should seem to be setting ourselves into opposition to God's will. +Here, although he writes in the spirit of a Christian, the authority cited +is that of a heathen philosopher, and the form of his meditations is taken +rather from Seneca than from father or schoolman. The devotional bias of +Cardan's nature seems to have been strengthened temporarily by the +terrible experiences of Gian Battista's trial and death; but in the course +of his residence at Bologna a marked reaction set in, and the fervent +religious outburst, in which he sought consolation during his intolerable +sorrow, was succeeded by a calmer mood which regarded the necessary evils +of life as transitory accidents, and death as the one and certain end of +sorrow, and perhaps of consciousness as well. What he wrote during his +residence in Rome he kept in manuscript; his recent experience at Bologna +warned him that, living under the shadow of the Vatican with Pius V. as +the ruler thereof, it behoved him to walk as an obedient son of the +Church. + +Cardan went first to live in the Piazza di San Girolamo, not far from the +Porto del Popolo, but subsequently he lived in a house in the Via Giulia +near the church of Santa Maria di Monserrato, where probably he died. He +had not long been settled in Rome before he was able to add a fresh +supernatural experience to his already overburdened list. In the month of +August 1572 he was lying awake one night with a lamp burning, when +suddenly he heard a loud noise to the right of the chamber, as if a cart +laden with planks was being unloaded. He looked up, and, the door being +open at the time, he perceived a peasant entering the room. Just as he +was on the threshold the intruder uttered the words, "_Te sin casa_," and +straightway vanished. This apparition puzzled him greatly, and he alludes +to it again in chapter xlvii. of the _De Vita Propria_. Ultimately he +dismisses it with the remark that the explanation of such phenomena is +rather the duty of theologians than of philosophers. + +With regard to matters of religious belief he seems to have taken as a +rule of conduct the remark above written, and left them to the care of +professional experts, for very few of his recorded opinions throw any +light upon his views of the dogmas and doctrines of the Church. Whatever +the tenor of these opinions may have been, he never proclaimed them +definitely. Probably they interested him little, for he was not the man to +keep silent over a subject which he had greatly at heart. He gave a +general assent to the teaching of the Church, taking up the mental +attitude of the vast majority of the learned men of his time, and expected +that the Church would do all that was necessary for him in its own +particular province. If he regarded Erasmus and Luther as disturbers of +the faith and heretics, he did not say so, nor did he censure their +activity. (Erasmus he praises highly in the opening words of the horoscope +which he drew for him.--_Gen. Ex.,_ p. 496.) But he had certainly no +desire to emulate them or give them his support. The world of letters and +science was wide enough even for his active spirit; the world lying behind +the veil he left to the exploration of those inquirers who might have a +taste for such a venture. Still every page of his life's record shows how +strong was his bent towards the supernatural; but the phase of the +supernatural which he chose for study was one which Churchmen, as a rule, +had let alone. Spirits wandering about this world were of greater moment +to him than spirits fixed in beatitude or bane in the next; and +accordingly, whenever he finds an opportunity, he discourses of +apparitions, lamiæ, incubi, succubi, malignant and beneficent genii, and +the methods of invoking them. Now that old age was pressing heavily upon +him and he began to yearn for support, he sought consolation not in the +ecstatic vision of the fervent Catholic, but in fostering the belief that +he was in sooth under the protection of some guardian spirit like that +which had attended his father and divers of the sages of old. Although he +had in his earlier days treated his father's belief with a certain degree +of respect and credence,[231] there is no evidence that he was possessed +with the notion that any such supernatural guardian attended his own +footsteps at the time when he put together the _De Varietate_; indeed it +would seem that his belief was exactly the opposite. He writes as follows: +"It is first of all necessary to know that there is one God, the Author of +all good, by whose power all things were made, and in whose name all good +things are brought to pass; also, that if a man shall err he need not be +guilty of sin. That there is no other to whom we owe anything or whom we +are bound to worship or serve. If we keep these sayings with a pure mind +we shall be kept pure ourselves and free from sin. What a demon may be I +know not, these beings I neither recognize nor love. I worship one God, +and Him alone I serve. And in truth these things ought not to be published +in the hearing of unlearned folk; for, if once this belief in spirits be +taken up, it may easily come to pass that they who apply themselves to +such arts will attribute God's work to the devil."[232] And in another +place: "I of a truth know of no spirit or genius which attends me; but +should one come to me, after being warned of the same in dreams, if it +should be given to me by God, I will still reverence God alone; to Him +alone will I give thanks, for any benefit which may befall me, as the +bountiful source and principle of all good. And, in sooth, the spirit may +rest untroubled if I repay my debt to our common Master. I know full well +that He has given to me, for my good genius, reason, patience in trouble, +a good disposition, a disregard of money and dignities, which gifts I use +to the full, and deem them better and greater possessions than the Demon +of Socrates."[233] + +About the Demon of Socrates Cardan has much to say in the _De Varietate_. +He never even hints a doubt as to the veracity and sincerity of Socrates. +He is quite sure that Socrates was fully persuaded of the reality of his +attendant genius, and favours the view that this belief may have been well +founded. He takes an agnostic position,[234] confining his positive +statement to an assertion of his own inability to realize the presence of +any ghostly minister attendant upon himself. In the _De Subtilitate_ he +tells an experience of his own by way of suggesting that some of the +demons spoken of by the retailers of marvels might be figments of the +brain. In 1550 Cardan was called in to see a certain woman who had long +been troubled with an obscure disease of the bladder. Every known remedy +was tried in vain, when one day a certain Josephus Niger,[235] a +distinguished Greek scholar, went to see the patient. Niger, according to +Cardan's account, was quite ignorant of medicine, but he was reputed to be +a skilled master of magic arts. The woman had a son, a boy about ten years +old, and Josephus having handed him a three-cornered crystal, which he had +with him, bade the youth secretly to look into it, and then declare, in +his mother's hearing, that he could see in the crystal three very terrible +demons going on foot. Then, after Josephus had whispered certain other +words in the boy's ear, the boy went on to say that he beheld another +demon, vastly bigger than the first, riding on horseback and bearing in +his hand a three-tined fork. This monster overthrew the other demons, and +led them away captive, bound with chains to his saddlebow. After listening +to these words the woman rapidly got well, and Cardan, in commenting on +the event, declares that she must have been cured either by the agency of +the demons or by the force of the imagination, inasmuch as it would be +difficult, if not impossible, to invent any other reason of her +recovery.[236] In another passage of the _De Subtilitate_ he displays +judicious reserve in writing of Demons in general.[237] + +During those terrible days, when his son had just died a felon's death, +and when he himself was haunted by the real dangers which beset him, and +almost maddened by the signs and tokens which seemed to tell of others to +come, the belief which Fazio his father had nourished easily found a +lodgment in his shaken and bewildered brain. In the _Dialogus de Humanis +Consiliis_, one of the speakers tells of a certain man who is clearly +meant to be Cardan himself. The speaker goes on to say that he is sure +this man is attended by a genius, which manifested itself to him somewhat +late in his life. "Aforetime, indeed, it had been wont to convey to him +warnings in dreams and by certain noises. What greater proof of his power +could there be than the cure of this man, without the use of drugs, of an +intestinal rupture on the right side? If indeed it had not fared with him +thus, after his son's death, he would at once have passed out of this +life, whereby many and great evils might have come to pass. He was freed +also from another troublesome ailment. In sooth, so many and so mighty are +the wonderful things which had befallen him, that I, who am very intimate +with him (and he himself thinks the same), am constrained to believe that +he is attended by a genius, great and powerful and rare, and that he is +not the master of his own actions. What he would have, he has not; and +what he has, he would not have chosen, or even wished for. This thing +causes him much trouble, but he submits when he reflects that all things +are God's handiwork." The speaker ends by saying that he never heard of +any others thus attended, save this man, and his father before him, and +Socrates.[238] + +But it is in chapter xlvii. of the _De Vita Propria_, which must have been +written shortly before his death, that he lets the reader see most plainly +how strong was the hold which this belief in a guardian spirit of his own +had taken upon him. "It is an admitted truth," he writes, "that attendant +spirits have protected certain men, to wit, Socrates, Plotinus, Synesius, +Dion, Flavius Josephus, and myself. All of these have enjoyed prosperous +lives except Socrates and me, and I, as I have said before, was at one +time offered many and favourable opportunities for the achievement of +happiness. But C. Cæsar the dictator, Cicero, Antony, Brutus, and Cassius +were also attended by mighty spirits, albeit malignant. For a long time I +have been persuaded that I too had one, but by what method it gave me +intelligence as to events about to happen, I could not exactly ascertain +until I reached the seventy-fourth year of my age, the season when I began +to write this record of my life. I now perceive that when I was in Milan +in 1557, when my genius perceived what was hanging over me--how that my +son on that same evening had promised to marry Brandonia Seroni, and that +he would complete the nuptials the following day--it produced in me that +palpitation of the heart of which I have already made mention, a weakness +known to my genius alone, a manifestation which served to simulate a +trembling of the bed." + +Cardan writes at length to show that the mysterious knocking which he and +Rodolfo Sylvestro had heard during his imprisonment at Bologna, the +peasant who entered his bed-chamber saying "_Te sin casa_," and divers +other manifestations, going back as far as 1531--croaking of ravens, +barking of dogs, and the ignition of fire-wood--must all have been brought +about by the working of this powerful spirit. In 1570 there happened to +him one of his everyday experiences of the presence of supernatural +powers. In the middle of the night he was conscious of some presence +walking about the room. It sat down beside him, and at the same time a +loud noise arose from a chest which stood near. This phenomenon, he +admits, might well have been the figment of a brain overburdened with +thought; but suddenly his memory flies back to an experience of his +twentieth year, upon which he proceeds to build a story, wild and fanciful +even for his powers of imagination. "What man was it," he asks, "who sold +me that copy of Apuleius when I was in my twentieth year, and forthwith +went away? I indeed, at that time, had made only one essay in the literary +arena, and had no knowledge of the Latin tongue; but in spite of this, and +because the book had a gilded cover, I was imprudent enough to buy it. The +very next day I found myself just as well versed in Latin as I am now. +Moreover, almost at the same time I acquired knowledge of Greek and +Spanish and French, sufficient for reading books written in these +languages." + +Cardan was by this time completely possessed by the belief in his +attendant genius, and the flash of memory which recalled the purchase of +some book or other in his youth, suggested likewise the attribution of +certain mystic powers to this guardian genius, and conjured up some +fanciful explanation as to the way these powers had been exercised upon +himself; he, the person most closely concerned, being entirely unconscious +of their operation at the time when they first affected him. This recorded +belief in a gift of tongues is one of the most convincing bits of evidence +to be gleaned from Cardan's writings of the insanity which undoubtedly +afflicted him, at least periodically, at this crisis of his life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[221] He mentions this matter briefly in the _De Vita Propria_: "Bis +arsisset lectus, prædixi me non permansurum Bononiæ, et prima vice +restiti, secunda non potui."--ch. xli. p. 151. A fuller account of it is +in _Opera_, tom. x. p. 464. + +[222] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 464. + +[223] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 80. He seems to have had many +untoward experiences in driving. He tells of another mishap (_Opera_, tom. +i. p. 472) in June 1570; how a fellow, some tipstaff of the courts, jumped +into his carriage and frightened the mares Cardan was driving, jeering at +them likewise because they were rather bare of flesh. + +[224] "Demum sub conductionis fine, voces sparserunt, et maxime apud +Moronum Cardinalem, me exiguo auditorio profiteri, quod quanquam non +omnino verum esset, quinimo ab initio Academiæ multos, et usque ad dies +jejunii haberem auditores."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56. + +[225] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 57. + +[226] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 163. + +[227] "Alii multis diebus abstinent cibo, alii igne uruntur, ac ferro +secantur, nullum doloris vestigium preferentes; multi sunt vocem e pectore +mittentes, qui olim engastrimuthi dicebantur; hoc autem maxime eis +contingit cum orgia quædam exercent, atque circumferuntur in orbem. Quæ +tria ut verissima sunt et naturali ratione mira tamen constant, cujus +superius mentionem fecimus, ita illud confictum nasci pueros e mulieribus +absque concubitu."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 353. + +[228] Ranke, _History of the Popes_, vol. i. p. 246. + +[229] Mr. Stephen Paget in his life of Ambroise Paré, the great +contemporary French surgeon, gives an interesting account of Paré's +beliefs on the divine cause of the plague, p. 269. + +[230] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxii. p. 63. + +[231] "Multa de dæmonibus narrabat, quæ quam vera essent nescio."--_De +Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[232] _De Varietate_, p. 351. + +[233] _Ibid.,_ p. 658. + +[234] In his counsel to his children, he writes: "Do not believe that you +hear demons speak to you, or that you behold the dead. Seek not to learn +the truth of these things, for they are amongst the things which are +hidden from us." + +[235] Cardan alludes to Niger in _De Varietate_, p. 641: "Referebat +aliquando Josephus Niger harum rerum maximé peritus, dæmonem pueris se sub +forma Christi ostendisse, petiisseque ut adoraretur." + +[236] _De Subtilitate_, p. 530. + +[237] "Nolim ego ad trutinam hæc sectari, velut Porphyrius, Psellus, +Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblicus, qui copiose de his quæ non videre, velut +historiam natæ rei scripserunt."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 540. + +[238] _Opera_, tom. i. 672. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +AFTER the accusation brought against him at Milan in 1562, Cardan had been +prohibited from teaching or lecturing in that city, and similar +disabilities had followed his recent imprisonment at Bologna. At Rome no +duties of this kind awaited him, so he had full time to follow his +physician's calling after taking up his residence there. He records the +cure of a noble matron, Clementina Massa, and of Cesare Buontempo, a +jurisconsult, both of whom had been suffering for nearly two years. The +circumstances of his retirement from Bologna would not affect his +reputation as a physician, and he seems to have had in Rome as many or +even more patients than he cared to treat; and in writing in general terms +concerning his successes as a healer, he says: "In all, I restored to +health more than a hundred patients, given up as incurable in Milan, in +Bologna, and in Rome." Of all the friends Cardan had in this closing +period of his life, none was more useful or benevolent than Cardinal +Alciati, who, although he had been secretary to Pius IV., contrived to +retain the favour of his successor. This piece of good fortune Alciati +owed to the protection of Carlo Borromeo, who had been his pupil at Pavia, +and had procured for him from Pius IV. a bishopric, a cardinal's hat, and +the secretaryship of Dataria. Another of Cardan's powerful friends was the +Prince of Matellica, of whom he speaks in terms of praise inflated enough +to be ridiculous, were it not for the accompanying note of pathos. After +celebrating the almost divine character of this nobleman, his munificence +and his superhuman abilities, he goes on: "What could there be in me to +win the kindly notice of such a patron? Certainly I had done him no +service, nor could he hope I should ever do him any in the future, I, an +old man, an outcast of fortune, and prostrated by calamity. In sooth, +there was naught about me to attract him; if indeed he found any merit in +me, it must have been my uprightness." + +Powerful friends are never superfluous, and Cardan seems to have needed +them in Rome as much as in Bologna. In 1573 he again hints at plots +against his life, but almost immediately after recording his suspicions he +goes on to suggest that his danger had arisen chiefly from his ignorance +of the streets of Rome, and from the uncouth manners of the populace. +"Many physicians, more cautious than myself, and better versed in the +customs of the place, have come by their death from similar cause." The +danger, whatever its nature, seems to have threatened him as a member of +the practising faculty at Rome rather than as the persecuted ex-teacher of +Pavia and Bologna. Rodolfo Sylvestro was not the only one of his former +associates near him in his old age, for he notes that Simone Sosia, who +had been his _famulus_ at Pavia in 1562, was still in his service at Rome. + +In reviewing the machinations of his enemies to bring about his dismissal +from the Professorship at Bologna, Cardan indulges in the reflection that +these men unwillingly did him good service, that is, they procured him +leisure which he might use in the completion of his unfinished works, and +in the construction of fresh monuments which he proposed to build up out +of the vast store of material accumulated in his industrious brain. The +literary record of his life in Rome shows that this was no vain saying. He +was at work on the later chapters of the _De Vita Propria_ up to the last +weeks of his life; and, scattered about these, there are records of his +work of correction and revising. While telling of the books he has lately +been engaged with, he wanders off in the same sentence to talk of the +dream which urged him to write the _De Subtilitate_, and of the execution +of the _Commentarii in Ptolomæum_, during his voyage down the Loire. In +1573 he seems to have found the mass of undigested work more than he could +bear to behold; for, after making extracts of such matter as he deemed +worth keeping, he consigned to the flames no less than a hundred and +twenty of his manuscripts.[239] Before leaving Bologna he had put into +shape the _Proxenata_, a lengthy collection of hints, maxims, and +reflections as to everyday life; he had re-edited the _Liber Artis Magnæ_, +and had added thereto the treatise _De Proportionibus_, and the _Regula +Aliza_. He also took in hand two books on Geometry, and one on Music, and +this last he completed in 1574. On November 16, 1574, he records that he +is at that moment writing an explanation of the more abstruse works of +Hippocrates, but that he is yet far from the end of his task. + +In the _De Libris Propriis_ he gives a list of all his published works, +and likewise a table of the same arranged in the order in which they ought +to be read. He apologizes for the imperfect state in which some of them +are left, and declares that the sight of his unfinished tasks never fails +to awaken in his breast a bitter sense of resentment over that loss which +he had never ceased to mourn. "At one time I hoped," he writes, "that +these works would be corrected by my son, but this favour you see has been +denied to me. The desire of my enemies was not to make an end of him, but +of me; not by gentle means, in sooth, but by cruel open murder; to let me +fall in the very blood of my son." It is somewhat remarkable that in this +matter Cardan was destined to suffer a disappointment similar to that +which he himself brought upon his own father by refusing to qualify +himself to become the commentator on Archbishop Peckham's _Perspectiva_. +He next gives the names of all those who had commended him in their works, +and finds a special cause for gratification in the fact that, out of the +long list set down, only four or five were known to him personally, and +these not intimately. There is, however, another short list of censors; +and of these he affirms that a certain Brodeus alone is worthy of respect. +Of Buteon, who criticized the treatise on _Arithmetic_, he says: "_Est +plane stultus et elleboro indiget._" Tartaglia's name is there, and he, +according to Cardan, was forced to eat his words; "but he was ashamed to +do what he promised, and unwilling to blot out what he had written. He +went on in his wrong-headed course, living upon the labour of other men +like a greedy crow, a manifest robber of other men's wealth of study; so +impudent that he published as his own, in the Italian tongue, that +invention for the raising of sunken ships which I had made known four +years before. This he did, understanding the subject only imperfectly, +and making no mention of my name. But men of real learning also attacked +me: Rondeletius, and Julius Scaliger; and Fuchsius, in the proem of his +book, says that my work _Medicinæ Contradictiones_ should be avoided like +deadly poison. Julius Scaliger has been fully answered in the _Apologia_ +in the Books on Subtlety."[240] + +There is a passage from De Thou's _History of his Own Times_, affixed to +all editions of the _De Vita Propria_,[241] in which is given a +contemporary sketch of Cardan during his residence at Rome. "His whole +life," De Thou writes, "has been as strange as his present manners, and +he, in sooth, out of singleness of mind or frankness, has written about +himself certain statements, the like of which have never before been heard +of a man of letters, and these I do not feel bound to unfold to any one, +let him be ever so curious. I, myself, happening to be in Rome a few years +before his death, often spoke to him and observed him with astonishment as +he took his walks about the city clad in strange garb. When I considered +the many writings of this famous man, I could perceive in him nothing to +justify his great renown. Wherefore I am all the more inclined to turn to +that very acute criticism of Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who exercised his +extraordinary genius in making a special examination of the treatise _De +Subtilitate Rerum_. He, having carefully noted everywhere the unequal +powers of this writer, decided that he was one who, in certain subjects, +knew more than a man could know, while in others he seemed more simple +than a child. In the science of Arithmetic he worked hard and made many +discoveries; but he was subject to strange and excessive aberration of +mind, and was guilty of the most impudent blasphemy, in that he was minded +to subject to the artificial laws of the stars the Ruler of the stars +Himself, for this thing he did in the horoscope of our Saviour which he +drew." + +Another witness of his life in Rome is François d'Amboise, a young French +nobleman, who was engaged on his book _De Symbolis Heroicis_. He says that +he saw Cardan, who was living in a spacious house, on the walls of which, +in place of elegant paintings or vari-coloured tapestries, were written +the words, "_Tempus mea possessio_." + +In his later writings there are farther indications that he was wont to +conjure up omens and portents chiefly at those times when he was in danger +and mental distress. In the case which is given below, the omen showed +itself in a season of trouble, but Cardan, in describing it later, treats +it as if he were a modern scientist. The distressing memories of the +imprisonment had faded, and writing in ease and security at Rome he begins +to rationalize. In the dialogue between himself and his father, written +shortly before his death, Fazio calls his son's attention to certain of +the omens and portents already noticed; and, after discussing these, +Jerome goes on to tell for the first time of another boding event which, +as he affirms, distressed him even more than the loss of his office and +the prohibition to publish his books. On the day of his incarceration, on +two different occasions, he met a cow being driven to the slaughter-house, +with much shouting and beating with sticks and barking of dogs. The +explanation of this event which he puts in Fazio's mouth is entirely +conceived in the spirit of rationalism. What was there to wonder at? There +was a butcher's shop in the street, and animals going to slaughter would +naturally be met there. Why should a man fear to meet a cow? If it had +been a bull there might have been something in it. Then with regard to the +shaking of a window-casement; this might easily have been occasioned by +the flight of a bird.[242] He was certainly less inclined to put faith in +the warnings of the stars and in the lines of his hand. His line of life +was very short and irregular, intersected and bifurcated, while the rest +of the lines were little thicker than hairs. In his horoscope was a +certain malefic influence which threatened that his life would be cut +short before his forty-fifth year. "But," he writes in the year before his +death, "here I am, living at the age of seventy-five."[243] The one +supernatural idea which seems to have deepened with old age and remained +undisturbed to the end was his belief in his attendant genius. In what he +wrote during his last years his mood was almost entirely introspective, +contemplative, and didactic, yet here and there he introduces a sentence +which lets in a little light from his way of life and personal affairs, +and helps to show how he occupied himself, and what his humour was. He +tells how one day, in 1576, he was writing about the fennel plant in his +treatise _De Tuenda Sanitate_, a plant which he praised highly because it +pleased his palate. But shortly afterwards, when he was walking one day in +the Roman vegetable market, an old man, shabbily dressed, met him and +dissuaded him from the use of the plant aforesaid, saying: "In Galen's +opinion you may as readily meet your death thereby as by eating hemlock." +"I answered that I knew well enough the difference between hemlock and +fennel, but the old man said, 'Take care, I know what I am saying,' and +went on murmuring something about Galen. Whereupon I went home and found +in Galen a passage I had not hitherto noticed, and, having changed my +former views, I added many fresh excerpts to my treatise." + +Although his faith may have been shaken in the ability of the stars to +govern his own fortunes, he records a case in which he himself filled the +post of _vates_, and which came to a sudden and terrible issue. Cardan was +present at a supper-party, and in the course of conversation let fall the +remark, "I should like to say something, were I not afraid that my words +would disturb the company," to which one of the guests replied, "You mean +that you would prophesy death to one of us here present." Cardan replied, +"Yes, within the present year," and in the next sentence he tells how on +the first day of December in that same year a certain young man, named +Virgilius, who had been present at the gathering aforesaid, died, and he +sets down this event as a fulfilment of his prophecy. + +But in the same chapter he lets the reader into the secret of his system +of prophecy, and displays it as simply an affair of common-sense, one +recommended by Aristotle as the only trustworthy method of divining future +events. Cardan writes: "I used to inquire what might be the exact nature +of the business in hand, and began by making myself acquainted with the +character of the locality, the ways of the people, and the quality of the +chief actors. I unfolded a vast number of historical instances, leading +events and secret transactions as well, and then, when I had confirmed the +facts set forth by my method of art, I gave my judgment thereupon."[244] + +In his latter years Cardan must have been in easy circumstances. The +pension from the Pope--no mention is made of its amount--and the fees he +received from his patients allowed him to keep a carriage; and writing in +his seventy-fifth year, he says that no fees would tempt him to join any +consultation unless he should be well assured what sort of men he was +expected to meet.[245] + +In the _Norma Vitæ Consarcinata_[246] he relates how in April 1576 there +were two inmates of the Xenodochium at Rome, Troilus and Dominicus. It +seemed that Troilus exercised some strange and malefic influence over his +companion, who was taken with fever. He got well of this, but only to fall +into a dropsy, which despatched him in a week. Shortly before his death, +at the seventh hour, he cried out to two Spaniards who were standing by +the bed that he had suffered such great torture from the working of +Troilus, and that he was dying therefrom. "Therefore," he cried, "in your +presence I summon him with my dying words to appear before God's tribunal, +that he may give an account of all the evil he has wrought against me." On +the following day there came a messenger from Corneto, a few miles from +Rome, saying that Troilus, who was sojourning there, had fallen sick. The +physician inquired at what hour, and the messenger said it was at seven +o'clock, a day or two ago. He lay ill some days, an unfavourable case, but +not a desperate one, and one night shortly afterwards at seven o'clock, +the top of the mosquito curtains fell, and he died at exactly the same +hour as Dominicus. + +He tells another long story of an adventure which befell him in May 1576. +One day he was driving in his carriage in the Forum, when he remembered +that he wanted to see a certain jeweller who lived in a narrow alley close +by. Wherefore he told his coachman, a stupid fellow, to go to the Campo +Altoviti, and await him there. The coachman drove off apparently +understanding the order; but, instead of going to the place designated, +went somewhere else; so Cardan, when he set about to find his carriage, +sought in vain. He had a notion that the man had gone to a spot near the +citadel, so he walked thither, encumbered with the thick garments he had +put on as necessary for riding in the carriage. Just then he met a friend +of his, Vincenzio, a Bolognese musician, who remarked that Cardan was not +in his carriage as usual. The old man went on towards the citadel, but saw +nothing of the carriage; and now he began to be seriously troubled, for +there was naught else to be done but to go back over the bridge, and he +was wearied with long fasting and his heavy clothes. He might indeed have +asked for the loan of a carriage from the Governor of the castle; but he +was unwilling to do this, so having commended himself to God, he resolved +to use all his patience and prudence in finding his way back. He set out, +and when he had crossed the bridge, he entered the banking-house of the +Altoviti to inquire as to the alteration in the rate of exchange on +Naples, and there sat down to rest. While the banker was giving him this +information, the Governor entered the place, whereupon Cardan went out and +there he found his carriage, the driver having been informed by Vincenzio, +whom he had met, of the mistake he had made. Cardan got into the carriage, +and while he was wondering whether or not he had better go home and break +his fast, he found three raisins in his pocket, and thus made a fortunate +ending of all his difficulties. + +All this reads like a commonplace chapter of accidents; but the events +recorded did not present themselves to Cardan in this guise. He sits down +to moralize over the succession of momentary events: his meeting with +Vincenzio; Vincenzio's meeting with the driver, and directions given to +the man to drive to the money-changers'; the presence of the Governor, his +exit from the bank, his consequent meeting with the carriage, and his +discovery of the raisins, seven occurrences in all, any one of which, if +it had happened a little sooner or a little later, would have brought +about great inconvenience, or even worse. He does not deny that other men +may not now and then encounter like experiences, but the experiences of +other men were not fraught with such momentous crises, nor did they +foreshadow so many or grave dangers. + +The chronicling of this episode and the fanciful coincidence of the deaths +of Dominicus and Troilus may be taken as evidence that his idiosyncrasies +were becoming aggravated by the decay of his faculties. Writing on October +1, 1576, he makes mention of the various testaments he had already made, +and goes on to say that he had resolved to make a new and final +disposition of his goods. He would fain have let his property descend to +his immediate offspring, but with a son like Aldo this was impossible, so +he left all to Gian Battista's son, who would now be a youth about +eighteen years of age, Aldo getting nothing. He desired, for reasons best +known to himself, that all his descendants should remain _in curatela_ as +long as possible, and that all his property should be held on trust; if +the issue of his body should fail, then the succession should pass in +perpetuity to his kinsfolk on the father's side. He desired that his works +should be corrected and printed, and that, if heirs failed entirely, his +house at Bologna should pass to the University, and be styled, after his +family, _Collegium Cardanorum_. + +There is no authentic record of the exact date of Cardan's death. De Thou, +in writing the record of 1576, says that if Cardan's life had been +prolonged by three days he would have completed his seventy-fifth year. As +Cardan's birthday was September 24, 1501, this would fix his death on +September 21, 1576. The exact figures given by De Thou are: "eodem, quo +prædixerat, anno et die, videlicet XI. Kalend. VIII.," and he adds by way +of information that a belief was current at the time that Cardan, who had +foretold how he would die on this day and in this year, had abstained from +food for some days previous to his death in order to make the fatal day +square with the prophecy. + +But the details which Cardan himself has set down concerning the last few +weeks of his life are inconsistent with the facts chronicled by De Thou. +In the _De Vita Propria_, chapter xxxvi., Cardan records how on October 1, +1576, he set to work to make his last will and testament, wherefore if +credit is to be given to his version rather than to that of De Thou, he +was alive and active some days after the date of his death as fixed by the +chronicler. In cases where the record of an event of his early life given +in the _De Vita Propria_ differs from an account of the same in some +contemporary writing, the testimony of the _De Vita Propria_ may justly be +put aside; but in this instance he was writing of something which could +only have happened a few days past, and the balance of probability is that +he was right and De Thou wrong. Bayle notices this discrepancy, and in +the same paragraph taxes De Thou with a mistake of which he is innocent. +He states that De Thou placed the date of Cardan's death in 1575, whereas +the excerpt cited above runs: "Thuanus ad annum MDLXXVI., p. 136, lib. +lxii. tom. 4. Romæ magni nominis sive Mathematicus, sive Medicus +Hieronymus Cardanus Mediol. natus hoc anno itidem obiit." + +No mention is made of the disease to which Cardan finally succumbed. Had +his frame not been of the strongest and most wiry, it must have gone to +pieces long before through the havoc wrought by the severe and continuous +series of ailments with which it was afflicted; so it seems permissible to +assume that he died of natural decay. His body was interred in the church +of Sant Andrea at Rome, and was subsequently transferred to Milan to be +deposited finally under the stone which covered the bones of his father in +the church of San Marco. This tomb, which Jerome had erected after Fazio's +death, bore the following inscription: + + FACIO CARDANO + + 1.C. + + Mors fuit id quod vixi: vitam mors dedit ipsa, + Mens æterna manet, gloria tuta quies. + + Obiit anno MDXXIV. IV. Kalend. Sept. anno Ætatis LXXX. + Hieronymus Cardanus Medicus Parenti posterisque V.P.[247] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[239] "Qua causa permotus sim ad scribendum, superius intellexisse te +existimo, quippe somnio monitus, inde bis, terque, ac quater, ac pluries, +ut alias testatus sum; sed et desiderio perpetuandi nominis. Bis autem +magnam copiam ac numerum eorum perdidi; primum circa XXXVII annum, cum +circiter IX. libros exussi, quod vanos ac nullius utilitatis futuros esse +intelligerem; anno autem MDLXXIII alios CXX libros, cum jam calamitas illa +cessasset cremavi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. pp. 174, 175. + +[240] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 122. + +[241] _De Vita Propria_, p. 232. + +[242] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 639. In the _De Varietate_ he says that natural +causes may in most cases be found for seeming marvels. "Ecce auditur +strepitus in domo, potest esse mus, felis, ericius, aut quod tigna +subsidant blatta."--p. 624. + +[243] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 152. + +[244] _De Vita Propria_, chapter xlii., _passim_. + +[245] _Ibid.,_ p. 66. + +[246] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 339. + +[247] Tomasinus, _Gymnasium Patavinum_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE estimates hitherto made concerning Cardan's character appear to have +been influenced too completely, one way or the other, by the judgment +pronounced upon him by Gabriel Naudé, and prefixed to all editions of the +_De Vita Propria_. Some writers have been disposed to treat Naudé as a +hide-bound pedant, insensible to the charm of genius, and the last man who +ought to be trusted as the valuator of a nature so richly gifted, +original, and erratic as was Cardan's. Such critics are content to regard +as black anything which Naudé calls white and _vice versâ_. Others accept +him as a witness entirely trustworthy, and adopt as a true description of +Cardan the paragraphs made up of uncomplimentary adjectives--applied by +Cardan to himself--which Naudé has transferred from the _De Vita Propria_ +and the _Geniturarum Exempla_ to his _Judicium de Cardano_. + +It may be conceded at once that the impression received from a perusal of +this criticism is in the main an unfavourable one of Cardan as a man, +although Naudé shows himself no niggard of praise when he deals with +Cardan's achievements in Medicine and Mathematics. But in appraising the +qualifications of Naudé to act as a judge in this case, it will be +necessary to bear in mind the fact that he was in his day a leading +exponent of liberal opinions, the author of a treatise exposing the +mummeries and sham mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and of an "Apologie pour +les Grands Hommes soupçonnez de Magie," and a disbeliever in supernatural +manifestations of every kind. With a mind thus attuned it is no matter of +surprise that Naudé should have been led to speak somewhat severely when +called upon to give judgment on a man saturated as Cardan was with the +belief in sorcery, witches, and attendant demons. + +If Naudé indeed set to work with the intention of drawing a figure of +Cardan which should stand out a sinister apparition in the eyes of +posterity, his task was an easy one. All he had to do was to place Jerome +Cardan himself in the witness-box. Reference to the passages already +quoted will show that, in the whole _corpus_ of autobiographic literature, +there does not exist a volume in which the work of self-dissection has +been so ruthlessly and completely undertaken and executed as in Cardan's +memoirs. It has all the vices of an old man's book; it is garrulous, +vain-glorious, and full of needless repetition; but, whatever portion of +his life may be under consideration, the author never shrinks from holding +up to the world's gaze the result of his searches in the deepest abysses +of his conscience. Autobiographers, as a rule, do not feel themselves +subject to a responsibility so deep as this. Memory turns back to the +contemplation of certain springs of action, certain achievements in the +past, making a judicious selection from these, and excerpting only such as +promise to furnish the possible reader with a pleasing impression of the +personality of the subject. With material of this sort at hand, the +autobiographer sets to work to construct a fair and gracious monument, +being easily persuaded that it would be a barbarous act to mar its +symmetry by the introduction of loathly and misshapen blocks like those +which Cardan, had he been the artist, would have chosen first of all. + +Naudé, after he has recorded the fact that, from his first essay in +letters, he had been a zealous and appreciative student of Cardan's works, +sets down Cardan's picture of himself, taken from his own Horoscope in the +_Geniturarum Exempla_, "nugacem, religionis contemptorem, injuriæ illatæ +memorem, invidum, tristem, insidiatorem, proditorem, magum, incantatorem, +frequentibus calamitatibus obnoxium, suorum osor[e=], turpi libidini +deditum, solitarium, inamoenum, austerum, spontè etiam divinantem, +zelotypum, lascivum, obscoenum, maledicum, obsequiosum, senum +conversatione se delectantem, varium, ancipitem, impur[u=], et dolis +mulierum obnoxium, calumniatorem, et omnino incognitum propter naturæ et +morum repugnantiam, etiam his cum quibus assidue versor." The critic at +once goes on to state that in his opinion this description, drawn by the +person who ought to know best, is, in the main, a correct one. What better +account could you expect, he asks, of a man who put faith in dreams and +portents and auguries; who believed fully in the utterances of crazy +beldames, who saw ghosts, and who believed he was attended by a familiar +demon? Then follows a catalogue of moral offences and defects of +character, all taken from Cardan's own confessions, and a pronunciation by +Naudé that the man who says he never lies, must be of all liars the +greatest; the charge of mendacity being driven home by references to +Cardan's alleged miraculous comprehension of the classic tongues in a +single night, and his pretended knowledge of a cure for phthisis. There is +no need to follow Naudé farther in his diatribe against the faults and +imperfections, real and apparent, of Cardan's character; these must be +visible enough to the most cursory student. Passages like these arouse +the suspicion that Naudé knew books better than men, that at any rate he +did not realize that men are to be found, and not seldom, who take +pleasure in magnifying their foibles into gigantic follies, and their +peccadilloes into atrocious crimes; while the rarity is to come across one +who will set down these details with the circumstantiality used by Cardan. +There is one defect in the _De Vita Propria_--an artistic one--which Naudé +does not notice, namely, that in his narrative of his early days Cardan +often over-reaches himself. His show of extreme accuracy destroys the +perspective of the story, and, in his anxiety to be minute over the +sequence of his childish ailments, the most trivial details of his uneasy +dreams, and the cuffs he got from his father and his Aunt Margaret, he +confuses the reader with multitudinous particulars and ceases to be +dramatic. But the hallucinations which he nourished about himself were not +all the outcome of senility. In the _De Varietate_, the work upon which he +spent the greatest care, and the product moreover of his golden prime, he +gives an account of four marvellous properties with which he was +gifted.[248] The first of these was the power to pass, whenever the whim +seized him, from sense into a kind of ecstasy. While he was in this state +he could hear but faintly the sound of voices, and could not distinguish +spoken words. Whether he would be sensitive to any great pain he could not +say, but twitchings and the sharpest attacks of gout affected him not. +When he fell into this state he felt a certain separation about the heart, +as if his soul were departing from that region and taking possession of +his whole body, a door being opened for the passage of the same. The +sensation would begin in the cerebellum, and thence would be diffused +along the spine. The one thing of which he was fully conscious, was that +he had passed out of himself. The second property was that, when he would, +he could conjure up any images he liked before his eyes, real [Greek: +eidôla], and not at all to be compared with the blurred processions of +phantoms which he was wont to see when he was a child. At the time when he +wrote, perhaps by reason of his busy life, he no longer saw them +whensoever he would, nor so perfectly expressed, nor for so long at a +time. These images constantly gave place one to another, and he would +behold groves, and animals, and orbs, and whatever he was fain to see. +This property he attributed to the force of his imaginative power, and his +clearness of vision. The third property was that he never failed to be +warned in dreams of things about to happen to him; and the fourth was that +premonitory signs of coming events would display themselves in the form of +spots on his nails. The signs of evil were black or livid, and appeared on +the middle finger; white spots on the same nail portending good fortune. +Honours were indicated on the thumb, riches on the fore-finger, matters +relating to his studies and of grave import on the third finger, and minor +affairs on the little finger. + +In putting together the record of his life, Cardan eschewed the narrative +form and followed a method of his own. He collected the details of his +qualities, habits, and adventures in separate chapters; his birth and +lineage, his physical stature, his diet, his rule of life, his +imperfections, his poverty, the misfortunes of his sons, his masters and +pupils, his travels, his experiences of things beyond nature, his cures, +the persecutions of his foes, and divers other categories being grouped +together to make up the _De Vita Propria_, which, though it is the most +interesting book he has left behind him, is certainly the most clumsy and +chaotic from a literary point of view. The chapters for the most part +begin with his early years, and end with some detail as to his life in +Rome, each one being a categorical survey of a certain side of his life; +but remarks as to his personal peculiarities are scattered about from +beginning to end. He tells how he could always see the moon in broad +daylight;[249] of his passion for wandering about the city by night +carrying arms forbidden by the law; of his practice of self-torture, +beating his legs with a switch, twisting his fingers, pinching his flesh, +and biting his left arm; and of going about within doors with naked legs; +how at one time he was possessed with the desire, _heroica passio_, of +suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts--kids, +lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks. The chapter in which he records all the +maladies which afflicted him, puts upon the reader's credulity a burden +almost as heavy as is the catalogue given by another philosopher of the +number of authors he mastered before his twelfth year. Two attacks of the +plague, agues, tertian and quotidian, malignant ulcers, hernia, +hæmorrhoids, varicose veins, palpitation of the heart, gout, indigestion, +the itch, and foulness of skin. Relief in the second attack of plague came +from a sweat so copious that it soaked the bed and ran in streams down to +the floor; and, in a case of continuous fever, from voiding a hundred and +twenty ounces of urine. As a boy he was a sleep-walker, and he never +became warm below the knees till he had been in bed six hours, a +circumstance which led his mother to predict that his time on earth would +be brief. + +Cardan lived an abstemious life. He broke his fast on bread-and-water and +a few grapes. He sometimes dined off bread, the yolk of an egg, and a +little wine, and would take for supper a mess of beetroot and rice and a +chicory salad. The catalogue of his favourite dishes seems to exhaust +every known edible, and it will suffice to remark that he was specially +inclined to sound and well-stewed wild boar, the wings of young cockerels +and the livers of pullets, oysters, mussels, fresh-water crayfish because +his mother ate greedily thereof when she was pregnant with him; but of all +dishes he rates the best a carp from three pounds weight to seven, taken +from a good feeding-ground. He praises all sweet fruit, oil, olives, and +finds in rue an antidote to poison. Ten o'clock was his hour for going to +bed, and he allowed himself eight hours' sleep. When wakeful he would walk +about the room and repeat the multiplication table. As a further remedy +for sleeplessness he would reduce his food by half, and would anoint his +thighs, the soles of his feet, the neck, the elbows, the carpal bones, the +temples, the jugulars, the region of the heart and of the liver, and the +upper lip with ointment of poplars, or the fat of bear, or the oil of +water-lilies. + +These few extracts will show that an intelligible narrative could scarcely +be produced by the methods Cardan used. The book is a collection of facts, +classified as a scientific writer would arrange the sections and +subsections of his subject. In gathering together and grouping the leading +points of his life, a method somewhat similar to his own will suffice, but +there will be no need to descend to a subdivision so minute as his own. A +task of this sort is never an easy one, and in this instance the +difficulties are increased by the diffuse and complicated nature of the +subject matter; and because, owing to Cardan's wayward mental habit, +there is no saying in what corner of the ten large folios which contain +his writings some pregnant and characteristic sentence, picturing +effectively some aspect of his nature or perhaps exhibiting the man at a +glance, may not be hidden away. + +It must not be inferred, because Cardan himself and his critics after him, +have laid such great stress upon his vices and imperfections, that he was +devoid of virtues. The most striking and remarkable of his merits was his +industry, but even in this particular instance, where his excellence is +most clearly manifest, he is constantly lamenting his waste of time and +idleness. Again and again he mourns over the precious hours he has spent +over chess and dice and games of chance. In his counsels to his children, +he compares a gambler to a sink of all the vices, and in writing of his +early life at Sacco he describes himself as an idle profligate, and tells +how he entirely neglected his profession. If indeed such monstrous cantles +were cut out of his time through idleness he must, though his life proved +a long one, have possessed extraordinary power of rapid production; for +the huge mass of his published work, without taking any account of the +many manuscripts he burned from time to time, would, in the case of most +men, represent the ceaseless labour of a long life. And the _corpus_ is +not great by reason of haste or want of finish. He has recorded more than +once how it was ever his habit to let his work be polished to the utmost +before putting it in type. The citations with which his pages bristle +proclaim him to be a reader almost as voracious and catholic as Burton; +and Naudé, with the watchfulness of the hostile critic in his heart and +the bookworm's knowledge in his brain, would have been ready and able to +convict him of quoting authors he had not read, if the least handle for +this charge should have been given, but no accusation of the kind is +preferred. The story of his life shows him to be full of rough candour and +honesty, and unlikely to descend to subterfuge, while his great love of +reading and his accurate retentive memory would make easy for him a task +which ordinary mortals might well regard as hopeless. + +Those critics who pass judgment on Cardan, taken solely as a Physician or +as a Mathematician, will give a presentment more fallacious than imperfect +generalizations usually furnish, for in Cardan's case the man, taken as a +whole, was incomparably greater than the sum of his parts. Naudé remarks +that a man who knows a little of everything, and that little imperfectly, +deserves small respect as a citizen of the republic of letters, but Cardan +did not belong to this category, as Julius Cæsar Scaliger found to his +cost. He was not like the bookmen of the revival of learning--Poliziano, +Valla, or Alberti may stand as examples--who after putting on the armour +of the learned language and saturating themselves with the _literæ +humaniores_, made excursions into some domain of science for the sake of +recreation. Cardan might rather be compared with Varro or Theophrastus in +classic, and with Erasmus, Pico, Grotius, or Casaubon in modern times. On +this point Naudé indulges in something approaching panegyric. He +writes--"Investigation will show us that many excelled him in the +humanities or in Theology, some even in Mathematics, some in Medicine and +in the knowledge of Philosophy, some in Oriental tongues and in either +side of Jurisprudence, but where shall we find any one who had mastered so +many sciences by himself, who had plumbed so deeply the abysses of +learning and had written such ample commentaries on the subjects he +studied? Assuredly in Philosophy, in Metaphysics, in History, in Politics, +in Morals, as well as in the more abstruse fields of learning, nothing +that was worth consideration escaped his notice." + +The foregoing eulogy from the pen of an adverse critic gives eloquent +testimony to Cardan's industry and the catholicity of his knowledge. As to +his industry, the record of his literary production, chronicled +incidentally in the course of the preceding pages, will be evidence +enough, seeing that, from the time when he "commenced author," scarcely a +year went by when he did not print a volume of some sort or other; to say +nothing of the production of those multitudinous unpublished MSS., of +which some went to build up the pile he burnt in his latter years in Rome, +while others, perhaps, are still mouldering in the presses of university +or city libraries of Italy. Frequent reference has been made to the more +noteworthy of his works. Books like the _De Vita Propria_, the _De Libris +Propriis_, the _De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda_, the _Geniturarum +Exempla_, the _Theonoston_, the _Consilia Medica_, the dialogues _Tetim_ +and _De Morte_, have necessarily been drawn upon for biographical facts. +The _De Subtilitate_ and the _De Varietate Rerum_; the _Liber Artis +Magnæ_, the _Practica Arithmeticæ_, have been noticed as the most enduring +portions of his legacy to posterity; wherefore, before saying the final +word as to his literary achievement, it may not be superfluous to give a +brief glance at those of his books which, although of minor importance to +those already cited, engaged considerable attention in the lifetime of the +writer. + +The work upon which Cardan founded his chief hope of immortality was his +_Commentary on Hippocrates_. In bulk it ranks first easily, filling as it +does one of the large folios of the edition of 1663. Curiously enough, in +addition to a permanent place in the annals of medicine, Cardan +anticipated for this forgotten mass of type a general and immediate +popularity; wider than any which his technical works could possibly enjoy, +seeing that it dealt with the preservation of health, the greatest mortal +blessing, and must on this account be of interest to all men. It will be +enough to remark of these commentaries that no portion of Cardan's work +yields less information as to the author's life and personality; to dilate +upon them, ever so superficially, from a scientific point of view, would +be waste of time and paper. Another of his works, which he rated highly, +was his treatise on Music. It was begun during his tenure of office at +Pavia, _circa_ 1547, and he was still at work upon it two years before his +death.[250] It is not difficult to realize, even at this interval of time, +that this book at the date of its publication must have been welcomed by +all musical students as a valuable contribution to the literature of their +subject. It is strongly marked by Cardan's particular touch, that +formative faculty by which he almost always succeeded in stimulating fresh +interest in the reader, and exhibiting fresh aspects of whatever subject +he might be treating. This work begins by laying down at length the +general rules and principles of the art, and then goes on to treat of +ancient music in all its forms; of music as Cardan knew and enjoyed it; of +the system of counterpoint and composition, and of the construction of +musical instruments. + +The Commentary on _Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis_, the writing of which +beguiled the tedium of his voyage down the Loire on his journey to Paris +in 1552, is a book upon which he spent great care, and is certainly worthy +of notice. Cardan's gratitude to Archbishop Hamilton for the liberal +treatment and gracious reception he had recently encountered in Scotland, +prompted him to dedicate this volume to his late patient. He writes in the +preface how he had expected to find the Scots a pack of barbarians, but +their country, he affirms, is cultivated and humanized beyond +belief,--"and you yourself reflect such splendour upon your nation that +now, by the very lustre of your name, it must needs appear to the world +more noble and illustrious than at any time heretofore. What need is there +for me to speak of the school founded by you at St. Andrews, of sedition +quelled, of your country delivered, of the authority of your brother the +Regent vindicated? These are merely the indications of your power, and not +the source thereof." In the preface he also writes at length, concerning +the horoscope of Christ,[251] in a strain of apology, as if he scented +already the scandal which the publication of this injudicious performance +was destined to raise. In estimating the influence of comets he sets down +several instances which had evidently been brought to his notice during +his sojourn in Scotland: how in 1165, within fourteen days of the +appearance of a great comet, Malcolm IV., known on account of his +continence as the virgin king, fell sick and died. Again, in 1214 two +comets, one preceding and the other following the sun, appeared as +fore-runners of the death of King William after a reign of forty-nine +years. Perhaps the most interesting of his comments on Ptolemy's text are +those which estimate the power of the stellar influences on the human +frame, an aspect of the question which, by reason of his knowledge of +medicine and surgery, would naturally engage his more serious attention. +He tells of the birth of a monstrous child--a most loathsome +malformation--at Middleton Stoney, near Oxford, during his stay in +England,[252] and gives many other instances of the disastrous effects of +untoward conjunction of the planets upon infants born under the influence +of the same. He accuses monks and nuns of detestable vices in the plainest +words, words which were probably read by the emissaries of the spiritual +authority when the charge of impiety was being got up against him. In the +_Geniturarum Exempla_ the horoscopes of Edward VI., Archbishop Hamilton, +and Cardan himself have been already noticed; that of Sir John Cheke comes +next in interest to these, and, it must be admitted, is no more +trustworthy. It declares that Cheke would attain the age of sixty-one +years, that he would be most fortunate in gathering wealth and friends +around him, that he would die finally of lingering disease, and involve +many in misfortune by his death--a faulty guess, indeed, as to the future +of a man who died at forty-three, borne down by the weight of his +misfortunes, neglected and forgotten by his former adherents, stripped of +his wealth and covered with shame, in that he had abjured his faith to +save a life which was so little worth preserving. + +Naudé does not neglect to censure Cardan for his maladroit attempts to +read the future. He writes:--"This matter, forsooth, gave a ready handle +to Cardan's rivals, and especially to those who were sworn foes of +astrology; so that they were able to jibe at him freely because, neither +in his own horoscope, nor in that of his son Giovanni Battista, nor in +that of Aymer Ranconet, nor in that of Edward VI., king of England, nor +in any other of the schemes that he drew, did he rightly foresee any of +the events which followed. He did not divine that he himself was doomed to +imprisonment, his son to the halter, Ranconet to a violent death, and +Edward to a brief term of life, but predicted for each one of these some +future directly contrary."[253] + +The treatise _De Consolatione_, probably the best known of Cardan's +ethical works, was first published at Venice in 1542 by Girolamo Scoto, +but it failed at first to please the public taste. It was not until 1544, +when it was re-issued bound up with the _De Sapientia_ and the first +version of the _De Libris Propriis_ from the press of Petreius at +Nuremberg, that it met with any success. Perhaps the sober tone and +didactic method of this treatise appealed more readily to the mood of the +German than of the Italian reader. From internal evidence it is obvious +that Cardan was urged to write it by the desire of making known to the +world the bitter experience of his early literary and professional +struggles. In the opening paragraph he lets it be seen that he intends to +follow a Ciceronian model, and records his regret that the lament of +Cicero over his daughter's death should have perished in the barbarian +wars. The original title of the book was _The Accuser_, to wit, something +which might censure the vain passions and erring tendencies of mankind, +"at post mutato nomine, et in tres libellos diviso, de Consolatione eum +inscripsimus, quod longe magis infelices consolatione, quam fortunati +reprehensione, indigere viderentur." The subsequent success of the book +was probably due to this change of name, though the author himself +preferred to have discovered a special reason for its early failure.[254] +The plan of the treatise is the same as that of a dozen others of the same +nature: an effort to persuade men in evil case that they may find relief +by regarding the misfortunes they suffer as transitory accidents in no way +affecting the chief end of life, and by seeking happiness alone in +trafficking with the riches of the mind. + +It is doubtful whether any of the books written with this object have ever +served their purpose, save in the case of their originators. Cardan may +have found the burden of his failure and poverty grow lighter as he set +down his woes on paper, but the rest of the world must have read the book +for some other reason than the hope of consolation. Read to-day in +Bedingfield's quaint English, the book is full of charm and interest. It +is filled with apt illustration from Greek philosophy and from Holy Writ +as well, and lighted up by spaces of lively wit. It was accepted by the +public taste for reasons akin to those which would secure popularity for a +clever volume of essays at the present time, and was translated into more +than one foreign language, Bedingfield's translation being published some +thirty years after its first appearance. + +The _De Sapientia_, with which it is generally classed, is of far less +interest. It is a series of ethical discourses, lengthy and discursive, +which must have seemed dull enough to contemporary students: to read it +through now would be a task almost impossible. It is only remembered +because Cardan has inserted therein, somewhat incongruously, that account +of his asserted cures of phthisis which Cassanate quoted when he wrote to +Cardan about Archbishop Hamilton's asthma, and which were afterwards +seized upon by hostile critics as evidence of his disregard of truth. + +Another of his minor works highly characteristic of the author is the +_Somniorum Synesiorum_, a collection of all the remarkable dreams he ever +dreamt, many of which have been already noticed. To judge from what +specimens of his epistles are extant, Cardan seems to have been a good +letter-writer. One of the most noteworthy is that which he addressed to +Gian Battista after his marriage. It shows Cardan to have been a loving +father and a master of sapient exhortation, while the son's fate gives +melancholy testimony of the futility of good counsel unaided by direction +and example. He tells of his grief at seeing the evil case into which his +son had fallen, vexed by poverty, disgrace, and loss of health, how he +would gladly even now receive the prodigal into his house (he says nothing +about the wife), did he not fear that such a step would lead to his own +ruin rather than to his son's restoration. After showing that any fresh +misfortune to himself must needs cut away the last hope for Gian Battista, +he sketches out a line of conduct for the ill-starred youth which he +declared, if rightly pursued, might re-establish his fortunes. + +He begins by advising his son to read and lay to heart the contents of the +_De Consolatione_ and the _De Utilitate_, and then, somewhat more to the +purpose, promises him half his earnings of the present and the coming +year. Beyond this Gian Battista should have half the salary of any office +which his father might get for himself, and half of the piece of silk +which he had received from the Venetian Ambassador, supposing that the +young man should not be able to get a like piece for himself from the same +source. + +He next cites the _De Consolatione_ to demonstrate the futility of +lamentation over misfortune past or present, or indeed over any decree of +fate. He bids Gian Battista reflect that he is human not a brute, a man +not a woman, a Christian not a Moslem or Jew, an Italian not a barbarian, +sprung from a worthy city and family, and from a father whose name by +itself will prove a title to fame. His only real troubles are a weak body +and infirm health--one a gift of heredity, the other aggravated by +dissolute habits. It may be a vain thing for men to congratulate +themselves over their happiness, but it is vainer for them to cry out for +solace over past calamity. Contempt of money is foolish, but contempt of +God is ten times worse. Cardan concludes this part of his letter by +reciting two maxims given him by his father--one, to have daily +remembrance of God and of His vast bounty, the other, to pursue with the +utmost diligence any task taken in hand. + +Cardan then treats the scapegrace to a string of maxims from the _De +Utilitate_, maxims which a model son might have read, but which Gian +Battista would certainly put aside unnoticed, and finishes with some +serviceable practical counsel: "Keep your mind calm, go early to bed, for +ours is a hot-blooded race and predisposed to suffer from stone. Take nine +hours' sleep, rise at six and visit your patients, being careful to use no +speech unconnected with the case before you. Avoid heating your body to +perspiration; go forth on horseback, come back on foot; and on your return +put on warm clothes. Drink little, break your fast on bread, dried fish, +and meat, and then give four hours to study, for studies bring pleasure, +relief from care, and mental riches; they are the foundations of renown, +and enable a man to do his duty with credit. See your patients again; and, +before you sup, take exercise in the woods and fields adjacent. Should +you become over-heated or wet with rain, cast off and dry your damp +clothes, and don dry ones. Sup heartily, and go to bed at eight; and when, +by the brevity of the night, this is not convenient, take a corresponding +rest during the day. Abstain from summer fruit, from black wine, from vain +overflow of talk, from falsehood and gaming, from trusting a woman or +over-indulging her, for she is a foolish animal and full of deceit. +Over-fondness towards a woman will surely bring evil upon you. Bleed and +purge yourself as little as possible; learn by experience of other men's +faults and misfortunes; live frugally; bear yourself suavely to all men; +and let study be your main end. All this and more have I set forth in the +books I have named. Trust neither promises nor hopes, for these may be +vain and delusive; and reckon your own only that which you hold in your +hand. Farewell." + +From the fact that Cardan took part in an unofficial medical conference in +Paris, that he afterwards superseded Cassanate as the Archbishop of St. +Andrews' physician, and did not find himself with a dozen or so quarrels +on his hands, it may be assumed that he was laudably free from the +jealousy attributed by tradition to his profession. This instance becomes +all the more noteworthy when his natural irascibility, and the character +of the learned controversy of the times comes to be considered. He does +not spare his censure in remarking on the too frequent quarrels of men of +letters,[255] albeit these quarrels must have lent no little gaiety to the +literary world. No one who reads the account of Gian Battista's fate can +doubt the sincerity of Cardan's remorse for that neglect of the boy's +youthful training which helped to bring him to ruin, and the care which he +bestowed upon his grandson Fazio proved that his regret was not of that +sort which exhales itself in empty words. The zeal with which he threw +himself into the struggle for his son's life, and his readiness to strip +himself of his last coin as the fight went on, show that he was capable of +warm-hearted affection, and afraid of no sacrifice in the cause of duty. + +The brutal candour which Cardan used in probing the weaknesses of his own +nature and in displaying them to the world, he used likewise in his +dealings with others. If he detected Branda Porro or Camutio in a blunder +he would inform them they were blockheads without hesitation, and plume +himself afterwards on the score of his blunt honesty. Veracity was not a +common virtue in those days, but Cardan laid claim to it with a display of +insistence which was not, perhaps, in the best taste. Over and over again +he writes that he never told a lie;[256] a contention which seems to have +roused especially the bile of Naudé, and to have spurred him on to make +his somewhat clumsy assault on Cardan's veracity.[257] His citation of the +case of the stranger who came with the volume of Apuleius for sale, and of +the miraculous gift of classic tongues, has already been referred to; but +these may surely be attributed to an exaggerated activity of that +particular side of Cardan's imagination which was specially prone to +seize upon some figment of the brain, and some imperfectly apprehended +sensation of the optic nerve, and fashion from these materials a tale of +marvel. Delusions of this sort were common in reputed witches, as Reginald +Scot writes--"They learne strange toongs with small industrie (as +Aristotle and others affirme)."[258] The other charge preferred by Naudé +as to the pretended cure of consumption, and the consequent quibbling and +tergiversation, is a more valid one. It has been noted how Cardan, +previous to his journey to Scotland, had posed as the discoverer of a cure +for this malady. In the list of his cures successfully treated he includes +several in which he restored patients suffering from blood-spitting, +fever, and extreme emaciation to sound health, the most noteworthy of +these being that of Girolamo Tiboldo, a sea-captain. When the sick man had +risen from his bed and had become fat and healthy, Cardan deemed that the +occasion justified a certain amount of self-gratulation, but the +physicians, out of envy, declared that Tiboldo had never suffered from +true phthisis. In his account of the case Cardan says that he, and the +physicians as well, were indeed untruthful over the matter, his own +falsehood having been the result of over-sanguine hope, and theirs the +outcome of spiteful envy. Tiboldo died after all of chest disease, but not +till five years later, and then from a chill caught through sitting in wet +garments.[259] The term consumption has always been applied somewhat +loosely, and Cardan probably would have been allowed the benefit of this +usage if he had not, in an excess of candour, set down the workings of his +mind and conscience with regard to this matter. Writing of his treatment +of Archbishop Hamilton, he says: "And in truth I cured scarcely any +patients of phthisic disease, though I did find a remedy for many who were +suffering from similar maladies, wherefore that boast of mine, that +proclamation of merit to which I had no right, worked no small profit to +me, a man very little given to lying. For the people about the Archbishop, +urged on by these and other considerations, persuaded him that he had no +chance of regaining his health except by putting himself under my care, +and that he should fly to me as his last hope."[260] It has already been +noted that Cardan's claim to some past knowledge in the successful +treatment of chest diseases had weight with the Archbishop and Cassanate, +and the result of his visit surely proved that their confidence was not +ill-placed; his boasting may have been a trifle excessive, but it was +based on hope rather than achievement; and if proof can be adduced that it +was not prompted by any greed of illegitimate fame or profit, it may +justly be ranked as a weakness rather than as a serious offence. To these +two instances of falsehood Naudé adds a third, to wit, Cardan's claim to +the guidance of a familiar spirit. He refuses to let this rank as a +delusion; and, urged no doubt by righteous indignation against the ills +springing from kindred superstitions, he writes down as a liar rather than +a dupe the man who, after mastering the whole world of science, could +profess such folly. + +Considering the catholicity of Cardan's achievements, and the eager spirit +of inquiry he displayed in fields of learning remote from his own +particular one, it is worthy of notice that he did not allow this +discursive humour, which is not seldom a token of instability, to hold him +back from pursuing the supreme aim of his life, that is, eminence in the +art of Medicine. In his youth the threats and persuasions of his father +could not induce him to take up Jurisprudence with an assured income and +abandon Medicine. At Sacco, at Gallarate, and afterwards in Milan he was +forced by the necessity of bread-winning to use his pen in all sorts of +minor subjects that had no real fascination for him, but all his leisure +was devoted to the acquisition of Medical knowledge. Prudence as well as +inclination had a share in directing his energies into this channel, for a +report, for which no doubt there was some warrant, was spread abroad that +what skill he had lay entirely in the knowledge of Astrology; and, as this +rumour operated greatly to his prejudice,[261] he resolved to perfect +himself in Medicine and free his reputation from this aspersion. He had +quarrelled violently with the physicians over the case of Count Borromeo's +child which died, and with Borromeo himself, and, almost immediately after +this, he published his book, _De Astrorum Judiciis_, a step which tended +to identify him yet more closely with Astrology, and to raise a cry +against him in Milan, which he declares to be the most scandal-mongering +city in the Universe. But it is clear that in this instance scandal was +not far wrong, and that Cardan himself was right in purging himself of the +quasi science he ought never to have taken up. + +Medicine, when Cardan began his studies, was beginning to feel the effects +of the revival of Greek learning. With the restored knowledge of the +language of Greece there arose a desire to investigate the storehouses of +science, as well as those of literature, and the extravagant assumption +of the dogmatists, and the eccentricities of the Arabic school gave +additional cogency to the cry for more light. The sects which Galen had +endeavoured to unite sprang into new activity within a century after his +death. The Arabian physicians, acute and curious as they were, had +exercised but a very transient influence upon the real progress of the +art, the chief cause of their non-success being their adhesion to +arbitrary and empirical tradition. At the end of the fifteenth century, +Leonicinus, a professor at Ferrara, recalled the allegiance of his pupils +to the authority of Hippocrates by the ability and eloquence of his +teaching; and, by his translation of Galen's works into Latin, he helped +still farther to confirm the ascendency of the fathers of Medicine. The +Arabians, sprung from the East, the storehouse of drugs and simples, and +skilled in Chemistry, were the founders of the Pharmacopoeia,[262] but +with this exception they did nothing to advance Medicine beyond the point +where the Greeks had left it. The treatises of Haly, Avicenna, and +Maimonides were little better than faint transcriptions of the writings of +the great forerunners. Their teaching was random and spasmodic, whereas +the system of Hippocrates was conceived in the spirit of Greek philosophy, +moving on by select experience, always observant and cautious, and +ascending by slow and certain steps to the generalities of Theory. Indeed +the science of Medicine in the hands of Hippocrates and his school seems, +more than any other, to have presented to the world a rudimentary essay, a +faint foreshadowing of the great fabric of inductive process, subsequently +formulated by the genius of Bacon. At various epochs Medicine had been +specially stimulated by the vivifying spirit of Greek science; in the +Roman school in the days of Celsus, and in the Arabian teaching likewise. +Fuller acknowledgment of the authority of Greek Medicine came with the +Renaissance,[263] but even this long step in advance did not immediately +liberate the art from bondage. A new generation of professors arose who +added fresh material to the storehouses, already overflowing, of pedantic +erudition, and showed the utmost contempt for any fruit of other men's +labour which might not square exactly with the utterances of the founders. +This attitude rendered these professors of Medicine the legitimate objects +of ridicule, as soon as the leaven of the revival began to work, and the +darts of satire still fly, now and then, at the same quarry. Paracelsus, +disfigured as his teaching was by mysticism, the arts of the charlatan, +and by his ignorant repudiation of the service of Anatomy, struck the +first damaging blows at this illegitimate ascendency, by the frequent +success of his empirical treatment, by the contempt he heaped upon the +scholastic authorities, and by the boldness with which he assailed every +thesis which they maintained. Men of more sober intellect and weighty +learning soon followed in his track. Fernelius, one of the physicians +Cardan met in Paris, boldly rejected what he could not approve by +experience in the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, and stood forth as +the advocate for free inquiry, and Joubert of Montpelier, Argentier of +Turin, and Botal of Asti subsequently took a similar course. + +When Cardan went to study at Pavia in 1519 this tradition was unshaken. It +was not until the advent of Vesalius that the doom of the ancient system +was sounded. Then, when Anatomy sprang to the front as the potent ally of +Medicine, the science of healing entered upon a fresh stage, but this new +force did not make itself felt soon enough to seduce Cardan from the +altars of the ancients to the worship of new gods. As long as he lived he +was a follower of the great masters, though at the same time his +admiration of the teaching of Vesalius was enthusiastic and profound. His +love of truth and sound learning forbade him to give unreflecting adhesion +to the precepts of any man, however eminent, and when he found that Galen +was a careless commentator on Hippocrates,[264] and failed to elucidate +the difficulties with which he professed to deal, he did not spare his +censure.[265] In the _De Subtilitate_ he speaks of him as "Verbosus et +studio contradicendi tædulus ut alterum vix ferre queas, in reliquo gravis +jactura artium posita sit, quam nostræ ætatis viri restituere conati +sunt."[266] But as Galen's name is quoted as an authority on almost every +page of the _Consilia Medica_, it may be assumed that Cardan's faith in +his primary theories was unshaken. In his Commentaries on Hippocrates, +Galen professes a profound respect for his master, but the two great men +must be regarded as the leaders of rival schools; indeed it could hardly +be otherwise, seeing how vast was the mass of knowledge which Galen added +to the art during his lifetime. + +Hippocrates, by denying the supernatural origin of disease, by his method +of diagnosis, by the importance he attached to air and diet, by his +discriminating use of drugs, and by the simplicity of his system +generally, had placed Medicine on a rational basis. In the six hundred +years' space which elapsed before the appearance of Galen, Medicine was +broken up into many rival schools. The Dogmatici and the Empirici for many +years wrangled undisturbed, but shortly after the Christian era the +Methodici entered the field, to be followed later on by the Eclectici and +a troop of other sects, whose wranglings, and whose very names, are now +forgotten. In his _History of Medicine_, Dr. Bostock gives a sketch of the +attitude of Galen towards the rival schools. "In his general principles he +may be considered as belonging to the Dogmatic sect, for his method was to +reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the observation of facts, to +general theoretical principles. These principles he indeed professed to +deduce from experience and observation,[267] and we have abundant proofs +of his diligence in collecting experience and his accuracy in making +observations; but still, in a certain sense at least, he regards +individual facts and the details of experience as of little value, +unconnected with the principles which he laid down as the basis of all +medical reasoning. In this fundamental point, therefore, the method +pursued by Galen appears to have been directly the reverse of that which +we now consider as the correct method of scientific investigation; and +yet, such is the force of actual genius, that in most instances he +attained the ultimate object in view, although by an indirect path. He was +an admirer of Hippocrates, and always speaks of him with the most profound +respect, professing to act upon his principles, and to do little more +than expound his doctrines and support them by new facts and observations. +Yet in reality we have few writers whose works, both as to substance and +manner, are more different from each other than those of Hippocrates and +Galen, the simplicity of the former being strongly contrasted with the +abstruseness and refinement of the latter." + +The antagonism between these two great men was not perhaps more marked +than might have been expected, considering that an interval of six hundred +years lay between them. However loyal he may have been to his master, +Galen, with his keen, catholic, and subtle intellect, was bound to fall +under the sway of Alexandrian influence while he studied in Alexandria as +the pupil of Heraclianus. The methods of the contemporary school of +philosophy fascinated him; and, in his endeavour to bring Medicine out of +the chaotic welter in which he found it, he attempted--unhappily for the +future of science--to use the hyper-idealistic Platonism then dominant in +Alexandria, rather than the gradual and orderly induction of Hippocrates, +as a bond of union between professional and scientific medicine; a false +step for which not even his great services to anatomy and physiology can +altogether atone. Yet most likely it was this same error, an error which +practically led to the enslavement of Medicine till the seventeenth +century, which caused Cardan to regard him, and not Hippocrates, as his +master. The vastness and catholicity of Galen's scheme of Medicine must +have been peculiarly attractive to a man of Cardan's temper; and that +Galen attempted to reconcile the incongruous in the teleological system +which he devised, would not have been rated as a fault by his Milanese +disciple. + +Galen taught as a cardinal truth the doctrine of the Hippocratic +elements, heat, cold, moisture, and dryness, and a glance at the Consilium +which Cardan wrote out on Archbishop Hamilton's illness, will show how +completely he was under the sway of this same teaching. The genius of +Hippocrates was perhaps too sober and orderly to win his entire sympathy; +the encyclopædic knowledge, the literary grace, and the more daring +flights of Galen's intellect attracted him much more strongly. Hippocrates +scoffed at charms and amulets, while Galen commended them, and is said to +have invented the anodyne necklace which was long known and worn in +England. There is no need to specify which of the masters Cardan would +swear by in this matter. The choice which Cardan made, albeit it was +exactly what might have been anticipated, was in every respect an +unfortunate one. He put himself under a master whose teaching could have +no other effect than to accentuate the failings of the pupil, whereas had +he let his mind come under the more regular discipline of Hippocrates' +method, it is almost certain that the mass of his work, now shut in dusty +folios which stand undisturbed on the shelves for decade after decade, +would have been immeasurably more fruitful of good. With all his industry +in collecting, and his care in verifying, his medical work remains a heap +of material, and nothing more valuable. Learning and science would have +profited much had he put himself under the standard of the Father of +Medicine, and still more if fate had sent him into being at some period +after the world of letters had learned to realize the capabilities of the +inductive system of Philosophy. + +It may readily be conceded that Cardan during his career turned to good +account the medical knowledge which he had gathered from the best +attainable sources, and that he was on the whole the most skilful +physician of his age. He likewise foreshadowed the system of deaf mute +instruction. A certain Georgius Agricola, a physician of Heidelberg who +died in 1485, makes mention of a deaf mute who had learnt to read and +write, but this statement was received with incredulity. Cardan, taking a +more philosophic view, declared that people thus afflicted might easily be +taught to hear by reading, and to speak by writing; writing was associated +with speech, and speech with thought, but written characters and ideas +might be connected without the intervention of sounds.[268] This view, put +forward with all the authority of Cardan's name, would certainly rouse +fresh interest in the question, and, whether stimulated by his words or +not, an attempt to teach deaf mutes was made by Pedro de Ponce, a Spanish +Dominican, about 1560. But it would not be permissible to claim for Cardan +any share in the epoch-making discoveries in Medicine. Galen as an +experimental physiologist had brought diagnosis to a level unattained +before. His methods had been abandoned by his successors, and practice had +in consequence suffered deterioration, but Cardan, studying under the +revived Galenism, called into life by the teaching of Vesalius, went to +deal with his cures under conditions more favourable than those offered by +any previous period of the world's history. His cure of Archbishop +Hamilton's asthma, over which Cassanate and the other doctors had failed, +was due to a more careful diagnosis and a more judicious application of +existing rules, rather than to the working of any new discoveries of his +own. Viewed as a soldier in the service of Hygeia, how transient and +slender is the fame of Cardan compared with that of Linacre, Vesalius, or +Harvey! Were his claims to immortality to rest entirely on his +contribution to Medicine, his name would have gone down to oblivion along +with that of Cavenago, Camutio, Della Croce, and the multitude of jealous +rivals who, according to his account, were ever plotting his downfall. But +it was rescued from this fate by his excellence as a mathematician, by the +interest clinging to his personality, by the enormous range of his +learning, by his picturesque reputation as a dreamer of dreams, and a +searcher into the secrets of the hidden world. In an age when books were +few and ill-composed, his works became widely popular; because, although +he dealt with abstruse subjects, he wrote--as even Naudé admits--in a +passably good style, and handled his subject with a lightness of touch +which was then very rare. This was the reason why men went on reading him +long after his works had ceased to have any scientific value; which +induced writers like Burton and Sir Thomas Browne to embroider their pages +freely with quotations from his works, and thus make his name familiar to +many who have never handled a single one of his volumes. + +It is somewhat strange to find running through the complex web of Cardan's +character a well-defined thread of worldly wisdom and common-sense; to +find that a man, described by almost every one who has dealt with his +character as a credulous simpleton, one with disordered wits, or a +down-right madman, should, when occasion demanded, prove himself to be a +sharp man of business. When Fazio died he left his son with a number of +unsettled law-suits on hand, concerning which he writes: "From my father's +death until I was forty-six, that is to say for a space of twenty-three +years, I was almost continually involved in law-suits. First with +Alessandro Castillione, surnamed Gatico, with respect to certain +plantations, and afterwards with his kinsfolk. Next with the Counts of +Barbiani, next with the college, next with the heirs of Dominico de +Tortis, who had held me in his arms when I was baptized. Out of all these +suits I came victorious. It was indeed a matter for surprise that I should +have got the better of Alessandro Castillione, seeing that his uncle sat +as judge. Moreover, he had already got a decision against me, a decision +which, as the jurisconsults declared, helped my case as the trial went on, +and I was able to force him to pay me all the money which was in dispute. +A like good fortune attended me while my claims were considered by the +heads of the Milanese College, and finally rejected by several votes. Then +afterwards, when they had decided to admit me, and when they tried to +subject me to certain rules which placed me on a footing inferior to their +own, I compelled them to grant me full membership. In the case of the +Barbiani, after long litigation and many angry words and much trouble, I +came to terms with them; and, having received the sum of money covenanted +by agreement, I was entirely freed from vexation of the law."[269] Writing +generally of his monetary dealings, Cardan says: "Whenever I may have +incurred a loss, I have never been content merely to retrieve the same, I +have always contrived to seize upon something extra."[270] Or again: "If +at any time I have lost twenty crowns, I have never rested until I have +succeeded in getting back these and twenty more in addition."[271] + +Cardan left in his _Dicta Familiaria_ and _Præceptorum ad filios +Libellus_ a long list of aphorisms and counsels, many of which give +evidence of keen insight and busy observation of mankind, while some are +distinguished by a touch of humour rare in his other writings. He bids his +children to be careful how they offend princes, and, offence being given, +never to flatter themselves that it has been pardoned; to live joyfully as +long as they can, for men are for the most part worn out by care; never to +take a wife from a witless stock or one tainted with hereditary disease; +to refrain from deliberating when the mind is disturbed; to learn how to +be worsted and suffer loss; and to trust a school-master to teach +children, but not to feed them. One of the dicta is a gem of quaint +wisdom. "Before you begin to wash your face, see that you have a towel +handy to dry the same." If all the instances of prodigies, portents, +visions, and mysterious warnings which Cardan has left on record were set +down in order, a perusal of this catalogue would justify, if it did not +compel, the belief that he was little better than a credulous fool, and +raise doubts whether such a man could have written such orderly and +coherent works as the treatise on Arithmetic, or the book of the Great +Art. But Cardan was beyond all else a man of moods, and it would be unfair +to figure as his normal mental condition those periods of overwrought +nervousness and the hallucinations they brought with them. In his old age +the nearness of the inevitable stroke, and the severance of all earthly +ties, led him to discipline his mind into a calmer mood, but early and +late during his season of work his nature was singularly sensitive to the +wearing assaults of cares and calamities. In crises of this kind his mind +would be brought into so morbid a condition, that it would fall entirely +under the sway of any single idea then dominant; such idea would master +him entirely, or even haunt him like one of those unclean spectres he +describes with such gusto in the _De Varietate_. What he may have uttered +when these moods were upon him must not be taken seriously; these are the +moments to which the major part of his experiences of things _supra +naturam_ may be referred. But there are numerous instances in which he +describes marvellous phenomena with philosophic calm, and examines them in +the true spirit of scepticism. In his account of the trembling of the bed +on which he lay the night before he heard of Gian Battista's marriage, he +goes on to say that a few nights after the first manifestation, he was +once more conscious of a strange movement; and, having put his hand to his +breast, found that his heart was palpitating violently because he had been +lying on his left side. Then he remembered that a similar physical trouble +had accompanied the first trembling of the bed, and admits that this +manifestation may be referred to a natural cause, _i.e._ the palpitation. +He tells also how he found amongst his father's papers a record of a cure +of the gout by a prayer offered to the Virgin at eight in the morning on +the first of April, and how he duly put up the prayer and was cured of the +gout, but he adds: "Sed in hoc, auxiliis etiam artis usus sum."[272] Again +with regard to the episode of the ignition of his bed twice in the same +night, without visible cause, he says that this portent may have come +about by some supernatural working; but that, on the other hand, it may +have been the result of mere chance. He tells another story of an +experience which befell him when he was in Belgium.[273] He was aroused +early in the morning by the noise made outside his door by a dog catching +fleas. Having got out of bed to see to this, he heard the sound as of a +key being softly put into the lock. He told this fact to the servants, who +at once took up the tale, and persuaded themselves that they had heard +many noises of the same kind, and others vastly more wonderful; in short, +the whole house was swarming with apparitions. The next night the noise +was repeated, and a second observation laid bare the real cause thereof. +The scratching of the dog had caused the bolt to fall into the socket, and +this produced the noise which had disquieted him. He writes in conclusion: +"Thus many events which seem to defy all explanation have really come to +pass by accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such manifestations +as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the timorous, and the +over-hasty make for themselves miracles."[274] Again, after telling a +strange story of a boy who beheld the image of a thief in the neck of a +phial, and of some incantations of Josephus Niger, he concludes: +"Nevertheless I am of opinion that all these things were fables, and that +no one could have had any real knowledge thereof, seeing that they were +nothing else than vain triflings."[275] + +In a nature so complex and many-sided as Cardan's, strange resemblances +may be sought for and discovered, and it certainly is an unexpected +revelation to find a mental attitude common to Cardan, a man tied and +bound by authority and the traditions of antiquity, and such a daring +assailant of the schools and of Aristotle as Doctor Joseph Glanvil. The +conclusions of Cardan as to certain obscure phenomena recently cited show +that, in matters lying beyond sensual cognition, he kept an open mind. In +summing up the case of the woman said to have been cured by the +incantations of Josephus Niger, he says that she must have been cured +either by the power of the imagination, or by the agency of the demons. +Here he anticipates the arguments which Glanvil sets forth in _Sadducismus +Triumphatus_. Writing on the belief in witchcraft Glanvil says, "We have +the attestation of thousands of eye and ear witnesses, and these not of +the easily-deceivable vulgar only, but of wise and grave discerners; and +that when no interest could oblige them to agree together in a common Lye. +I say, we have the light of all these circumstances to confirm us in the +belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge, beyond +the reach of Art and ordinary Nature. Standing public Records have been +kept of these well-attested Relations, and Epochas made of those unwonted +events. Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile +practices; those amongst the Jews and our own are notorious; such cases +have often been determined near us by wise and reverend Judges, upon clear +and convictive Evidence; and thousands of our own Nation have suffered +death for their vile compacts with Apostate spirits. All these I might +largely prove in their particular instances, but that 'tis not needful +since these did deny the being of Witches, so it was not out of ignorance +of these heads of Argument, of which probably they have heard a thousand +times; but from an apprehension that such a belief is absurd, and the +things impossible. And upon these presumptions they condemn all +demonstrations of this nature, and are hardened against conviction. And I +think those that can believe all Histories and Romances; That all the +wiser would have agreed together to juggle mankind into a common belief of +ungrounded fables, that the sound senses of multitudes together may +deceive them, and Laws are built upon Chimeras; That the greatest and +wisest Judges have been Murderers, and the sagest persons Fools, or +designing Impostors; I say those that can believe this heap of +absurdities, are either more credulous than those whose credulity they +reprehend; or else have some extraordinary evidence of their perswasion, +viz.: That it is absurd and impossible that there should be a Witch or +Apparition."[276] Cardan's argument in the case of the sick woman, that it +would be difficult if not impossible to invent cause for her cure, other +than the power of imagination or Demoniac agency, if less emphatic and +lengthy than Glanvil's, certainly runs upon parallel lines therewith, and +suggests, if it does not proclaim, the existence of such a thing as the +credulity of unbelief; in other words that those who were disposed to +brush aside the alternative causes of the cure as set down by him, and +search for others, and put faith in them, would be fully as credulous as +those who held the belief which he recorded as his own. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[248] _De Varietate_, p. 314. + +[249] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 115. + +[250] "Musicam, sed hanc anno post VI. scilicet MDLXXIV. correxi et +transcribi curavi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 176. + +[251] This is on p. 164. + +[252] Page 266. + +[253] _Judicium de Cardano_. + +[254] Page 57. + +[255] "Ita nostra ætate, lapsi sunt clarissimi alioqui viri in hoc genere. +Budæus adversus Erasmum, Fuchsius adversus Cornarium, Silvius adversus +Vesalium, Nizolius adversus Maioragium: non tam credo justis contentionum +causis, quam vanitate quadam et spe augendæ opinionis in +hominibus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 135. + +[256] He writes in this strain in _De Vita Propria_, ch. xiv. p. 49, in +_De Varietate Rerum_, p. 626, and in _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 431. + +[257] On the subject of dissimulation Cardan writes: "Assuevi vultum in +contrarium semper efformare; ideo simulare possum, dissimulare +nescio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xiii. p. 42. Again in _Libellus +Præceptorum ad filios_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 481), "Nolite unquam mentiri, +sed circumvenire [circumvenite?]." + +[258] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, ch. xi. + +[259] Donato Lanza, the druggist, who had been his first introducer to +Sfondrato, was equally perverse. After Cardan had cured him of phthisis, +he jumped out of a window to avoid arrest, and fell into a fish-pond, and +died of the cold he took.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 83. + +[260] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 136. + +[261] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 32. + +[262] The Materia Medica of Mesua, dating from the eleventh century, was +used by the London College of Physicians in framing their Pharmacopoeia in +1618. + +[263] In 1443 a copy of Celsus was found at Milan; Paulus Ægineta was +discovered a little later. + +[264] _Opera_, tom. ix. p. 1. + +[265] _De Immortalitate Animorum_ (Lyons, 1545), p. 73. _De Varietate_, p. +77. _Opera_, tom. i. p. 135. + +[266] _De Subtilitate_, p. 445. + +[267] "Galen's great complaint against the Peripatetics or Aristotelians, +was that while they discoursed about Anatomy they could not dissect. He +met an argument with a dissection or an experiment. Come and see for +yourselves, was his constant cry."--_Harveian Oration_, Dr. J.F. Payne, +1896. + +[268] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462. + +[269] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxviii. p. 73. + +[270] _Ibid.,_ ch. xxiii. p. 64. + +[271] _De Utilitate_, p. 309. He also writes at length in the Proxenata on +Domestic Economy.--Chapter xxxvii. _et seq. Opera_, tom. i. p. 377. + +[272] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 118. + +[273] _De Varietate_, p. 589. + +[274] _De Varietate_, p. 589. + +[275] _Ibid.,_ p. 640. + +[276] _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (Ed. 1682), p. 4. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +WHEN dealing with Cardan's sudden incarceration in 1570, in the chronicle +of his life, it was assumed that his offence must have been some spoken or +written words upon which a charge of impiety might have been fastened. +Leaving out of consideration the fiery zeal of the reigning Pope Pius V., +it is hard to determine what plea could have been found for a serious +charge of this nature. Cardan's work had indeed passed the ecclesiastical +censors in 1562; but in the estimation of Pius V. the smallest lapse from +the letter of orthodoxy would have seemed grave enough to send to prison, +and perhaps to death, a man as deeply penetrated with the spirit of +religion as Cardan assuredly was. One of his chief reasons for refusing +the King of Denmark's generous offer was the necessity involved of having +to live amongst a people hostile to the Catholic religion; and, in writing +of his visit to the English Court, he declares that he was unwilling to +recognize the title of King Edward VI., inasmuch as by so doing he might +seem to prejudice the rights of the Pope.[277] In spite of this positive +testimony, and the absence of any utterances of manifest heresy, divers +writers in the succeeding century classed him with the unbelievers. Dr. +Samuel Parker in his _Tractatus de Deo_, published in 1678, includes him +amongst the atheistical philosophers; but a perusal of the Doctor's +remarks leaves the reader unconvinced as to the justice of such a charge. +The term Atheism, however, was at this time used in the very loosest +sense, and was even applied to disbelievers in the apostolical +succession.[278] Dr. Parker writes, "Another cause which acted, together +with the natural disposition of Cardan, to produce that odd mixture of +folly and wisdom in him, was his habit of continual thinking by which the +bile was absorbed and burnt up; he suffered neither eating, pleasure, nor +pain to interrupt the course of his thoughts. He was well acquainted with +the writings of all the ancients--nor did he just skim over the heads and +contents of books as some do who ought not to be called learned men, but +skilful bookmongers. Every author that Cardan read (and he read nearly +all) he became intimately acquainted with, so that if any one disputing +with him, quoted the authority of the ancients, and made any the least +slip or mistake, he would instantly set them right." Dr. Parker is as +greatly amazed at the mass of work he produced, as at his powers of +accumulation, and maintains that Cardan believed he was endowed with a +faculty which he calls _repræsentatio_, through which he was able to +apprehend things without study, "by means of an interior light shining +within him. From which you may learn the fact that he had studied with +such enduring obstinacy that he began to persuade himself that the visions +which appeared before him in these fits and transports of the mind, were +the genuine inspirations of the Deity." This is evidently Dr. Parker's +explanation of the attendant demon, and he ends by declaring that Cardan +was rather fanatic than infidel. + +Mention has been made of the list of his vices and imperfections which +Cardan wrote down with his own hand. Out of such a heap of self-accusation +it would have been an easy task for some meddlesome enemy to gather up a +plentiful selection of isolated facts which by artful combination might be +so arranged as to justify a formal charge of impiety. The most definite of +these charges were made by Martin del Rio,[279] who declares that Cardan +once wrote a book on the Mortality of the Soul which he was wont to +exhibit to his intimate friends. He did not think it prudent to print this +work, but wrote another, taking a more orthodox view, called _De +Immortalitate Animorum_. Another assailant, Theophile Raynaud, asserts +that certain passages in this book suggest, if they do not prove, that +Cardan did not set down his real opinions on the subject in hand. Raynaud +ends by forbidding the faithful to read any of Cardan's books, and +describes him as "Homo nullius religionis ac fidei, et inter clancularios +atheos secundi ordinis ævo suo facile princeps." Of all Cardan's books the +_De Immortalitate Animorum_ is the one in which materials for a charge of +impiety might most easily be found. It was put together at a time when he +had had very little practice in the Greek tongue, and it is possible that +many of his conclusions may be drawn from premises only imperfectly +apprehended. Scaliger in his Exercitations seizes upon one passage[280] +which, according to his rendering, implied that Cardan reckoned the +intelligence of men and beasts to be the same in essence, the variety of +operation being produced by the fact that the apprehensive faculty was +inherent in the one, and only operative upon the other from without. But +all through this book it is very difficult to determine whether the +propositions advanced are Cardan's own, or those of the Greek and Arabian +writers he quotes so freely: and this charge of Scaliger, which is the +best supported of all, goes very little way to convict him of impiety. In +the _De Vita Propria_ there are several passages[281] which suggest a +belief akin to that of the Anima Mundi; he had without doubt made up his +mind that this work should not see the light till he was beyond the reach +of Pope or Council. The origin of this charge of impiety may be referred +with the best show of probability to his attempt to cast the horoscope of +Jesus Christ.[282] This, together with a diagram, is given in the +Commentaries on Ptolemy, and soon after it appeared it was made the +occasion of a fierce attack by Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who declared that +such a scheme must be flat blasphemy, inasmuch as the author proved that +all the actions of Christ necessarily followed the position of the stars +at the time of His nativity. If Scaliger had taken the trouble to glance +at the Commentary he would have discovered that Cardan especially guarded +himself against any accusation of this sort, by setting down that no one +was to believe he had any intention of asserting that Christ's divinity, +or His miracles, or His holy life, or the promulgation of His laws were in +any way influenced by the stars.[283] Naudé, in recording the censures of +De Thou, "Verum extremæ amentiæ fuit, imo impiæ audaciæ, astrorum +commentitiis legibus verum astrorum dominum velle subjicere. Quod ille +tamen exarata Servatoris nostri genitura fecit," and of Joseph Scaliger, +"impiam dicam magis, an jocularem audaciam quæ et dominum stellarum +stellis subjecerit, et natum eo tempore putarit, quod adhuc in lite +positum est, ut vanitas cum impietate certaret,"[284] declares that it was +chiefly from the publication of this horoscope that Cardan incurred the +suspicion of blasphemy; but, with his free-thinking bias, abstains from +adding his own censure. He rates Scaliger for ignorance because he was +evidently under the impression that Cardan was the first to draw a +horoscope of Christ, and attacks Cardan chiefly on the score of plagiary. +He records how divers writers in past times had done the same thing. +Albumasar, one of the most learned of the Arabs, whose _thema natalium_ is +quoted by Roger Bacon in one of his epistles to Clement V., Albertus +Magnus, Peter d'Ailly the Cardinal of Cambrai, and Tiberius Russilanus who +lived in the time of Leo X., all constructed nativities of Christ, but +Cardan makes no mention of these horoscopists, and, according to the view +of Naudé, poses as the inventor of this form of impiety, and is +consequently guilty of literary dishonesty, a worse sin, in his critics' +eyes, than the framing of the horoscope itself. + +That there was in Cardan's practice enough of curiosity and independence +to provoke suspicion of his orthodoxy in the minds of the leaders of the +post-Tridentine revival, is abundantly possible; but there is nothing in +all his life and works to show that he was, according to the standard of +every age, anything else than a spiritually-minded man.[285] It would be +hard to find words more instinct with the true feeling of piety, than the +following taken from the fifty-third chapter of the _De Vita Propria_,--"I +love solitude, for I never seem to be so entirely with those who are +especially dear to me as when I am alone. I love God and the spirit of +good, and when I am by myself I let my thoughts dwell on these, their +immeasurable beneficence; the eternal wisdom, the source and origin of +clearest light, that true joy within us which never fears that God will +forsake us; that groundwork of truth; that willing love; and the Maker of +us all, who is blessed in Himself, and likewise the desire and safeguard +of all the blessed. Ah, what depth and what height of righteousness, +mindful of the dead and not forgetting the living. He is the Spirit who +protects me by His commands, my good and merciful counsellor, my helper +and consoler in misfortune." + +Two or three of Cardan's treatises are in the _materna lingua_, but he +wrote almost entirely in Latin, using a style which was emphatically +literary.[286] His Latin is probably above the average excellence of the +age, and if the classic writers held the first place in his estimation--as +naturally they would--he assuredly did not neglect the firstfruits of +modern literature. Pulci was his favourite poet. He evidently knew Dante +and Boccaccio well, and his literary insight was clear enough to perceive +that the future belonged to those who should write in the vulgar tongue of +the lands which produced them.[287] + +Perhaps it was impossible that a man endowed with so catholic a spirit and +with such earnest desire for knowledge, should sink into the mere pedant +with whom later ages have been made acquainted through the farther +specialization of science. At all events Cardan is an instance that the +man of liberal education need not be killed by the man of science. For him +the path of learning was not an easy one to tread, and, as it not seldom +happens, opposition and coldness drove him on at a pace rarely attained by +those for whom the royal road to learning is smoothed and prepared. For a +long time his father refused to give him instruction in Latin, or to let +him be taught by any one else, and up to his twentieth year he seems to +have known next to nothing of this language which held the keys both of +letters and science. He began to learn Greek when he was about +thirty-five, but it was not till he had turned forty that he took up the +study of it in real earnest;[288] and, writing some years later, he gives +quotations from a Latin version of Aristotle.[289] In his commentaries on +Hippocrates he used a Latin text, presumably the translation of Calvus +printed in Rome in 1525, and quotes Epicurus in Latin in the _De +Subtilitate_ (p. 347), but in works like the _De Sapientia_ and the _De +Consolatione_ he quotes Greek freely, supplying in nearly every case a +Latin version of the passages cited. These treatises bristle with +quotations, Horace being his favourite author. "Vir in omni sapientiæ +genere admirandus."[290] As with many moderns his love for Horace did not +grow less as old age crept on, for the _De Vita Propria_ is perhaps fuller +of Horatian tags than any other of his works. It would seem somewhat of a +paradox that a sombre and earnest nature like Cardan's should find so +great pleasure in reading the elegant _poco curante_ triflings of the +Augustan singer, were it not a recognized fact that Horace has always been +a greater favourite with serious practical Englishmen than with the +descendants of those for whom he wrote his verses. + +It was a habit with Cardan to apologize in the prefaces of his scientific +works for the want of elegance in his Latin, explaining that the baldness +and simplicity of his periods arose from his determination to make his +meaning plain, and to trouble nothing about style for the time being; but +the following passage shows that he had a just and adequate conception of +the necessary laws of literary art. "That book is perfect which goes +straight to its point in one single line of argument, which neither leaves +out aught that is necessary, nor brings in aught that is superfluous: +which observes the rule of correct division; which explains what is +obscure; and shows plainly the groundwork upon which it is based."[291] + +The _De Vita Propria_ from which this extract comes is in point of style +one of his weakest books, but even in this volume passages may here and +there be found of considerable merit, and Cardan was evidently studious to +let his ideas be presented in intelligible form, for he records that in +1535 he read through the whole of Cicero, for the sake of improving his +Latin. His style, according to Naudé, held a middle place between the +high-flown and the pedestrian, and of all his books the _De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda_, which was begun in 1557, shows the nearest approach to +elegance, but even this is not free from diffuseness, the fault which +Naudé finds in all his writings. Long dissertations entirely alien from +the subject in hand are constantly interpolated. In the Practice of +Arithmetic he turns aside to treat of the marvellous properties of certain +numbers, of the motion of the planets, and of the Tower of Babel; and in +the treatise on Dialectic he gives an estimate of the historians and +letter-writers of the past. But here Cardan did not sin in ignorance; his +poverty and not his will consented to these literary outrages. He was paid +for his work by the sheet, and the thicker the volume the higher the +pay.[292] + +When he made a beginning of the _De Utilitate_ Cardan was at the zenith of +his fortunes. He had lately returned from his journey to Scotland, having +made a triumphant progress through the cities of Western Europe. Thus, +with his mind well stored with experience of divers lands, his wits +sharpened by intercourse with the _élite_ of the learned world, and his +hand nerved by the magnetic stimulant of success, he sat down to write as +the philosopher and man of the world, rather than as the man of science. +He was, in spite of his prosperity, inclined to deal with the more sombre +side of life. He seems to have been specially drawn to write of death, +disease, and of the peculiar physical misfortune which befell him in early +manhood. Like Cicero he goes on to treat of Old Age, but in a spirit so +widely different that a brief comparison of the conclusions of the two +philosophers will not be without interest. Old age, Cardan declares to be +the most cruel and irreparable evil with which man is cursed, and to talk +of old age is to talk of the crowning misfortune of humanity. Old men are +made wretched by avarice, by dejection, and by terror. He bids men not to +be deceived by the flowery words of Cicero,[293] when he describes Cato as +an old man, like to a fair statue of Polycleitus, with faculties +unimpaired and memory fresh and green. He next goes on to catalogue the +numerous vices and deformities of old age, and instances from Aristotle +what he considers to be the worst of all its misfortunes, to wit that an +old man is well-nigh cut off from hope; and by way of comment grimly adds, +"If any man be plagued by the ills of old age he should blame no one but +himself, for it is by his own choice that his life has run on so long." He +vouchsafes a few words of counsel as to how this hateful season may be +robbed of some of its horror. Our bodies grow old first, then our senses, +then our minds. Therefore let us store our treasures in that part of us +which will hold out longest, as men in a beleaguered city are wont to +collect their resources in the citadel, which, albeit it must in the end +be taken, will nevertheless be the last to fall into the foeman's hands. +Old men should avoid society, seeing that they can bring nothing thereto +worth having: whether they speak or keep silent they are in the way, and +they are as irksome to themselves when they are silent, as they are to +others when they speak. The old man should take a lesson from the lower +animals, which are wont to defend themselves with the best arms given them +by nature: bulls with their horns, horses with their hoofs, and cats with +their claws; wherefore an old man should at least show himself to be as +wise as the brutes and maintain his position by his wisdom and knowledge, +seeing that all the grace and power of his manhood must needs have +fled.[294] + +In another of his moral treatises he has formulated a long indictment +against old age, that hateful state with its savourless joys and sleepless +nights. Did not Zeno the philosopher strangle himself when he found that +time refused to do its work. The happiest are those who earliest lay down +the burden of existence, and the Law itself causes these offenders who are +least guilty to die first, letting the more nefarious and hardened +criminals stand by and witness the death of their fellows. There can be no +evil worse than the daily expectation of the blow that is inevitable, and +old age, when it comes, must make every man regret that he did not die in +infancy. "When I was a boy," he writes, "I remember one day to have heard +my mother, Chiara Micheria--herself a young woman--cry out that she wished +it had been God's will to let her die when she was a child. I asked her +why, and she answered: 'Because I know I must soon die, to the great peril +of my soul, and besides this, if we shall diligently weigh and examine all +our experiences of life, we shall not light upon a single one which will +not have brought us more sorrow than joy. For afflictions when they come +mar the recollection of our pleasures, and with just cause; for what is +there in life worthy the name of delight, the ever-present burden of +existence, the task of dressing and undressing every day, hunger, thirst, +evil dreams? What more profit and ease have we than the dead? We must +endure the heat of summer, the cold of winter, the confusion of the times, +the dread of war, the stern rule of parents, the anxious care of our +children, the weariness of domestic life, the ill carriage of servants, +lawsuits, and, what is worst of all, the state of the public mind which +holds probity as silliness; which practises deceit and calls it prudence. +Craftsmen are counted excellent, not by their skill in their art, but by +reason of their garish work and of the valueless approbation of the mob. +Wherefore one must needs either incur God's displeasure or live in misery, +despised and persecuted by men.'"[295] These words, though put into his +mother's mouth, are manifestly an expression of Cardan's own feelings. + +Cardan was the product of an age to which there had recently been revealed +the august sources from which knowledge, as we understand the term, has +flowed without haste or rest since the unsealing of the fountain. He +counts it rare fortune to have been born in such an age, and rhapsodizes +over the flowery meadow of knowledge in which his generation rejoices, and +over the vast Western world recently made known. Are not the artificial +thunderbolts of man far more destructive than those of heaven? What praise +is too high for the magnet which leads men safely over perilous seas, or +for the art of printing? Indeed it needs but little more to enable man to +scale the very heavens. With his mind thus set upon the exploration of +these new fields of knowledge; with the full realization how vast was the +treasure lying hid therein; it was only natural that a spirit so curious +and greedy of fresh mental food should have fretted at the piteous brevity +of the earthly term allowed to man, and have rated as a supreme evil that +old age which brought with it decay of the faculties and foreshadowed the +speedy and inevitable fall of the curtain. Cicero on the other hand had +been nurtured in a creed and philosophy alike outworn. The blight of +finality had fallen upon the moral world, and the physical universe still +guarded jealously her mighty secrets. To the eyes of Cicero the mirror of +nature was blank void and darkness, while Cardan, gazing into the same +glass, must have been embarrassed with the number and variety of the +subjects offered, and may well have felt that the longest life of man ten +times prolonged would rank but as a moment in that Titanic spell of work +necessary to bring to the birth the teeming burden with which the universe +lay in travail. Here is one and perhaps the strongest reason of his hatred +of old age; because through the shortness of his span of time he could +only deal with a grain or two of the sand lying upon the shores of +knowledge. Cicero, with his more limited vision, conscious that sixty +years or so of life would exhaust every physical delight, and blunt and +mar the intellectual; ignorant both of the world of new light lying beyond +the void, and of the rapture which the conquering investigator of the same +must feel in wringing forth its secrets, welcomed the gathering shades as +friendly visitants, a mood which has asserted itself in later times with +certain weary spirits, sated with knowledge as Vitellius was sated with +his banquets of nightingales' tongues. + +Cardan with all his curiosity and restless mental activity was hampered +and restrained in his explorations by the bonds which had been imposed +upon thought during the rule of authority. These bonds held him +back--acting imperceptibly--as they held back Abelard and many other +daring spirits trained in the methods of the schoolmen, and allowed him to +do little more than range at large over the fields of fresh knowledge +which were destined to be reaped by later workers trained in other schools +and under different masters. Learning was still subject to authority, +though in milder degree, than when Thomas of Aquino dominated the mental +outlook of Europe, and the great majority of the men who posed as +Freethinkers, and sincerely believed themselves to be Freethinkers, were +unconsciously swayed by the associations of the method of teaching they +professed to despise. Their progress for the most part resembled the +movement of a squirrel in a rotatory cage, but though their efforts to +conquer the new world of knowledge were vain, it cannot be questioned that +the restrictions placed around them, while nullifying the result of their +investigations, stimulated enormously the activity of the brain and gave +it a formal discipline which proved of the highest value when the real +literary work of Modern Europe began. The futilities of the problems upon +which the scholastic thinkers exercised themselves gave occasion for the +satiric onslaught both of Rabelais and Erasmus. "Quæstio subtilissima, +utrum Chimæra in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones; et +fuit debatuta per decem hebdomadas in Consilio Constantiensi," and "Quid +consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi +pendebet in cruce?" are samples which will be generally familiar, but the +very absurdity of these exercitations serves to prove how strenuous must +have been the temper of the times which preferred to exhaust itself over +such banalities as are typified by the extracts above written, rather than +remain inactive. The dogmas in learning were fixed as definitely as in +religion, and the solution of every question was found and duly recorded. +The Philosopher was allowed to strike out a new track, but if he valued +his life or his ease, he would take care to arrive finally at the +conclusion favoured by authority. + +Cardan may with justice be classed both with men of science and men of +letters. In spite of the limitations just referred to it is certain that +as he surveyed the broadening horizon of the world of knowledge, he must +have felt the student's spasm of agony when he first realized the infinity +of research and the awful brevity of time. His reflections on old age give +proof enough of this. If he missed the labour in the full harvest-field, +the glimpse of the distant mountain tops, suffused for the first time by +the new light, he missed likewise the wearing labour which fell upon the +shoulders of those who were compelled by the new philosophy to use new +methods in presenting to the world the results of their midnight research. +Such work as Cardan undertook in the composition of his moral essays, and +in the Commentary on Hippocrates put no heavy tax on the brain or the +vital energies; the Commentary was of portentous length, but it was not +much more than a paraphrase with his own experiences added thereto. +Mathematics were his pastime, to judge by the ease and rapidity with which +he solved the problems sent to him by Francesco Sambo of Ravenna and +others.[296] He worked hard no doubt, but as a rule mere labour inflicts +no heavier penalty than healthy fatigue. The destroyer of vital power and +spring is hard work, combined with that unsleeping diligence which must be +exercised when a man sets himself to undertake something more complex than +the mere accumulation of data, when he is forced to keep his mental powers +on the strain through long hours of selection and co-ordination, and to +fix and concentrate his energies upon the task of compelling into symmetry +the heap of materials lying under his hand. The _De Subtilitate_ and the +_De Varietate_ are standing proofs that Cardan did not overstrain his +powers by exertion of this kind. + +Leaving out of the reckoning his mathematical treatises, the vogue enjoyed +by Cardan's published works must have been a short one. They came to the +birth only to be buried in the yawning graves which lie open in every +library. At the time when Spon brought out his great edition in ten folio +volumes in 1663, the mists of oblivion must have been gathering around the +author's fame, and in a brief space his words ceased to have any weight in +the teaching of that Art he had cultivated with so great zeal and +affection. The mathematician who talked about "Cardan's rule" to his +pupils was most likely ignorant both of his century and his birthplace. +Had it not been for the references made by writers like Burton to his +dabblings in occult learning, his claims to read the stars, and to the +guidance of a peculiar spirit, his name would have been now unknown, save +to a few algebraists; and his desire, expressed in one of the meditative +passages of the _De Vita Propria_, would have been amply fulfilled: "Non +tamen unquam concupivi gloriam aut honores: imo sprevi, cuperem notum esse +quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim."[297] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[277] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 76. + +[278] Dugald Stewart, _Dissertations_, p. 378. + +[279] The writer, a Jesuit, says in _Disquisitionum Magicarum_ (Louvanii, +1599), tom. i.:--"In Cardani de Subtilitate et de Varietate libris passim +latet anguis in herba et indiget expurgatione Ecclesiasticæ limæ." Del Rio +was a violent assailant of Cornelius Agrippa. + +[280] "Quoniam intellectus intrinsecus est homini, belluis extrinsecus +collucet: unus etiam satisfacere omnibus, quæ in una specie sunt potest, +hominibus plures sunt necessarii: tertia est quod hominis anima tanquam +speculum est levigata, splendida, solida, clara: belluarum autem tenebrosa +nec levis; atque ideo in nostra anima lux mentis refulget multipliciter +confracta, inde ipse Intellectus intelligit. Ceteris autem potentiis, ut +diximus, nullus limes prescriptus est: at belluarum internis facultatibus +tantum licet agnoscere, quantum per exteriores sensus accesserit."--_De +Imm. Anim.,_ p. 283. + +[281] "Deum debere dici immensum: omnia quæ partes habent diversas +ordinatas animam habere et vitam."--p. 167. + +[282] In the last edition of _De Libris Propriis_ he calls it "Christique +nativitas admirabilis."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110. + +[283] _Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis_, p. 163. + +[284] _Præfatio in Manilium_. + +[285] A proof of his liberal tone of mind is found in his appreciation of +the fine qualities of Edward VI. as a man, although he resented his +encroachments as a king upon the Pope's rights. + +[286] In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxiii. p. 106, he fixes into his +prose an entire line of Horace, "Canidia afflasset pejor serpentibus +Afris." + +[287] "At Boccatii fabulæ nunc majus virent quam antea: et Dantis +Petrarchæque ac Virgilii totque aliorum poemata sunt in maxima +veneratione."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 125. + +[288] _Ibid.,_ tom. i. p. 59. + +[289] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii.-xiii. pp. 39, 44. + +[290] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 505. + +[291] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 72. + +[292] "Eo tantum fine, quemadmodum alicubi fatetur, ut plura folia +Typographis mitteret, quibuscum antea de illorum pretio pepigerat; atque +hoc modo fami, non secus ac famæ scriberet."--Naudæus, _Judicium_. + +[293] In _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 604) he writes:--"Quantum +diligentiæ, quantum industriæ Cicero adjecit, quo conatu nixus est ut +persuaderet senectutem esse tolerandam." + +[294] _De Utilitate_, book ii. ch. 4. + +[295] _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 605). + +[296] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 113. On the same page he adds:--"Fui autem tam +felix in cito absoluendo, quam infelicissimus in sero inchoando. Coepi +enim illum anno ætatis meæ quinquagesimo octavo, absolvi intra septem +dies; pene prodigio similis." + +[297] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ix. p. 30. + + + + +INDEX + + + Adda, battle, 7 + + Alberio, Antonio, 4 + + Alciati, Cardinal, 212, 233 + + Algebra, 65, 73, 98, 235 + + Appearance of Cardan, 19 + + Apuleius, 231, 256, 264 + + Archinto, Filippo, 40, 41, 46, 54 + + Aristotle, 16, 105, 108, 224, 240, 256, 288 + + Arithmetic, 54, 61, 71, 91, 290 + + Astrology, 5, 54, 259 + + Avicenna, 224, 268 + + + Bandarini, Altobello, 35-38, 163 + + Bandarini, Lucia (Cardan's wife), 35, 37, 39, 40, 57, 67, 163 + + Bayle, 1, 154, 245 + + Bologna, 193, 195, 201-205, 207, 212, 220, 224 + + Borgo, Fra Luca da, 76, 92, 96, 97 + + Borromeo, Carlo, 193, 194, 202, 210, 233 + + Borromeo, Count, 55, 259 + + Browne, Sir T., 56, 154, 210, 267 + + Brissac, Marquis, 54, 122, 131 + + + Camutio, 170, 171, 256, 264 + + Cantone, Otto, 9, 11 + + Cardano, Aldo, 164, 165, 170, 172, 203, 212, 243 + + Cardano, Fazio, 1, 2, 10, 15, 22, 68, 69, 162, 238, 245, 267 + + Cardano, Gasparo, 103, 130, 132 + + Cardano, Gian Battista, 40, 102, 103, 164-180, 199, 261 + + Cardano, Niccolo, 21 + + Cassanate, G., 117-122, 126, 225, 266 + + Cavenago, Ambrogio, 58, 59, 60, 266 + + Cheke, Sir J., 139, 258 + + Chiara (Cardan's daughter), 148, 213 + + Chiromancy, 110 + + Cicero, 259, 290-291, 294 + + Colla, Giovanni, 73, 76, 81, 83, 85, 93, 97 + + _Consolatione, De_, 57, 62, 117, 164, 288 + + Croce, Francesco della, 47, 61 + + Croce, Luca della, 58-60, 266 + + + D'Avalos, Alfonso, 57, 61, 63, 84, 85, 88, 89 + + Deaf mutes, 274 + + Demons, 115, 147, 155, 229 + + Denmark, King of, 100, 144, 282 + + Diet, Cardan's, 251: for the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 128 + + Diseases, Cardan's, 5, 7, 31, 33, 251 + + Doctorate of Padua, 23, 30 + + Dreams, Cardan's, 20, 34, 48, 104, 235 + + + Edinburgh, 113, 125, 126 + + Edward VI., 132-139, 282 + + English, the, 141 + + Erasmus, 148, 163, 226, 295 + + + Familiar spirit of Cardan, 227, 229, 258 + + Familiar spirit of Fazio Cardano, 12, 227 + + Ferrari, Ludovico, 54, 73, 94-96, 98, 211 + + Ferreo, Scipio, 54, 73, 76, 77, 97 + + Fioravanti, 189, 190, 192, 197 + + Fiore Antonio, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 97 + + + Gaddi, Franc., 47 + + Galen, 55, 170, 239, 240, 260-268, 270-273 + + Gallarate, 1, 39, 102, 258 + + Gambling, 22, 27, 28, 32, 42, 62, 163 + + _Geniturarum Exempla_, 4, 136 + + Geometry, 70 + + Glanvil, Jos., 279-281 + + Greek, study of, 232, 288 + + + Hamilton, James, Earl of Arran, 120, 121, 124 + + Hippocrates, 59, 223, 255, 260, 268, 270-273, 296 + + Horace, 287, 289 + + Horoscope of Cardan, 5, 248 + + Horoscope of Aldo Cardano, 165 + + Horoscope of Cheke, 258 + + Horoscope of Christ, 55, 221, 257, 285, 286 + + Horoscope of Edward VI., 133, 259 + + Horoscope of Gian Battista Cardano, 258 + + Horoscope of Ranconet, 259 + + Horoscope of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 130, 258 + + + _Immortalitate Animorum, De_, 61, 284 + + Imprisonment of Cardan, 219, 231 + + Index, Congregation of the, 197 + + + Juan Antonio, 79, 81-83 + + + Lanza, Donato, 58, 257 + + Latin, study of, 12, 279, 282 + + Lawsuits, 31, 48, 267, 275 + + Leonardo Pisano, 74-76, 97 + + _Libris Propriis, De_, 160, 213, 235 + + Lyons, 121 + + + Mahomet the Algebraist, 74 + + Mahomet Ben Musa, 75, 98 + + Margarita, 6, 21, 163, 249 + + Medicine, state of, 267 + + Micheria Chiara (Cardan's mother), 1, 3, 27, 39, 41, 42, 46, 292 + + Milan, College of, 31, 38, 41, 47, 52, 57, 61, 62, 145, 276 + + Moroni, Cardinal, 65, 210, 217-220 + + Music, 163, 235, 256 + + + Naudé, Gabriel, 96, 155, 156, 165, 246-249, 253, 254, 256, 264, 290 + + Niger, Josephus, 228, 279 + + Northumberland, Duke of, 133, 136, 138, 139 + + + Orontius, 123 + + Osiander, A., 72 + + + Paciolus, Luca, 74 + + Padua, University, 23-30 + + Paracelsus, 163, 269 + + Paris, 119, 121 + + Parker, Dr. S., 282, 283 + + Pavia, University, 18, 22, 53, 63, 65, 100, 116, 170, 183, 195, 269 + + Paul III., Pope, 54, 65, 100 + + Peckham, John, 16, 236 + + Petreius, 65 + + Petrus, 158, 159 + + Pharnelius [Fernel], 123, 260 + + Phthisis, cure of, 118, 256 + + Pius IV., 193, 197, 220, 221, 233 + + Pius V., 220-223, 225, 282 + + Plat Lectureship, 46, 64, 66, 70 + + Porro, Branda, 170, 171, 204, 256, 264 + + Portents, 38, 40, 64, 161, 166, 173, 175, 184, 205-207, 216, 219, 231, + 238, 278 + + Precepts for Children, 164, 276 + + _Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis_, 147, 154, 159, 235, 256, 285 + + + Ranconet, A., 123, 130, 132, 145, 259 + + Ranke, Von, 220, 223 + + Rectorship at Padua, 23, 26-28 + + Rigone, 176, 182 + + Rome, 224, 233, 242 + + Rosso, Galeazzo, 14, 106 + + + Sacco, 10, 30, 32, 67, 110, 258, 267 + + Sacco, Bartolomeo, 172, 174, 176 + + Saint Andrews, Abp. of, 112, 113, 118-122, 124, 126, 131, 146-148, 257, + 265, 257 + + _Sapientia, De_, 57, 117, 260 + + Scaliger, J.C., 61, 148-157, 237 254, 284-286 + + Scot, Reginald, 159, 163, 256, 265 + + Scotland, 111-116, 141 + + Scoto, Ottaviano, 51, 147 + + Scotus, Duns, 113-141 + + Seroni, Brandonia, 168, 170, 172, 176-180, 231 + + Seroni, Evangelista, 168, 177, 182 + + Sessa, Duca di, 175, 182, 199, 200 + + Sfondrato, Francesco, 58, 59, 61 + + Shetlands, 113 + + Socrates, 228, 230 + + _Subtilitate, De_, 104-117, 149, 158, 221, 228 + + Suisset (Swineshead), 113, 141 + + Sylvestro, Rodolfo, 211, 219, 231, 234 + + Sylvius, 123 + + Tartaglia, Niccolo, 73, 75-99, 236 + + Thuanus [de Thou], 155, 221, 237 244, 278 + + Tiboldo, G., 265 + + Troilus and Dominicus, story of, 241, 243 + + + _Utilitate, De_, 4, 184, 290 + + + _Varietate, De_, 104-117, 154, 158, 159, 227, 249 + + Vesalius, 100, 101, 123, 261, 270 + + Vicomercato, Antonio, 62 + + Visconti, Ercole, 183, 188, 192 + + _Vita Propria, De_, 9, 45, 161, 235, 237, 244, 246, 249, 250, 284, 285, + 289 + + + Weir, Johann, 209, 210 + + William, the English boy, 139-141, 186, 187 + + Transcriber's notes + + Page 299 Faizo corrected to Fazio Typographical errors in equations + corrected. + + a with macron [a=] + e with macron [e=] + u with macron [u=] + o with macron [o=] + m with tilde [m~] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome Cardan, by William George Waters + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + +***** This file should be named 19600-8.txt or 19600-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/0/19600/ + +Produced by Irma Špehar, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Waters. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + img {border: 0} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;} + .trnote {background-color: #EEE; color: inherit; margin: 2em 5% 1em 5%; font-size: 80%; + padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; border: dotted 1px gray;} + .padding {padding-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 2em;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + ins.greek {text-decoration: none;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome Cardan, by William George Waters + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Jerome Cardan + A Biographical Study + +Author: William George Waters + +Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #19600] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Špehar, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="padding"> +<div class="bbox"> +<p>Transcriber's note:</p> + +<p>Hover the mouse over Greek words to display their transliteration.</p> +</div></div> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. +<p class="center"> +<a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE</b></a><br /> +<a href="#JEROME_CARDAN"><b>JEROME CARDAN</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a><br /> +</p> + End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + + +<h1>JEROME CARDAN</h1> + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 326px;"> +<img src="images/cardan.jpg" width="326" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>JEROME CARDAN</h1> + +<h2><i>A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY</i></h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>W.G. WATERS</h2> + +<p class="center">"To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, +not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in +Cardan."—<span class="smcap">Sir Thomas Browne</span>.</p> + +<div class="padding"> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img src="images/crest.jpg" width="100" height="99" alt="" title="" /> +</div></div> + +<p class="center">LAWRENCE & BULLEN, Limited,<br /> +16 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London,<br /> +<span class="smcap">mdcccxcviii</span>.</p> + + + +<div class="padding"> +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,<br /> +London & Bungay</span>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>No attempt is made in the following pages to submit to historical +treatment the vast and varied mass of printed matter which Cardan left as +his contribution to letters and science, except in the case of those works +which are, in purpose or incidentally, autobiographical, or of those which +furnish in themselves effective contributions towards the framing of an +estimate of the genius and character of the writer. Neither has it seemed +worth while to offer to the public another biography constructed on the +lines of the one brought out by Professor Henry Morley in 1854, for the +reason that the circumstances of Cardan's life, the character of his work, +and of the times in which he lived, all appeared to be susceptible of more +succinct and homogeneous treatment than is possible in a chronicle of the +passing years, and of the work that each one saw accomplished. At certain +junctures the narrative form is inevitable, but an attempt has been made +to treat the more noteworthy episodes of Cardan's life and work, and the +contemporary aspect of the republic of letters, in relation to existing +tendencies and conditions, whenever such a course has seemed possible.</p> + +<p>Professor Morley's book, <i>The Life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, +physician</i>, has been for some time out of print. This industrious writer +gathered together a large quantity of material, dealing almost as fully +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> the more famous of the contemporary men of mark, with whom Cardan +was brought into contact, as with Cardan himself. The translations and +analyses of some of Cardan's more popular works which Professor Morley +gives are admirable in their way, but the space they occupy in the +biography is somewhat excessive. Had sufficient leisure for revision and +condensation been allowed, Professor Morley's book would have taken a high +place in biographical literature. As it stands it is a noteworthy +performance; and, by reason of its wide and varied stores of information +and its excellent index, it must always prove a valuable magazine of +<i>mémoires pour servir</i> for any future students who may be moved to write +afresh, concerning the life and work of the great Milanese physician.</p> + +<p>An apology may be needed for the occurrence here and there of passages +translated from the <i>De Vita Propria</i> and the <i>De Utilitate ex Adversis +capienda</i>, passages which some readers may find too frequent and too +lengthy, but contemporary opinion is strongly in favour of letting the +subject speak for himself as far as may be possible. The date and place of +Cardan's quoted works are given in the first citation therefrom; those of +his writings which have not been available in separate form have been +consulted in the collected edition of his works in ten volumes, edited by +Spon, and published at Lyons in 1663.</p> + +<p>The author desires to acknowledge with gratitude the valuable assistance +in the way of suggestion and emendation which he received from Mr. R.C. +Christie during the final revision of the proofs.</p> + +<p><i>London, October 1898.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="JEROME_CARDAN" id="JEROME_CARDAN"></a>JEROME CARDAN</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Like</span> certain others of the illustrious personages who flourished in his +time, Girolamo Cardano, or, as he has become to us by the unwritten law of +nomenclature, Jerome Cardan, was fated to suffer the burden and obloquy of +bastardy.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He was born at Pavia from the illicit union of Fazio Cardano, +a Milanese jurisconsult and mathematician of considerable repute, and a +young widow, whose maiden name had been Chiara Micheria, his father being +fifty-six, and his mother thirty-seven years of age at his birth. The +family of Fazio was settled at Gallarate, a town in Milanese territory, +and was one which, according to Jerome's contention, could lay claim to +considerable antiquity and distinction. He prefers a claim of descent from +the house of Castillione, founding the same upon an inscription on the +apse of the principal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> church at Gallarate.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> He asserts that as far back +as 1189 Milo Cardano was Governor of Milan for more than seven years, and +according to tradition Franco Cardano, the commander of the forces of +Matteo Visconti,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> was a member of the family. If the claim of the +Castillione ancestry be allowed the archives of the race would be still +farther enriched by the name of Pope Celestine IV., Godfrey of Milan, who +was elected Pope in 1241, and died the same year.</p> + +<p>Cardan's immediate ancestors were long-lived. The sons of Fazio Cardano, +his great-grandfather, Joanni, Aldo, and Antonio, lived to be severally +ninety-four, eighty-eight, and eighty-six years of age. Of these Joanni +begat two sons: Antonio, who lived eighty-eight years, and Angelo, who +reached the age of eighty-six. To Aldo were born Jacopo, who died at +seventy-two; Gottardo, who died at eighty-four; and Fazio, the father of +Jerome, who died at eighty.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p>Fazio, albeit he came of such a long-lived stock, and lived himself to be +fourscore, suffered much physical trouble during his life. On account of a +wound which he had received when he was a youth, some of the bones of his +skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain +long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a +certain corrosive poison, which did not kill him, but left him toothless. +He was likewise round-shouldered, a stammerer, and subject to constant +palpitation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> heart; but in compensation for these defects he had +eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not spectacles even in +advanced age.</p> + +<p>Of Jerome's mother little is known. Her family seems to have been as +tenacious of life as that of Fazio, for her father Jacopo lived to be +seventy-five years of age. Of his maternal grandfather Jerome remarks that +he was a highly skilled mathematician, and that when he was about seventy +years of age, he was cast into prison for some offence against the law. He +speaks of his mother as choleric in temper, well dowered with memory and +mental parts, small in stature and fat, and of a pious disposition,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and +declares that she and his father were alike in one respect, to wit that +they were easily moved to anger and were wont to manifest but lukewarm and +intermittent affection for their child. Nevertheless they were in a way +indulgent to him. His father permitted him to remain in bed till the +second hour of the day had struck, or rather forbade him to rise before +this time—an indulgence which worked well for the preservation of his +health. He adds that in after times he always thought of his father as +possessing the kindlier nature of the two.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>It would seem from the passage above written, as well as from certain +others subsequent, that Jerome had little affection for his mother; and +albeit he neither chides nor reproaches her, he never refers to her in +terms so appreciative and loving as those which he uses in lamenting the +death of his harsh and tyrannical father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> In the <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i><a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +he says that, seeing he is writing of a woman, he will confine his remarks +to saying that she was ingenious, of good parts, generous, upright, and +loving towards her children. Perhaps the fact that his father died early, +while his mother lived on for many years, and was afterwards a member of +his household—together with his wife—may account for the colder tone of +his remarks while writing about her. She was the widow of a certain +Antonio Alberio,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and during her marriage had borne him three children, +Tommaso, Catilina, and Joanni Ambrogio; but when Jerome was a year old all +three of these died of the plague within the space of a few weeks.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> He +himself narrowly escaped death from the same cause, and this attack he +attributes to an inherited tendency from his mother, she having suffered +from the same disease during her girlhood. There seems to have been born +to Fazio and Chiara another son, who died at birth.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Jerome Cardan was born on September 24, 1501, between half-past six +o'clock and a quarter to seven in the evening. In the second chapter of +his autobiography he gives the year as 1500, and in <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. +347, he writes the date as September 23, but on all other occasions the +date first written is used. Before he saw the light malefic influences +were at work against him. His mother, urged on no doubt by the desire to +conceal her shame, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> persuaded by evil counsellors, drank a potion of +abortive drugs in order to produce miscarriage,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> but Nature on this +occasion was not to be baulked. In recording the circumstances of his +birth he writes at some length in the jargon of astrology to show how the +celestial bodies were leagued together so as to mar him both in body and +mind. "Wherefore I ought, according to every rule, to have been born a +monster, and, under the circumstances, it was no marvel that it was found +necessary to tear me from the womb in order to bring me into the world. +Thus was I born, or rather dragged from my mother's body. I was to all +outward seeming dead, with my head covered with black curly hair. I was +brought round by being plunged in a bath of heated wine, a remedy which +might well have proved hurtful to any other infant. My mother lay three +whole days in labour, but at last gave birth to me, a living child."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>The sinister influences of the stars soon began to manifest their power. +Before Jerome had been many days in the world the woman into whose charge +he had been given was seized with the plague and died the same day, +whereupon his mother took him home with her. The first of his bodily +ailments,—the catalogue of the same which he subsequently gives is indeed +a portentous one,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>—was an eruption of carbuncles on the face in the +form of a cross, one of the sores being set on the tip of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the nose; and +when these disappeared, swellings came. Before the boy was two months old +his godfather, Isidore di Resta of Ticino, gave him into the care of +another nurse who lived at Moirago, a town about seven miles from Milan, +but here again ill fortune attended him. His body began to waste and his +stomach to swell because the nurse who gave him suck was herself +pregnant.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> A third foster-mother was found for him, and he remained +with her till he was weaned in his third year.</p> + +<p>When he was four years of age he was taken to Milan to be under the care +of his mother, who, with her sister, Margarita, was living in Fazio's +house; but whether she was at this time legally married to him or not +there is no evidence to show. In recording this change he remarks that he +now came under a gentler discipline from the hands of his mother and his +aunt, but immediately afterwards proclaims his belief that the last-named +must have been born without a gall bladder, a remark somewhat difficult to +apply, seeing he frequently complains afterwards of her harshness. It must +be remembered, however, that these details are taken from a record of the +writer's fifth year set down when he was past seventy.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> He quotes +certain lapses from kindly usage, as for instance when it happened that he +was beaten by his father or his mother without a cause. After much +chastisement he always fell sick, and lay some time in mortal danger. +"When I was seven years old my father and my mother were then living +apart—my kinsfolk determined, for some reason or other, to give over +beating me, though perchance a touch of the whip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> might then have done me +no harm. But ill-fortune was ever hovering around me; she let my +tribulation take a different shape, but she did not remove it. My father, +having hired a house, took me and my mother and my aunt to live with him, +and made me always accompany him in his rounds about the city. On this +account I, being taken at this tender age with my weak body from a life of +absolute rest and put to hard and constant work, was seized at the +beginning of my eighth year with dysentery and fever, an ailment which was +at that time epidemic in our city. Moreover I had eaten by stealth a vast +quantity of sour grapes. But after I had been visited by the physicians, +Bernabo della Croce and Angelo Gyra, there seemed to be some hope of my +recovery, albeit both my parents, and my aunt as well, had already bewept +me as one dead.</p> + +<p>"At this season my father, who was at heart a man of piety, was minded to +invoke the divine assistance of San Girolamo (commending me to the care of +the Saint in his prayers) rather than trust to the working of that +familiar spirit which, as he was wont to declare openly, was constantly in +attendance upon him. The reason of this change in his treatment of me I +never cared to inquire. It was during the time of my recovery from this +sickness, that the French celebrated their triumph after defeating the +Venetians on the banks of the Adda, which spectacle I was allowed to +witness from my window.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> After this my father freed me of the task of +going with him on his rounds. But the anger of Juno was not yet exhausted; +for, before I had fully recovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> my health, I fell down-stairs (we were +then living in the Via dei Maini), with a hammer in my hand, and by this +accident I hurt the left side of my forehead, injuring the bone and +causing a scar which remains to this day. Before I had recovered from this +mishap I was sitting on the threshold of the house when a stone, about as +long and as broad as a nut, fell down from the top of a high house next +door and wounded my head just where my hair grew very thickly on the left +side.</p> + +<p>"At the beginning of my tenth year my father changed this house, which had +proved a very unlucky one for me, for another in the same street, and +there I abode for three whole years. But my ill luck still followed me, +for my father once more caused me to go about with him as his <i>famulus</i>, +and would never allow me on any pretext to escape this task. I should +hesitate to say that he did this through cruelty; for, taking into +consideration what ensued, you may perchance be brought to see that this +action of his came to pass rather through the will of Heaven than through +any failing of his own. I must add too that my mother and my aunt were +fully in agreement with him in his treatment of me. In after times, +however, he dealt with me in much milder fashion, for he took to live with +him two of his nephews, wherefore my own labour was lessened by the amount +of service he exacted from these. Either I did not go out at all, or if we +all went out together the task was less irksome.</p> + +<p>"When I had completed my sixteenth year—up to which time I served my +father constantly—we once more changed our house, and dwelt with +Alessandro Cardano next door to the bakery of the Bossi. My father had two +other nephews, sons of a sister of his, one named Evangelista, a member of +the Franciscan Order, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> nearly seventy years of age, and the other Otto +Cantone, a farmer of the taxes, and very rich. The last-named, before he +died, wished to leave me his sole heir; but this my father forbad, saying +that Otto's wealth had been ill gotten; wherefore the estate was +distributed according to the directions of the surviving brother."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>This, told as nearly as may be in his own words, is the story of Cardan's +birth and childhood and early discipline, a discipline ill calculated to +let him grow up to useful and worthy manhood. It must have been a wretched +spring of life. Many times he refers to the hard slavery he underwent in +the days when he was forced to carry his father's bag about the town, and +tells how he had to listen to words of insult cast at his mother's +name.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Like most boys who lead solitary lives, unrelieved by the +companionship of other children, he was driven in upon himself, and grew +up into a fanciful imaginative youth, a lover of books rather than of +games, with an old head upon his young shoulders. After such a training it +was only natural that he should be transformed from a nervous hysterical +child into an embittered, cross-grained man, profligate and superstitious +at the same time. Abundant light is thrown upon every stage of his career, +for few men have left a clearer picture of themselves in their written +words, and nowhere is Cardan, from the opening to the closing scene, so +plainly exhibited as in the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, almost the last work which +came from his pen. It has been asserted that this book, written in the +twilight of senility by an old man with his heart cankered by misfortune +and ill-usage, and his brain upset by the dread of real or fancied +assaults of foes who lay in wait for him at every turn, is no trustworthy +guide, even when bare facts are in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> question, and undoubtedly it would be +undesirable to trust this record without seeking confirmation elsewhere. +This confirmation is nearly always at hand, for there is hardly a +noteworthy event in his career which he does not refer to constantly in +the more autobiographic of his works. The <i>De Vita Propria</i> is indeed ill +arranged and full of inconsistencies, but in spite of its imperfections, +it presents its subject as clearly and effectively as Benvenuto Cellini is +displayed in his own work. The rough sketch of a great master often +performs its task more thoroughly than the finished painting, and Cardan's +autobiography is a fragment of this sort. It lets pass in order of +procession the moody neglected boy in Fazio's ill-ordered house, the +student at Pavia, the youthful Rector of the Paduan Gymnasium, plunging +when just across the threshold of life into criminal excess of +Sardanapalean luxury, the country doctor at Sacco and afterwards at +Gallarate, starving amongst his penniless patients, the University +professor, the famous physician for whose services the most illustrious +monarchs in Europe came as suppliants in vain, the father broken by family +disgrace and calamity, and the old man, disgraced and suspected and +harassed by persecutors who shot their arrows in the dark, but at the same +time tremblingly anxious to set down the record of his days before the +night should descend.</p> + +<p>Until he had completed his nineteenth year Jerome continued to dwell under +the roof which for the time being might give shelter to his parents. The +emoluments which Fazio drew from his profession were sufficient for the +family wants—he himself being a man of simple tastes; wherefore Jerome +was not forced, in addition to his other youthful troubles, to submit to +that <i>execrata paupertas</i> and its concomitant miseries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> which vexed him in +later years. To judge from his conduct in the matter of Otto Cantone's +estate, Fazio seems to have been as great a despiser of wealth as his son +proved to be afterwards. His virtue, such as it was, must have been the +outcome of one of those hard cold natures, with wants few and trifling, +and none of those tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be +procured by money. The fact that he made his son run after him through the +streets of Milan in place of a servant is not a conclusive proof of +avarice; it may just as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and +callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his young son, and +indisposed to trouble himself about searching for a hireling to carry his +bag. The one indication we gather of his worldly wisdom is his +dissatisfaction that his son was firmly set to follow medicine rather than +jurisprudence, a step which would involve the loss of the stipend of one +hundred crowns a year which he drew for his lectureship, an income which +he had hoped might be continued to a son of his after his death.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>Amidst the turmoil and discomfort of what must at the best have been a +most ill-regulated household, the boy's education was undertaken by his +father in such odds and ends of time as he might find to spare for the +task.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> What with the hardness and irritability of the teacher, and the +peevishness inseparable from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> pupil's physical feebleness and morbid +overwrought mental habit, these hours of lessons must have been irksome to +both, and of little benefit. "In the meantime my father taught me orally +the Latin tongue as well as the rudiments of Arithmetic, Geometry, and +Astrology. But he allowed me to sleep well into the day, and he himself +would always remain abed till nine o'clock. But one habit of his appeared +to me likely to lead to grave consequences, to wit the way he had of +lending to others anything which belonged to him. Part of these loans, +which were made to insolvents, he lost altogether; and the residue, lent +to divers persons in high places, could only be recovered with much +trouble and no little danger, and with loss of all interest on the same. I +know not whether he acted in this wise by the advice of that familiar +spirit<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> whose services he retained for eight-and-thirty years. What +afterwards came to pass showed that my father treated me, his son, rightly +in all things relating to education, seeing that I had a keen +intelligence. For with boys of this sort it is well to make use of the bit +as though you were dealing with mules. Beyond this he was witty and +diverting in his conversation, and given to the telling of stories and +strange occurrences well worth notice. He told me many things about +familiar spirits, but what part of these were true I know not; but +assuredly tales of this sort, wonderful in themselves and artfully put +together, delighted me marvellously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But what chiefly deserved condemnation in my father was that he brought +up certain other youths with the intention of leaving to them his goods in +case I should die; which thing, in sooth, meant nothing less than the +exposure of myself to open danger through plots of the parents of the boys +aforesaid, on account of the prize offered. Over this affair my father and +my mother quarrelled grievously, and finally decided to live apart. +Whereupon my mother, stricken by this mental vexation, and troubled at +intervals with what I deem to have been an hysterical affection, fell one +day full on the back of her neck, and struck her head upon the floor, +which was composed of tiles. It was two or three hours before she came +round, and indeed her recovery was little short of miraculous, especially +as at the end of her seizure she foamed much at the mouth.</p> + +<p>"In the meantime I altered the whole drift of this tragedy by a pretended +adoption of the religious life, for I became for a time a member of the +mendicant Franciscan brotherhood. But at the beginning of my twenty-first +year<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> I went to the Gymnasium at Pavia, whereupon my father, feeling my +absence, was softened towards me, and a reconciliation between him and my +mother took place.</p> + +<p>"Before this time I had learnt music, my mother and even my father having +secretly given me money for the same; my father likewise paid for my +instruction in dialectics. I became so proficient in this art that I +taught it to certain other youths before I went to the University. Thus he +sent me there endowed with the means of winning an honest living; but he +never once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> spake a word to me concerning this matter, bearing himself +always towards me in considerate, kindly, and pious wise.</p> + +<p>"For the residue of his days (and he lived on well-nigh four more years) +his life was a sad one, as if he would fain let it be known to the world +how much he loved me.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Moreover, when by the working of fate I returned +home while he lay sick, he besought, he commanded, nay he even forced me, +all unwilling, to depart thence, what though he knew his last hour was +nigh, for the reason that the plague was in the city, and he was fain that +I should put myself beyond danger from the same. Even now my tears rise +when I think of his goodwill towards me. But, my father, I will do all the +justice I can to thy merit and to thy paternal care; and, as long as these +pages may be read, so long shall thy name and thy virtues be celebrated. +He was a man not to be corrupted by any offering whatsoever, and indeed a +saint. But I myself was left after his death involved in many lawsuits, +having nothing clearly secured except one small house."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>Fazio contracted a close intimacy with a certain Galeazzo Rosso, a man +clever as a smith, and endowed with mechanical tastes which no doubt +helped to secure him Fazio's friendship. Galeazzo discovered the principle +of the water-screw of Archimedes before the description of the same, +written in the books of the inventor, had been published. He also made +swords which could be bent as if they were of lead, and sharp enough to +cut iron like wood. He performed a more wonderful feat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> in fashioning iron +breast-plates which would resist the impact of red-hot missiles. In the +<i>De Sapientia</i>, Cardan records that when Galeazzo perfected his +water-screw, he lost his wits for joy.</p> + +<p>Fazio took no trouble to teach his son Latin,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> though the learned +language would have been just as necessary for the study of jurisprudence +as for any other liberal calling, and Jerome did not begin to study it +systematically till he was past nineteen years of age. Through some whim +or prejudice the old man refused for some time to allow the boy to go to +the University, and when at last he gave his consent he still fought hard +to compel Jerome to qualify himself in jurisprudence; but here he found +himself at issue with a will more stubborn than his own. Cardan writes: +"From my earliest youth I let every action of mine be regulated in view of +the after course of my life, and I deemed that as a career medicine would +serve my purpose far better than law, being more appropriate for the end I +had in view, of greater interest to the world at large, and likely to last +as long as time itself. At the same time I regarded it as a study which +embodied the nobler principles, and rested upon the ground of reason (that +is upon the eternal laws of Nature) rather than upon the sanction of human +opinion. On this account I took up medicine rather than jurisprudence, nay +I almost entirely cast aside, or even fled from the company of those +friends of mine who followed the law, rejecting at the same time wealth +and power and honour. My father, when he heard that I had abandoned the +study of law to follow philosophy, wept in my presence, and grieved amain +that I would not settle down to the study of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> own subject. He deemed +it the more salutary discipline—proofs of which opinion he would often +bring forward out of Aristotle—that it was better adapted for the +acquisition of power and riches; and that it would help me more +efficiently in restoring the fortunes of our house. He perceived moreover +that the office of teaching in the schools of the city, together with its +accompanying salary of a hundred crowns which he had enjoyed for so many +years, would not be handed on to me, as he had hoped, and he saw that a +stranger would succeed to the same. Nor was that commentary of his +destined ever to see the light or to be illustrated by my notes. Earlier +in life he had nourished a hope that his name might become illustrious as +the emendator of the 'Commentaries of John, Archbishop of Canterbury on +Optics and Perspective.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Indeed the following verses were printed +thereanent:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Hoc Cardana viro gaudet domus: omnia novit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unus: habent nullum saecula nostra parem.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"These words may be taken as a sort of augury referring rather to certain +other men about to set forth to do their work in the world, than to my +father, who, except in the department of jurisprudence (of which indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +rumour says that he was a master), never let his mind take in aught that +was new. The rudiments of mathematics were all that he possessed, and he +gathered no fresh knowledge from the store-houses of Greek learning. This +disposition in him was probably produced by the vast multitude of subjects +to be mastered, and by his infirmity of purpose, rather than by any lack +of natural parts, or by idleness or by defect of judgment; vices to which +he was in no way addicted. But I, being firmly set upon the object of my +wishes, for the reasons given above, and because I perceived that my +father had achieved only moderate success—though he had encountered but +few hindrances—remained unconvinced by any of his exhortations."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Bayle is unwilling to admit Cardan's illegitimate birth. In +<i>De Consolatione</i>, Opera, tom. i. p. 619 (Lyons, 1663), Cardan writes in +reference to the action of the Milanese College of Physicians: "Medicorum +collegium, suspitione obortâ, quòd (tam malè à patre tractatus) spurius +essem, repellebat." Bayle apparently had not read the <i>De Consolatione</i>, +as he quotes the sentence as the work of a modern writer, and affirms that +the word "suspitio" would not have been used had the fact been notorious. +But in the <i>Dialogus de Morte</i>, Opera, tom. i. p. 676, Cardan declares +that his father openly spoke of him as a bastard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate ex adversis Capienda</i> (Franeker, 1648), p. +357.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Matteo Visconti was born in 1250, and died in 1322. He was +lord of Novara Vercello Como and Monferrato, and was made Vicar Imperial +by Adolphus of Nassau. Though he was worsted in his conflict with John +XXII. he did much to lay the foundations of his family.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i> (Amsterdam, 1654), ch. i. p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Cardan makes a statement in <i>De Consolatione</i>, Opera, tom. i. +p. 605, which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. "Matrem +meam Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum puer essem, meminique +hanc dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo placuisset, extincta forem in +infantia."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. i. p. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i> (Basil, 1554), p. 436.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>De Rerum Varietate</i> (Basil, 1557), p. 655.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 347. There is a passage in <i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i>, p. 435, dealing with Fazio's horoscope, which may be taken to +mean that these children were his. "Alios habuisse filios qui obierint +ipsa genitura demōstrat, me solo diu post etiā illius mortē superstite."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> With regard to the union of his parents he writes: "Uxorem +vix duxit ob Lunam afflictam et eam in senectute."—<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, +p. 435.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "Igitur ut ab initio exordiar, in pestilentia conceptus, +matrem, nondum natus (ut puto) mearum calamitatum participem, profugam +habui."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 618. +</p><p> +"Mater ut abortiret medicamentum abortivum dum in utero essem, alieno +mandato bibit."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 347.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. ii. p. 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> In one passage, <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 348, he sums up his +physical misfortunes: "Hydrope, febribus, aliisque morbis conflictatus +sum, donec sub fine octavi anni ex dysenteria ac febre usque ad mortis +limina perveni, pulsavi ostium sed non aperuere qui intro erant."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> "Inde lac praegnantis hausi per varias nutrices lactatus ac +jactatus."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The <i>De Vita Propria</i>, the chief authority for these +remarks, was written by Cardan in Rome shortly before his death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The illness would have occurred about October 1508, and the +victory of the Adda was on May 14, 1509. This fact fixes his birth in +1501, and shows that his illness must have lasted six or seven months.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 676.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> "Quod munus profitendi institutiones in urbe ipsa cum +honorario centum coronatorum, quo jam tot annis gaudebat, non in me (ut +speraverat) transiturum intelligebat."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Pater jam antè concesserat ut Geometriæ et Dialecticæ +operam darem, in quo (quanquam præter paucas admonitiones, librosque, ac +licentiam, nullum aliud auxilium præbuerit) eas tamen ego (succicivis +temporibus studens) interim feliciter sum assecutus."—<i>De Consolatione</i>, +Opera, tom. i. p. 619.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> "Facius Cardanus dæmonem ætherium, ut ipse dicebat, diu +familiarem habuit; qui quamdiu conjuratione usus est, vera illi dabat +responsa, cùm autem illam exussisset, veniebat quidem, sed responsa falsa +dabat. Tenuit igitur annis, ni fallor, vinginti octo cum conjuratione, +solutum autem circiter quinque."—<i>De Varietate</i>, p. 629. +</p><p> +In the <i>Dialogus Tetim</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 672), Cardan writes: "Pater +honeste obiit et ex senio, sed multo antea eum Genius ille reliquerat."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> There is a discrepancy between this date and the one given +in <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 11. "Anno exacto XIX contuli me in +Ticinensem Academiam."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> "Inde (desiderium augente absentiâ) mortuus est, sæviente +peste, cùm primum me diligere cœpisset."—<i>De Consolatione</i>, Opera, tom. +i. p. 619.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> "Nimis satis fuit defuisse tot, memoriam, linguam Latinam +per adolescentiam."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. li. p. 218.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> John Peckham was a Franciscan friar, and was nominated to +the see of Canterbury by Nicholas III. in 1279. He had spent much time in +the convent of his Order at Oxford, and there is a legend connecting him +with a Johannes Juvenis or John of London, a youth who had attracted the +attention and benevolence of Roger Bacon. This Johannes became one of the +first mathematicians and opticians of the age, and was sent to Rome by +Bacon, who entrusted to him the works which he was sending to Pope Clement +IV. There is no reason for this view beyond the fact that both were called +John, and distinguished in the same branches of learning. The <i>Perspectiva +Communis</i> was his principal work; it does not deal with perspective as now +understood, but with elementary propositions of optics. It was first +printed in Milan in or about 1482.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. 34. A remark in <i>De Sapientia</i>, +Opera, tom. i. p. 578, suggests that Fazio began life as a physician: +"Pater meus Facius Cardanus Medicus primò, inde Jurisconsultus factus +est."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> University of Pavia to which Jerome now betook himself was by +tradition one of the learned foundations of Charlemagne.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It had +certainly enjoyed a high reputation all through the Middle Ages, and had +recently had the honour of numbering Laurentius Valla amongst its +professors. In 1362, Galeazzo Visconti had obtained a charter for it from +the Emperor Charles IV., and that it had become a place of consequence in +1400 is proved by the fact that, besides maintaining several professors in +the Canon Law, it supported thirteen in Civil Law, five in Medicine, three +in Philosophy, and one each in Astrology, Greek, and Eloquence. Like all +the other Universities of Northern Italy, it suffered occasional eclipse +or even extinction on account of the constant war and desolation which +vexed these parts almost without intermission during the years following +the formation of the League of Cambrai. Indeed, as recently as 1500, the +famous library collected by Petrarch, and presented by Gian Galeazzo +Visconti to the University, was carried off by the French.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>To judge from the pictures which the Pavian student, writing in after +years, gives of his physical self, it may be inferred that he was +ill-endowed by the Graces. "I am of middle height. My chest is somewhat +narrow and my arms exceedingly thin: my right hand is the more grossly +fashioned of the two, so that a chiromantist might have set me down as +rude or doltish: indeed, should such an one examine my hand, he would be +ashamed to say what he thought. In it the line of life is short, and that +named after Saturn long and well marked. My left hand, however, is seemly, +with fingers long, tapering, and well-set, and shining nails. My neck is +longer and thinner than the rule, my chin is divided, my lower lip thick +and pendulous, my eyes are very small, and it is my wont to keep them +half-closed, peradventure lest I should discern things over clearly. My +forehead is wide and bare of hair where it meets the temples. My hair and +beard are both of them yellow in tint, and both as a rule kept close cut. +My chin, which as I have said already is marked by a division, is covered +in its lower part with a thick growth of long hair. My habit is to speak +in a highly-pitched voice, so that my friends sometimes rebuke me +thereanent; but, harsh and loud as is my voice, it cannot be heard at any +great distance while I am lecturing. I am wont to talk too much, and in +none too urbane a tone. The look of my eyes is fixed, like that of one in +deep thought. My front teeth are large, and my complexion red and white: +the form of my countenance being somewhat elongated, and my head is +finished off in narrow wise at the back, like to a small sphere. Indeed, +it was no rare thing for the painters, who came from distant countries to +paint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> my portrait, to affirm that they could find no special +characteristic which they could use for the rendering of my likeness, so +that I might be known by the same."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>After giving this account of his person, Cardan writes down a catalogue of +the various diseases which vexed him from time to time, a chapter of +autobiography which looks like a transcript from a dictionary of Nosology. +More interesting is the sketch which he makes of his mental state during +these early years. Boys brought up in company of their elders often show a +tendency to introspection, and fall into a dreamy whimsical mood, and his +case is a striking example. "By the command of my father I used to lie +abed until nine o'clock,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and, if perchance I lay awake any time before +the wonted hour of rising, it was my habit to spend the same by conjuring +up to sight all sorts of pleasant visions, nor can I remember that I ever +summoned these in vain. I used to behold figures of divers kinds like airy +bodies. Meseemed they were made up of tiny rings, like those in coats of +chain-armour, though at this time I had seen nought of the kind. They +would rise at the bottom of the bed, from the right-hand corner; and, +moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. +Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, +of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all +sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, +but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things +I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily +forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> and divers +other things which I now forget. In all this I took no small delight, and +with straining eyes I would gaze upon these marvels; wherefore my Aunt +Margaret asked me more than once whether I saw anything. I, though I was +then only a child, deliberated over this question of hers before I +replied, saying to myself: 'If I tell her the facts she will be wroth at +the thing—whatever it may be—which is the cause of these phantasms, and +will deprive me of this delight.' And then I seemed to see flowers of all +kinds, and four-footed beasts, and birds; but all these, though they were +fashioned most beautifully, were lacking in colour, for they were things +of air. Therefore I, who neither as a boy nor as an old man ever learned +to lie, stood silent for some time. Then my aunt said—'Boy, what makes +you stare thus and stand silent?' I know not what answer I made, but I +think I said nothing at all. In my dreams I frequently saw what seemed to +be a cock, which I feared might speak to me in a human voice. This in +sooth came to pass later on, and the words it spake were threatening ones, +but I cannot now recall what I may have heard on these occasions."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>With a brain capable of such remarkable exercises as the above-written +vision, living his life in an atmosphere of books, and with all games and +relaxations dear to boys of his age denied to him, it was no marvel that +Jerome should make an early literary essay on his own account. The death +of a young kinsman, Niccolo Cardano,<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> suggested to him a theme which he +elaborated in a tract called <i>De immortalitate paranda</i>, a work which +perished unlamented by its author, and a little later he wrote a treatise +on the calculation of the distances between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> the various heavenly +bodies.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> But he put his mathematical skill to other and more sinister +uses than this; for, having gained practical experience at the +gaming-tables, he combined this experience with his knowledge of the +properties of numbers, and wrote a tract on games of chance. Afterwards he +amplified this into his book, <i>Liber de Ludo Aleæ</i>.</p> + +<p>With this equipment and discipline Jerome went to Pavia in 1520. He found +lodging in the house of Giovanni Ambrogio Targio, and until the end of his +twenty-first year he spent all his time between Pavia and Milan. By this +date he had made sufficiently good use of his time to let the world see of +what metal he was formed, for in the year following he had advanced far +enough in learning to dispute in public, to teach Euclid in the Gymnasium, +and to take occasional classes in Dialectics and Elementary Philosophy. At +the end of his twenty-second year the country was convulsed by the wars +between the Spaniards and the French under Lautrec, which ended in the +expulsion of the last-named and the establishment of the Imperial power in +Milan. Another result of the war, more germane to this history, was the +closing of the University of Pavia through lack of funds. In consequence +of this calamity Jerome remained some time in Milan, and during these +months he worked hard at mathematics; but he was not destined to return to +Pavia as a student. The schools there remained some long time in +confusion, so in 1524 he went with his father's consent to Padua. In the +autumn of that same year he was summoned back to Milan to find Fazio in +the grip of his dying illness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> "Whereupon he, careful of my weal rather +than his own, bade me return to Padua at once, being well pleased to hear +that I had taken at the Venetian College the Baccalaureat of Arts.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +After my return to Padua, letters were brought to me which told me that he +had died on the ninth day after he had refused nourishment. He died on the +twenty-eighth of August, having last eaten on Sunday the twentieth of the +month. Towards the close of my twenty-fourth year I was chosen Rector of +the Academy at Padua,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> and at the end of the next was made Doctor of +Medicine. For the first-named office I came out the victor by one vote, +the suffrages having to be cast a second time; and for the Doctorate of +Medicine my name had already twice come forth from the ballot with +forty-seven votes cast against me (a circumstance which forbade another +voting after the third), when, at the third trial, I came out the winner, +with only nine votes against me (previously only this same number had been +cast for me), and with forty-eight in my favour.</p> + +<p>"Though I know well enough that affairs like these must needs be of small +account, I have set them down in the order in which they came to pass for +no other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> reason than that I give pleasure to myself who write these words +by so doing: and I do not write for the gratification of others. At the +same time those people who read what I write—if indeed any one should +ever be so minded—may learn hereby that the beginnings and the outcomes +of great events may well be found difficult to trace, because in sooth it +is the way of such things to come to the notice of anybody rather than of +those who would rightly observe them."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>Padua cannot claim for its University an antiquity as high as that which +may be conceded to Pavia, but in spite of its more recent origin, there is +no little obscurity surrounding its rise. The one fact which may be put +down as certain is that it sprang originally from the University of +Bologna. Early in the thirteenth century violent discords arose between +the citizens of Bologna and the students, and there is a tradition that +the general school of teaching was transferred to Padua in 1222. What +happened was probably a large migration of students, part of whom remained +behind when peace between town and gown in Bologna was restored. The +orthodox origin of the University is a charter granted by Frederic II. in +1238. Frederic at this time was certainly trying to injure Bologna, +actuated by a desire to help on his own University at Naples, and to crush +Bologna as a member of the Lombard League.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Padua, however, was also a +member of this league, so his benevolent action towards it is difficult to +understand. In 1228 the students had quarrelled with the Paduan citizens, +and there was a movement to migrate to Vercelli; but, whether this really +took place or not, the Paduan school did not suffer: its ruin and +extinction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> was deferred till the despotism of the Ezzelini. In 1260 it +was again revived by a second migration from Bologna, and this movement +was increased on account of the interdict laid by the Pope upon Bologna in +1306 after the expulsion of the Papal Legate by the citizens.</p> + +<p>In the early days Medicine and Arts were entirely subordinate to the +schools of canon and civil law; but by the end of the fourteenth century +these first-named Faculties had obtained a certain degree of independence, +and were allowed an equal share in appointing the Rector.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> The first +College was founded in 1363, and after 1500 the number rapidly increased. +The dominion of the Dukes of Carrara after 1322 was favourable to the +growth of the University, which, however, did not attain its highest point +till it came under Venetian rule in 1404. The Venetian government raised +the stipends of the professors, and allowed four Paduan citizens to act as +<i>Tutores Studii</i>; the election of the professors being vested in the +students, which custom obtained until the end of the sixteenth +century.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> The Rector was allowed to wear a robe of purple and gold; +and, when he retired, the degree of Doctor was granted to him, together +with the right to wear the golden collar of the order of Saint Mark.</p> + +<p>Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town +of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected +from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> possibly +were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal +power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of +which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which +the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most +dangerous foes.</p> + +<p>Such was the University of Padua at the height of its glory, and it will +be apparent at once that Padua must have fallen considerably in its +fortunes when it installed as its Rector an obscure student, only +twenty-four years of age, and of illegitimate birth, and conferred upon +him the right to go clad in purple and gold, and to claim, as his retiring +gift, the degree of Doctor and the cross of Saint Mark. In 1508 the League +of Cambrai had been formed, and Venice, not yet recovered from the effects +of its disastrous wars with Bajazet II., was forced to meet the combined +assault of the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France. Padua was +besieged by the Imperial forces, a motley horde of Germans, Swiss, and +Spaniards, and the surrounding country was pillaged and devastated by +these savages with a cruelty which recalled the days of Attila. It is not +wonderful that the University closed its doors in such a time. When the +confederates began to fight amongst themselves the class-rooms were +reopened, intermittently at first, but after 1515 the teaching seems to +have been continuous. Still the prevalent turmoil and poverty rendered it +necessary to curtail all the mere honorary and ornamental adjuncts of the +schools, and for several years no Rector was appointed, for the good and +sufficient reason that no man of due position and wealth and character +could be found to undertake the rectorial duties, with the Academy just +emerging <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>from complete disorganization. These duties were many and +important, albeit the Rector could, if he willed, appoint a deputy, and +the calls upon the purse of the holder must have been very heavy. It would +be hard to imagine any one less fitted to fill such a post than Cardan, +and assuredly no office could befit him less than this +pseudo-rectorship.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> It must ever remain a mystery why he was preferred, +why he was elected, and why he consented to serve: though, as to the +last-named matter, he hints in a passage lately cited from <i>De Utilitate</i>, +that it was through the persuasions of his mother that he took upon +himself this disastrous honour. Many pasages in his writings suggest that +Chiara was an indulgent parent. She let Fazio have no peace till he +consented to allow the boy to go to college; she paid secretly for +music-lessons, so that Jerome was enabled to enjoy the relaxation he loved +better than anything else in the world—except gambling; she paid all his +charges during his student life at Padua; and now, quite naturally, she +would have shed her heart's blood rather than let this son of hers—ugly +duckling as he was—miss what she deemed to be the crowning honour of the +rectorship; but after all the sacrifices Chiara made, after all the +misfortunes which attended Jerome's ill-directed ambition, there is a +doubt as to whether he ever was Rector in the full sense of the term. Many +times and in divers works he affirms that once upon a time he was Rector, +and over and beyond this he sets down in black and white the fact, more +than once, that he never told a lie; so it is only polite to accept this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +legend for what it is worth. But it must likewise be noted that in the +extant records of the University there is no mention of his name in the +lists of Rectors.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>Jerome has left very few details as to his life at Padua. Of those which +he notices the following are the most interesting: "In 1525, the year in +which I became Rector, I narrowly escaped drowning in the Lago di Garda. I +went on board the boat, unwillingly enough, which carried likewise some +hired horses; and, as we sailed on, the mast and the rudder, and one of +the two oars we had with us, were broken by the wind. The sails, even +those on the smaller mast, were split, and the night came on. We landed at +last safe and sound at Sirmio, but not before all my companions had given +up hope, and I myself was beginning to despair. Indeed, had we been a +minute later we must have perished, for the tempest was so violent that +the iron hinges of the inn windows were bent thereby. I, though I had been +sore afraid ever since the wind began to blow, fell to supper with a good +heart when the host set upon the board a mighty pike, but none of the +others had any stomach for food, except the one passenger who had advised +us to make trial of this perilous adventure, and who had proved to be an +able and courageous helper in our hour of distress.</p> + +<p>"Again, once when I was in Venice on the birthday of the Virgin, I lost +some money at dicing, and on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> day following all that was left me went +the same way. This happened in the house of the man with whom I was +gambling, and in the course of play I noticed that the cards were marked, +whereupon I struck him in the face with my dagger, wounding him slightly. +Two of his servants were present at the time; some spears hung all ready +from the beams of the roof, and besides this the house door was fastened. +But when I had taken from him all the money he had about him—his own as +well as that which he had won from me by cheating, and my cloak and the +rings which I had lost to him the day before—I was satisfied that I had +got back all my possessions. The chattels I sent home by my servant at +once, but a portion of the money I tossed back to the fellow when I saw +that I had drawn blood of him. Then I attacked the servants who were +standing by; and, as they knew not how to use their weapons and besought +my mercy, I granted this on the condition that they should unlock the +door. Their master, taking account of the uproar and confusion, and +mistrusting his safety in case the affair should not be settled forthwith +(I suspect he was alarmed about the marked cards), commanded the servants +to open the door, whereupon I went my way.</p> + +<p>"That very same evening, while I was doing my best to escape the notice of +the officers of justice on account of the wound I had given to this +Senator, I lost my footing and fell into a canal, having arms under my +cloak the while. In my fall I did not lose my nerve, but flinging out my +right arm, I grasped the thwart of a passing boat and was rescued by those +on board. When I had been hauled into the boat I discovered—wonderful to +relate—that the man with whom I had lately played cards was likewise on +board, with his face bandaged by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> reason of the wounds I had given him. +Now of his own accord he brought out a suit of clothes, fitted for +seafaring, and, having clad myself in them, I journeyed with him as far as +Padua."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan's life from rise to set cannot be estimated otherwise than an +unhappy one, and its least fortunate years were probably those lying +between his twenty-first and his thirty-first year of age. During this +period he was guilty of that crowning folly, the acceptance of the +Rectorship of the Gymnasium at Padua, he felt the sharpest stings of +poverty, and his life was overshadowed by dire physical misfortune. He +gives a rapid sketch of the year following his father's death. "Then, my +father having breathed his last and my term of office come to an end, I +went, at the beginning of my twenty-sixth year, to reside at Sacco, a town +distant ten miles from Padua and twenty-five from Venice. I fixed on this +place by the advice of Francesco Buonafidei, a physician of Padua, who, +albeit I brought no profit to him—not even being one of those who +attended his public teaching—helped me and took a liking for me, being +moved to this benevolence by his exceeding goodness of heart. In this +place I lived while our State was being vexed by every sort of calamity. +In 1524 by a raging pestilence and by a two-fold change of ruler. In 1526 +and 1527 by a destructive scarcity of the fruits of the earth. It was hard +to get corn in exchange for money of any kind, and over and beyond this +was the intolerable weight of taxation. In 1528 the land was visited by +divers diseases and by the plague as well, but these afflictions seemed +the easier to bear because all other parts were likewise suffering from +the same. In 1529 I ventured to return to Milan—these ill-starred +troubles being in some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> degree abated—but I was refused membership by the +College of Physicians there, I was unable to settle my lawsuit with the +Barbiani, and I found my mother in a very ill humour, so I went back to my +village home, having suffered greatly in health during my absence. For +what with cruel vexations, and struggles, and cares which I saw impending, +and a troublesome cough and pleurisy aggravated by a copious discharge of +humour, I was brought into a condition such as few men exchange for aught +else besides a coffin."<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>The closing words of his eulogy on his father tell how the son, on the +father's death, found that one small house was all he could call his own. +The explanation of this seems to be that the old man, being of a careless +disposition and litigious to boot, had left his affairs in piteous +disorder. In consequence of this neglect Jerome was involved in lawsuits +for many years, and the one afore-mentioned with the Barbiani was one of +them. This case was subsequently settled in Jerome's favour.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Pavia, like certain modern universities, did not spend all +its time over study. "Aggressus sum Mediolani vacationibus quadragenariæ, +seu Bacchanalium potius, anni MDLXI. Ita enim non obscurum est, nostra +ætate celebrari ante quadragenariam vacationes, in quibus ludunt, +convivantur, personati ac larvati incedunt, denique nullum luxus ac +lascivæ genus omittunt: Sybaritæ et Lydi Persæque vincuntur." <i>Opera</i>, +tom. i. p. 118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> These books were taken to Blois. They were subsequently +removed by Francis I. to Fontainebleau, and with the other collections +formed the nucleus of the Bibliothèque Nationale.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. v. p. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The time covered by this experience was from his fourth to +his seventh year.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 114; <i>De Rerum +Subtilitate</i> (Basil, 1554), p. 524.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> "Erat liber exiguus, rem tamen probe absolvebat: nam tunc +forte in manus meas inciderat, Gebri Hispani liber, cujus auxilio non +parum adjutus sum."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> "Initio multi quidem paupertate aliave causa quum se nolunt +subjicere rigoroso examini Cl. Collegii in artibus Medicinae vel in Jure, +Baccalaureatus, vel Doctoratus gradum a Comitibus Palatinis aut +Lateranensibus sumebant. Postea vero, sublata hac consuetudine, Gymnasii +Rector, sive substitutus, convocatis duobus professoribus, bina puncta +dabantur, iisque recitatis et diligentis [<i>sic</i>] excussis, illis gradus +Baccalaureatus conferebatur."—<i>Gymnasium Patavinum</i> (1654), p. 200.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> He constantly bewails this step as the chief folly of his +life: "Stulte vero id egi, quod Rector Gymnasii Patavini effectus sum, +tum, cum, inops essem, et in patria maxime bella vigerent, et tributa +intolerabilia. Matris tamen solicitudine effectum est, ut pondus +impensarum, quamvis aegre, sustinuerim."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 350.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 11.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Muratori, <i>Chron. di Bologna</i>, xviii. 254.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The stipends paid to teachers of jurisprudence were much +more liberal than those paid to humanists. In the Diary of Sanudo it is +recorded that a jurist professor at Padua received a thousand ducats per +annum. Lauro Quirino, a professor of rhetoric, meantime received only +forty ducats, and Laurentius Valla at Pavia received fifty +sequins.—Muratori, xxii. 990.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Tomasinus, <i>Gymnasium Patavinam</i> (1654), p. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Tomasinus writes that the Rector should be "Virum illustrem, +providum, eloquentem ac divitem, quique eo pollet rerum usu ut Gymnasi +decora ipsius gubernatione et splendore augeantur."—<i>Gymnasium +Patavinum</i>, p. 54. He likewise gives a portrait of the Rector in his robes +of office, and devotes several chapters to an account of his duties.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> "Ab anno 1509 usque ad annum 1515 ob bellum Cameracense +Gymn. interrmissum fuit."—<i>Elenchus nominum Patavii</i> (1706), p. 28. The +first names given after this interregnum are Dom. Jo. Maria de Zaffaris, +Rector in Arts, and Dom. Marinus de Ongaris, Rector in Jurisprudence in +1527. +</p><p> +Papadapoli (<i>Historia Gymn. Patav.</i>) gives the name of Ascanius Serra as +pro-Rector in 1526: no Rector being mentioned at all.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 79.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 13.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">During</span> his life at Padua it would appear that Cardan, over and above the +allowance made to him by his mother, had no other source of income than +the gaming-table.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> However futile and disastrous his sojourn at this +University may have been, he at least took away with him one possession of +value, to wit his doctorate of medicine, on the strength of which he began +to practise as a country physician at Sacco. The record of his life during +these years gives the impression that he must have been one of the most +wretched of living mortals. The country was vexed by every sort of +misfortune, by prolonged warfare, by raging pestilence, by famine, and by +intolerable taxation;<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> but while he paints this picture of misery and +desolation in one place, he goes on to declare in another that the time +which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> No greater +instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I +gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my +respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented +their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no time could +have been more delightful than this which lasted for five years and a +half."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p>But for almost the whole of this period Cardan was labouring under a +physical misfortune concerning which he writes in another place in terms +of almost savage bitterness. During ten years of his life, from his +twenty-first to his thirty-first year, he suffered from the loss of virile +power, a calamity which he laments in the following words: "And I maintain +that this misfortune was to me the worst of evils. Compared with it +neither the harsh servitude under my father, nor unkindness, nor the +troubles of litigation, nor the wrongs done me by my fellow-townsmen, nor +the scorn of my fellow-physicians, nor the ill things falsely spoken +against me, nor all the measureless mass of possible evil, could have +brought me to such despair, and hatred of life, and distaste of all +pleasure, and lasting sorrow. I bitterly wept this misery, that I must +needs be a laughing-stock, that marriage must be denied me, and that I +must ever live in solitude. You ask for the cause of this misfortune, a +matter which I am quite unable to explain. Because of the reasons just +mentioned, and because I dreaded that men should know how grave was the +ill afflicting me, I shunned the society of women; and, on account of this +habit, the same miserable public scandal which I desired so earnestly to +avoid, arose concerning me, and brought upon me the suspicion of still +more nefarious practices:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> in sooth it seemed that there was no further +calamity left for me to endure."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> After reading these words, it is hard +to believe that a man, afflicted with a misfortune which he characterizes +in these terms, could have been even moderately happy; much less in that +state of bliss which he sits down to describe forty years afterwards.</p> + +<p>But the end of his life at Sacco was fated to be happier than the +beginning, and it is possible that memories of the last months he spent +there may have helped to colour with rosy tint the picture of happiness +recently referred to. In the first place he was suddenly freed from his +physical infirmity, and shortly after his restoration he met and married +the woman who, as long as she lived with him, did all that was possible to +make him happy. Every momentous event of Cardan's life—and many a +trifling one as well—was heralded by some manifestation of the powers +lying beyond man's cognition. In writing about the signs and tokens which +served as premonitions of his courtship and marriage, he glides easily +into a description of the events themselves in terms which are worth +producing. "In times past I had my home in Sacco, and there I led a joyful +life, as if I were a man unvexed by misfortune (I recall this circumstance +somewhat out of season, but the dream I am about to tell of seems only too +appropriate to the occasion), or a mortal made free of the habitations of +the blest, or rather of some region of delight. Then, on a certain night, +I seemed to find myself in a pleasant garden, beautiful exceedingly, +decked with flowers and filled with fruits of divers sorts, and a soft air +breathed around. So lovely was it all that no painter nor our poet Pulci, +nor any imagination of man could have figured the like. I was standing in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +the forecourt of this garden, the door whereof was open, and there was +another door on the opposite side, when lo! I beheld before me a damsel +clad in white. I embraced and kissed her; but before I could kiss her +again, the gardener closed the door. I straightway begged him earnestly +that he would open it again, but I begged in vain; wherefore, plunged in +grief and clinging to the damsel, I seemed to be shut out of the garden.</p> + +<p>"A little time after this there was a rumour in the town of a house on +fire, and I was roused from sleep to hurry to the spot. Then I learned +that the house belonged to one Altobello Bandarini,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> a captain of the +Venetian levies in the district of Padua. I had no acquaintance with him, +in sooth I scarcely knew him by sight. Now it chanced that after the fire +he hired a house next door to my own, a step which displeased me somewhat, +for such a neighbour was not to my taste; but what was I to do? After the +lapse of a few days, when I was in the street, I perceived a young girl +who, as to her face and her raiment, was the exact image of her whom I had +beheld in my dream. But I said to myself, 'What is this girl to me? If I, +poor wretch that I am, take to wife a girl dowered with naught, except a +crowd of brothers and sisters, it will be all over with me; forasmuch as I +can hardly keep myself as it is. If I should attempt to carry her off, or +to have my will of her by stealth, there will of a surety be some +tale-bearers about; and her father, being a fellow-townsman and a soldier +to boot, would not sit down lightly under such an injury. In this case, or +in that, it is hard to say what course I should follow, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> if this +affair should come to the issue I most desire, I must needs fly the +place.' From that same hour these thoughts and others akin to them +possessed my brain, which was only too ready to harbour them, and I felt +it would be better to die than to live on in such perplexity. Thenceforth +I was as one love-possessed, or even burnt up with passion, and I +understood what meaning I might gather from the reading of my dream. +Moreover I was by this time freed from the chain which had held me back +from marriage. Thus I, a willing bridegroom, took a willing bride, her +kinsfolk questioning us how this thing had been brought about, and +offering us any help which might be of service; which help indeed proved +of very substantial benefit.</p> + +<p>"But the interpretation of my dreams did not work itself out entirely in +the after life of my wife; it made itself felt likewise in the lives of my +children. My wife lived with me fifteen years, and alas! this ill-advised +marriage was the cause of all the misfortunes which subsequently happened +to me. These must have come about either by the working of the divine +will, or as the recompense due for some ill deeds wrought by myself or by +my forefathers."<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p>The dream aforesaid was not the only portent having reference to his +marriage. After describing shakings and tremblings of his bed, for which +indeed a natural cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain +dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a persistent howling +for a long time; how some ravens perched on the house-top and began +croaking in an unusual manner; and how, when his servant was breaking up a +faggot, some sparks of fire flew out of the same; whereupon, "by an +unlooked-for step I married<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> a wife, and from that time divers misfortunes +have attended me."<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Lucia, the wife of his choice, was the eldest +daughter of Altobello Bandarini, who had, besides her, three daughters and +four sons. Jerome, as it has been already noted, was possessed with a fear +lest he should be burdened by his brothers- and sisters-in-law after his +marriage; but, considering that he was a young unknown physician, without +either money or patients, and that Bandarini was a man of position and +repute, with some wealth and more shrewdness, the chances were that the +burden would lie on the other side. Cardan seems to have inherited Fazio's +contempt for wealth, or at least to have made a profession thereof; for, +in chronicling the event of his marriage, he sets down, with a certain +degree of pomposity, that he took a wife without a dower on account of a +certain vow he had sworn.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> If the bride was penniless the father-in-law +was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have proved a powerful +argument to induce Cardan to remain at Sacco, albeit he had little scope +for his calling. That he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence +of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination to sponge upon +his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, when this scheme was proposed to +him, vetoed it at once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and +possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, for Cardan has left +it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; he ended, +however, by consenting to the migration, which was not made without the +intervention of a warning portent. A short time before the young couple +departed, it happened that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's +bed-chamber; and, in the course of the night, exploded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> with a loud +report, and the fragments thereof were scattered around. This event +Bandarini regarded as an augury of evil, and indeed evil followed swiftly +after. Before a year had passed he was dead, some holding that his death +had been hastened by the ill conduct of his eldest son, and others +whispering suspicions of poison.</p> + +<p>Jerome and his young wife betook themselves to Milan, but this visit seems +to have been fully as unprofitable as the one he had paid in 1529. In that +year he had to face his first rejection by the College of Physicians, when +he made application for admission; and there is indirect evidence that he +now made a second application with no better result.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> In any case his +affairs were in a very bad way. If he had money in his pocket he would not +keep long away from the gaming-table; and, with the weight of trouble ever +bearing him down more and more heavily, it is almost certain that his +spirits must have suffered, and that poor Lucia must have passed many an +unhappy hour on account of his nervous irritability. Then the gates of his +profession remained closed to him by the action of the College. The +pretext the authorities gave for their refusal to admit him was his +illegitimate birth; but it is not unlikely that they may have mistrusted +as a colleague the son of Fazio Cardano, and that stories of the +profligate life and the intractable temper of the candidate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>may have been +brought to them.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> His health suffered from the bad air of the city +almost as severely as before, and Lucia, who was at this time pregnant, +miscarried at four months, and shortly afterwards had a second misfortune +of the same kind. His mother's temper was not of the sweetest, and it is +quite possible that between her and her daughter-in-law there may have +been strained relations. Cardan at any rate found that he must once more +beat a retreat from Milan, wherefore, at the end of April 1533, he made up +his mind to remove to Gallarate.</p> + +<p>This town has already been mentioned as chief place of the district, from +which the Cardan family took its origin. Before going thither Jerome had +evidently weighed the matter well, and he has set down at some length the +reasons which led him to make this choice. "Thus, acting under the reasons +aforesaid (the family associations), I resolved to go to Gallarate, in +order that I might have the enjoyment of four separate advantages which it +offered. Firstly, that in the most healthy air of the place I might shake +off entirely the distemper which I had contracted in Milan. Secondly, that +I might earn something by my profession, seeing that then I should be free +to practise. Thirdly, that there would be no need for me to pine away +while I beheld those physicians, by whom I reckoned I had been despoiled, +flourishing in wealth and in the high estimation of all men. Lastly, that +by following a more frugal way of life, I might make what I possessed last +the longer. For all things are cheaper in the country, since they have to +be carried from the country into the town, and many necessaries may be had +for the asking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Persuaded by these arguments, I went to this place, and I +was not altogether deceived, seeing that I recovered my health, and the +son—who was to be reft from me later on by the Senate—was born to +me."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>Employment at Gallarate was, however, almost as scarce as it had been at +Sacco, wherefore Jerome found leisure in plenty for literary work. He +began a treatise on Fate; but, even had this been completed, it would +scarcely have filled the empty larder by the proceeds of its sale. More +profitable was some chance employment which was given to him by Filippo +Archinto,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> a generous and accomplished young nobleman of Milan, who was +ambitious to figure as a writer on Astronomy, and, it may be remarked, +Archinto's benefactions were not confined to the payment for the hack work +which Jerome did for him at this period. Had it not been for his +subsequent patronage and support, it is quite possible that Cardan would +have gone under in the sea of adversity.</p> + +<p>In spite of the cheapness of provisions at Gallarate, and of occasional +meals taken gratis from the fields, complete destitution seemed to be only +a matter of days, and just at this crisis, to add to his +embarrassments—though he longed earnestly for the event—Lucia was +brought to bed with her first-born living child on May 14, 1534. The +child's birth was accompanied by divers omens, one of which the father +describes, finding therein some premonition of future disaster. "I had +great fear of his life until the fifteenth day of June, on which day, +being a Sunday, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> baptized. The sun shone brightly into the +bed-chamber: it was between the hours of eleven and twelve in the +forenoon; and, according to custom, we were all gathered round the +mother's bed except a young servant, the curtain was drawn away from the +window and fastened to the wall, when suddenly a large wasp flew into the +room, and circled round the infant. We were all greatly afeard for the +child, but the wasp did him no hurt. The next moment it came against the +curtain, making so great a noise that you would have said that a drum was +being beaten, and all ran towards the place, but found no trace of the +wasp. It could not have flown out of the room, because all eyes had been +fixed upon it. Then all of us who were then present felt some foreboding +of what subsequently came to pass, but did not deem that the end would be +so bitter as it proved to be."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p>The impulse which drives men in desperate straits to seek shelter in the +streets of a city was as strong in Cardan's time as it is to-day. At +Gallarate the last coin was now spent, and there was an extra mouth to +feed. There seemed to be no other course open but another retreat to +Milan. Archinto was rich in literary ambitions, which might perchance +stimulate him to find farther work for the starving scholar: and there was +Chiara also who would scarcely let her grandchild die of want. The +revelation which Cardan makes of himself and of his way of life at this +time is not one to enlist sympathy for him entirely; but it is not wanting +in a note of pathetic sincerity. "For a long time the College at Milan +refused to admit me, and during these days I was assuredly a spendthrift +and heedless. In body I was weakly, and in estate plundered by thieves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> on +all sides, yet I never grudged money for the buying of books. My residence +at Gallarate brought me no profit, for in the whole nineteen months I +lived there, I did not receive more than twenty-five crowns towards the +rent of the house I hired. I had such ill luck with the dice that I was +forced to pawn all my wife's jewels, and our very bed. If it is a wonder +that I found myself thus bereft of all my substance, it is still more +wonderful that I did not take to begging on account of my poverty, and a +wonder greater still that I harboured in my mind no unworthy thoughts +against my forefathers, or against right living, or against those honours +which I had won—honours which afterwards stood me in good stead—but bore +my misfortunes with mind undisturbed."<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan's worldly fortunes were now at their lowest ebb. Burdened with a +wife and child, he had found it necessary to return, after a second futile +attempt to gain a living by his calling in a country town, to Milan, his +"stony-hearted step-mother." If he had reckoned on his mother's bounty he +was doomed to disappointment, for Chiara was an irritable woman, and as +her son's temper was none of the sweetest, it is almost certain that they +must have quarrelled occasionally. It is hard to believe that they could +have been on good terms at this juncture, otherwise she would scarcely +have allowed him to take his wife and child to what was then the public +workhouse of the city;<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> but this place was his only refuge, and in +October 1534 he was glad to shelter himself beneath its roof.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was in Cardan's nature a strong vein of melancholy, and up to the +date now under consideration he had been the victim of a fortune +calculated to deepen rather than disperse his morbid tendencies. A proof +of his high courage and dauntless perseverance may be deduced from the +fact that neither poverty, nor the sense of repeated failure, nor the +flouts of the Milanese doctors, prevailed at any time to quench in his +heart the love of fame,<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> or to disabuse him of the conviction that he, +poverty-stricken wretch as he was, would before long bind Fortune to his +chariot-wheels, and would force the adverse world to acknowledge him as +one of its master minds. The dawn was now not far distant, but the last +hours of his night of misfortune were very dark. The worst of the +struggle, as far as the world was concerned, was over, and the sharpest +sorrows and the heaviest disgrace reserved for Cardan in the future were +to be those nourished in his own household.</p> + +<p>Writing of his way of life and of the vices and defects of his character, +he says: "If a man shall fail in his carriage before the world as he fails +in other things, who shall correct him? Thus I myself will do duty for +that one leper who alone out of the ten who were healed came back to our +Lord. By reasoning of this sort, Physicians and Astrologers trace back the +origin of our natural habits to our primal qualities, to the training of +our will, and to our occupations and conversation. In every man all these +are found in proper ratio to the time of life of each individual; +nevertheless it will be easy to discern marked variations in cases +otherwise similar. Therefore it behoves us to hold fast to some guiding +principle chosen out of these, and I on my part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> am inclined, as far as it +may be allowed, to say with respect to all of them, <ins class="greek" title="gnôthi seauton.">γνω̑θι σεαυὸν</ins>.</p> + +<p>"My own nature in sooth was never a mystery to myself. I was ever +hot-tempered, single-minded, and given to women. From these cardinal +tendencies there proceeded truculence of temper, wrangling, obstinacy, +rudeness of carriage, anger, and an inordinate desire, or rather a +headstrong passion, for revenge in respect to any wrong done to me; so +that this inclination, which is censured by many, became to me a delight. +To put it briefly, I held <i>At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa</i>. As a +general rule I went astray but seldom, though it is a common saying, +'<i>Natura nostra prona est ad malum</i>.' I am moreover truthful, mindful of +benefits wrought to me, a lover of justice and of my own people, a +despiser of money, a worshipper of that fame which defies death, prone to +thrust aside what is commonplace, and still more disposed to treat mere +trifles in the same way. Still, knowing well how great may be the power of +little things at any moment during the course of an undertaking, I never +make light of aught which may be useful. By nature I am prone to every +vice and ill-doing except ambition, and I, if no one else does, know my +own imperfections. But because of my veneration for God, and because I +recognize the vanity and emptiness of all things of this sort, it often +happens that, of my own free will, I forego certain opportunities for +taking revenge which may be offered to me. I am timid, with a cold heart +and a hot brain, given to reflection and the consideration of things many +and mighty, and even of things which can never come to pass. I can even +let my thoughts concern themselves with two distinct subjects at the same +time. Those who throw out charges of garrulity and extravagance by way of +contradicting any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> praise accorded to me, charge me with the faults of +others rather than my own. I attack no man, I only defend myself.</p> + +<p>"And what reason is there why I should spend myself in this cause since I +have so often borne witness of the emptiness of this life of ours? My +excuse must be that certain men have praised me, wherefore they cannot +deem me altogether wicked. I have always trained myself to let my face +contradict my thoughts. Thus while I can simulate what is not, I cannot +dissimulate what is. To accomplish this is no difficult task if a man +cultivates likewise the habit of hoping for nothing. By striving for +fifteen years to compass this end and by spending much trouble over the +same I at last succeeded. Urged on by this humour I sometimes go forth in +rags, sometimes finely dressed, sometimes silent, sometimes talkative, +sometimes joyful, sometimes sad; and on this account my two-fold mood +shows everything double. In my youth I rarely spent any care in keeping my +hair in order, because of my inclination for other pursuits more to my +taste. My gait is irregular. I move now quickly, now slowly. When I am at +home I go with my legs naked as far as the ankles. I am slack in duty and +reckless in speech, and specially prone to show irritation over anything +which may disgust or irk me."</p> + +<p>The above-written self-description does not display a personality +particularly attractive. Jerome Cardan was one of those men who experience +a morbid gratification in cataloguing all their sinister points of +character, and exaggerating them at the same time; and in this picture, as +in many others scattered about the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, the shadows may have +been put in too strongly.</p> + +<p>In the foregoing pages reference was made to certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> acts of benevolence +done to Cardan by the family of Archinto. It is not impossible that the +promises and persuasions of his young patron Filippo may have had some +weight in inducing Jerome to shift his home once more. Whatever befell he +could hardly make his case worse; but whether Filippo had promised help or +not, he showed himself now a true and valuable friend. There was in Milan +a public lectureship in geometry and astronomy supported by a small +endowment left by a certain Tommaso Plat, and to this post, which happened +opportunely to be vacant, Cardan was appointed by the good offices of +Filippo Archinto. Yet even when he was literally a pauper he seems to have +felt some scruples about accepting this office, but fortunately in this +instance his poverty overcame his pride. The salary was indeed a very +small one,<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> and the lecturer was not suffered to handle the whole of +it, but it was at least liberal enough to banish the dread of starvation, +and his duties, which consisted solely in the preparation and delivery of +his lectures, did not debar him from literary work on his own account. +Wherefore in his leisure time he worked hard at his desk.</p> + +<p>Any differences which may have existed between him and his mother were now +removed, for he took her to live with him, the household being made up of +himself, his wife, his mother, a friend (a woman), a nurse, the little +boy, a man- and maidservant, and a mule.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Possibly Chiara brought her +own income with her, and thus allowed the establishment to be conducted on +a more liberal scale. The Plat lectureship would scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> have maintained +three servants, and Jerome's gains from other sources must have been as +yet very slender. His life at this time was a busy one, but he always +contrived to portion out his days in such wise that certain hours were +left for recreation. At such times as he was called upon to teach, the +class-room, of course, had the first claims. After the lecture he would +walk in the shade outside the city walls, then return to his dinner, then +divert himself with music, and afterwards go fishing in the pools and +streams hard by the town. In the course of time he obtained other +employment, being appointed physician to the Augustinian friars. The Prior +of this Order, Francesco Gaddi, was indeed his first patient of note. He +tells how he cured this man of a biennial leprosy after treating him for +six months;<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> adding that his labour was in vain, inasmuch as Gaddi died +a violent death afterwards. The refusal of the College of Milan to admit +him to membership did not forbid him to prescribe for whatever patients +might like to consult him by virtue of his Paduan degree. He read +voraciously everything which came in his way, and it must have been during +these years that he stored his memory with that vast collection of facts +out of which he subsequently compounded the row of tomes which form his +legacy to posterity. Filippo Archinto was unfailing in his kindness, and +Jerome at this time was fortunate enough to attract the attention of +certain other Milanese citizens of repute who afterwards proved to be +valuable friends; Ludovico Madio, Girolamo Guerrini a jeweller, Francesco +Belloti, and Francesco della Croce. The last-named was a skilled +jurisconsult, whose help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> proved of great service in a subsequent +litigation between Jerome and the College of Physicians.</p> + +<p>All his life long Cardan was a dreamer of dreams, and he gives an account +of one of his visions in this year, 1534, which, whether regarded as an +allegory or as a portent, is somewhat remarkable. "In the year 1534, when +I was as it were groping in the dark, when I had settled naught as to my +future life, and when my case seemed to grow more desperate day by day, I +beheld in a dream the figure of myself running towards the base of a +mountain which stood upon my right hand, in company with a vast crowd of +people of every station and age and sex—women, men, old men, boys, +infants, poor men and rich men, clad in raiment of every sort. I inquired +whither we were all running, whereupon one of the multitude answered that +we were all hastening on to death. I was greatly terrified at these words, +when I perceived a mountain on my left hand. Then, having turned myself +round so that it stood on my right side, I grasped the vines (which, here +in the midst of the mountains and as far as the place wherein I stood, +were covered with dry leaves, and bare of grapes, as we commonly see them +in autumn) and began to ascend. At first I found this difficult, for the +reason that the mountain was very steep round the base, but having +surmounted this I made my way upward easily. When I had come to the summit +it seemed that I was like to pass beyond the dictates of my own will. +Steep naked rocks appeared on every side, and I narrowly escaped falling +down from a great height into a gloomy chasm. So dreadful is all this that +now, what though forty years have rolled away, the memory thereof still +saddens and terrifies me. Then, having turned towards the right where I +could see naught but a plain covered with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> heath, I took that path out of +fear, and, as I wended thither in reckless mood, I found that I had come +to the entrance of a rude hut, thatched with straw and reeds and rushes, +and that I held by my right hand a boy about twelve years of age and clad +in a grey garment. Then at this very moment I was aroused from sleep, and +my dream vanished.</p> + +<p>"In this vision was clearly displayed the deathless name which was to be +mine, my life of heavy and ceaseless work, my imprisonment, my seasons of +grievous terror and sadness, and my abiding-place foreshadowed as +inhospitable, by the sharp stones I beheld: barren, by the want of trees +and of all serviceable plants; but destined to be, nevertheless, in the +end happy, and righteous, and easy. This dream told also of my lasting +fame in the future, seeing that the vine yields a harvest every year. As +to the boy, if he were indeed my good spirit, the omen was lucky, for I +held him very close. If he were meant to foreshadow my grandson it would +be less fortunate. That cottage in the desert was my hope of rest. That +overwhelming horror and the sense of falling headlong may have had +reference to the ruin of my son.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>"My second dream occurred a short time after. It seemed to me that my soul +was in the heaven of the moon, freed from the body and all alone, and when +I was bewailing my fate I heard the voice of my father, saying: 'God has +appointed me as a guardian to you. All this region is full of spirits, but +these you cannot see, and you must not speak either to me or to them. In +this part of heaven you will remain for seven thousand years, and for the +same time in certain other stars, until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> you come to the eighth. After +this you shall enter the kingdom of God.' I read this dream as follows. My +father's soul is my tutelary spirit. What could be dearer or more +delightful? The Moon signifies Grammar; Mercury Geometry and Arithmetic; +Venus Music, the Art of Divination, and Poetry; the Sun the Moral, and +Jupiter the Natural, World; Mars Medicine; Saturn Agriculture, the +knowledge of plants, and other minor arts. The eighth star stands for a +gleaning of all mundane things, natural science, and various other +studies. After dealing with these I shall at last find my rest with the +Prince of Heaven."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> "Nec ullum mihi erat relictum auxilium nisi latrunculorum +Ludus."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 619.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> From the formation of the League of Cambrai in 1508 to the +establishment of the Imperial supremacy in Italy in 1530, the whole +country was desolated by the marching and counter-marching of the +contending forces. Milan, lying directly in the path of the French armies, +suffered most of all.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Compare <i>De Vita Propria</i>, chaps. iv. and xxxi. pp. 13 and +92.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxi. p. 92. In taking the other view +he writes: "Vitam ducebam in Saccensi oppido, ut mihi videbar, +infelicissime."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 235.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> He gives a long and interesting sketch of his father-in-law +in <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 370.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxvi. p. 68; <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 97.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 149.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 350.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 357: "Nam in urbe nec collegium recipere +volebat nec cum aliquo ex illis artem exercere licebat et sine illis +difficillimum erat." He writes thus while describing this particular visit +to Milan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Ill fortune seems to have pursued the whole family in their +relations with learned societies. "Nam et pater meus ut ab eo accepi, diu +in ingressu Collegii Jurisconsultorum laboravit, et ego, ut alias testatus +sum, bis a medicorum Patavino, toties filius meus natu major, a Ticinensi, +uterque a Mediolanensi rejecti sumus."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 358.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> He became a priest, and died Archbishop of Milan in 1552. +Cardan dedicated to him his first published book, <i>De Malo Medendi</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 119.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxv. p. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> The Xenodochium, which was originally a stranger's +lodging-house. By this time places of this sort had become little else +than <i>succursales</i> of some religious house. The Governors of the Milanese +Xenodochium were the patrons of the Plat endowment which Cardan afterwards +enjoyed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> "Hoc unum sat scio, ab ineunte ætate me inextinguibili +nominis immortalis cupiditate flagrasse."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> "Minimo tamen honorario, et illud etiam minimum suasu +cujusdam amici egregii praefecti Xenodochii imminuerunt; ita cum hujus +recordor in mentem venit fabellæ illius Apuleii de annonæ +Praefecto."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 351.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> The following gives a hint as to the treatment followed: +"Referant leprosos balneo ejus aquae in qua cadaver ablutum sit, +sanari."—<i>De Varietate</i>, p. 334.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. This dream is also +told in <i>De Libris Propriis</i>, Opera, tom. i. p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 121.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Jerome Cardan</span> is now standing on the brink of authorship. The very title +of his first book, <i>De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum Medendi Usu</i>, gives +plain indication of the humour which possessed him, when he formulated his +subject and put it in writing. With his temper vexed by the persistent +neglect and insult cast upon him by the Milanese doctors he would +naturally sit down <i>con amore</i> to compile a list of the errors perpetrated +by the ignorance and bungling of the men who affected to despise him, and +if his object was to sting the hides of these pundits and arouse them to +hostility yet more vehement, he succeeded marvellously well. He was +enabled to launch his book rather by the strength of private friendship +than by the hope of any commercial success. Whilst at Pavia he had become +intimate with Ottaviano Scoto, a fellow-student who came from Venice, and +in after times he found Ottaviano's purse very useful to his needs. Since +their college days Ottaviano's father had died and had left his son to +carry on his calling of printing. In 1536 Jerome bethought him of his +friend, and sent him the MS. of the treatise which was to let the world +learn with what little wisdom it was being doctored.<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> + +<p>Ottaviano seems to have expected no profit from this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> venture, which was +manifestly undertaken out of a genuine desire to help his friend, and he +generously bore all the costs. Cardan deemed that, whatever the result of +the issue of the book might be, it would surely be to his benefit; he +hazarded nothing, and the very publication of his work would give him at +least notoriety. It would moreover give him the intense pleasure of +knowing that he was repaying in some measure the debt of vengeance owing +to his professional foes. The outcome was exactly the opposite of what +printer and author had feared and hoped. The success of the book was rapid +and great.</p> + +<p>Ottaviano must soon have recouped all the cost of publication; and, while +he was counting his money, the doctors everywhere were reading Jerome's +brochure, and preparing a ruthless attack upon the daring censor, who, +with the impetuosity of youth, had laid himself open to attack by the +careless fashion in which he had compiled his work. He took fifteen days +to write it, and he confesses in his preface to the revised edition that +he found therein over three hundred mistakes of one sort or another. The +attack was naturally led by the Milanese doctors. They demanded to be told +why this man, who was not good enough to practise by their sanction, was +good enough to lay down the laws for the residue of the medical world. +They heaped blunder upon blunder, and held him up to ridicule with all the +wealth of invective characteristic of the learned controversy of the age. +Cardan was deeply humbled and annoyed. "For my opponents, seizing the +opportunity, took occasion to assail me through the reasoning of this +book, and cried out: 'Who can doubt that this man is mad? and that he +would teach a method and a practice of medicine differing from our own, +since he has so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen +said, I must in truth have appeared crazy in my efforts to contradict this +multitude raging against me. For, as it was absolutely certain that either +I or they must be in the wrong, how could I hope to win? Who would take my +word against the word of this band of doctors of approved standing, +wealthy, for the most part full of years, well instructed, richly clad and +cultivated in their bearing, well versed in speaking, supported by crowds +of friends and kinsfolk, raised by popular approval to high position, and, +what was more powerful than all else, skilled in every art of cunning and +deceit?"</p> + +<p>Cardan had indeed prepared a bitter pill for his foes, but the draught +they compelled him to swallow was hardly more palatable. The publication +of the book naturally increased the difficulties of his position, and in +this respect tended to make his final triumph all the more noteworthy.</p> + +<p>It was in 1536 that Cardan made his first essay as an author.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The next +three years of his life at Milan were remarkable as years of preparation +and accumulation, rather than as years of achievement. He had struck his +first blow as a reformer, and, as is often the lot of reformers, his sword +had broken in his hand, and there now rested upon him the sense of failure +as a superadded torment. Yet now and again a gleam of consolation would +disperse the gloom, and advise him that the world was beginning to +recognize his existence, and in a way his merits. In this same year he +received an offer from Pavia of the Professorship of Medicine, but this he +refused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> because he did not see any prospect of being paid for his +services. His friend Filippo Archinto was loyal still, and zealous in +working for his success, and as he had been recently promoted to high +office in the Imperial service, his good word might be very valuable +indeed. He summoned his <i>protégé</i> to join him at Piacenza, whither he had +gone to meet Paul III., hoping to advance Cardan's interests with the +Pope; but though Marshal Brissac, the French king's representative,<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> +joined Archinto in advocating his cause, nothing was done, and Jerome +returned disappointed to Milan.</p> + +<p>In these months Cardan, disgusted by the failure of his late attack upon +the fortress of medical authority, turned his back, for a time, upon the +study of medicine, and gave his attention almost entirely to mathematics, +in which his reputation was high enough to attract pupils, and he always +had one or more of them in his house, the most noteworthy of whom was +Ludovico Ferrari of Bologna, who became afterwards a mathematician of +repute, and a teacher both at Milan and Bologna. While he was working at +the <i>De Malo Medendi</i>, he began a treatise upon Arithmetic, which he +dedicated to his friend Prior Gaddi; but this work was not published till +1539. In 1536 he first heard a report of a fresh and important discovery +in algebra, made by one Scipio Ferreo of Bologna; the prologue to one of +the most dramatic incidents in his career, an incident which it will be +necessary to treat at some length later on.</p> + +<p>Cardan was well aware that his excursions into astrology worked to his +prejudice in public esteem, but in spite of this he could not refrain +therefrom. It was during the plentiful leisure of this period that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ, a feat which subsequently brought upon +him grave misfortune; a few patients came to him, moved no doubt by the +spirit which still prompts people suffering from obscure diseases to +consult professors of healing who are either in revolt or unqualified in +preference to going to the orthodox physician. In connection with this +irregular practice of his he gives a curious story about a certain Count +Borromeo. "In 1536, while I was attending professionally in the house of +the Borromei, it chanced that just about dawn I had a dream in which I +beheld a serpent of enormous bulk, and I was seized with fear lest I +should meet my death therefrom. Shortly afterwards there came a messenger +to summon me to see the son of Count Carlo Borromeo. I went to the boy, +who was about seven years old, and found him suffering from a slight +distemper, but on feeling his pulse I perceived that it failed at every +fourth beat. His mother, the Countess Corona, asked me how he fared, and I +answered that there was not much fever about him; but that, because his +pulse failed at every fourth beat, I was in fear of something, but what it +might be I knew not rightly (but I had not then by me Galen's books on the +indications of the pulse). Therefore, as the patient's state changed not, +I determined on the third day to give him in small doses the drug called +<i>Diarob: cum Turbit</i>: I had already written my prescription, and the +messenger was just starting with it to the pharmacy, when I remembered my +dream. 'How do I know,' said I to myself, 'that this boy may not be about +to die as prefigured by the portent above written? and in that case these +other physicians who hate me so bitterly, will maintain he died through +taking this drug.' I called to the messenger, and said there was wanting +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the prescription something which I desired to add. Then I privately +tore up what I had written, and wrote out another made of pearls, of the +horn of unicorn,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> and certain gems. The powder was given, and was +followed by vomiting. The bystanders perceived that the boy was indeed +sick, whereupon they called in three of the chief physicians, one of whom +was in a way friendly to me. They saw the description of the medicine, and +demanded what I would do now. Now although two of these men hated me, it +was not God's will that I should be farther attacked, and they not only +praised the medicine, but ordered that it should be repeated. This was the +saving of me. When I went again in the evening I understood the case +completely. The following morning I was summoned at daybreak, and found +the boy battling with death, and his father lying in tears. 'Behold him,' +he cried, 'the boy whom you declared to ail nothing' (as if indeed I could +have said such a thing); 'at least you will remain with him as long as he +lives.' I promised that I would, and a little later the boy tried to rise, +crying out the while. They held him down, and cast all the blame upon me. +What more is there to say? If there had been found any trace of that drug +<i>Diarob: cum Turbit</i>: (which in sooth was not safe) it would have been all +over with me, since Borromeo all his life would either have launched +against me complaints grave enough to make all men shun me, or another +Canidia, more fatal than African serpents, would have breathed poison upon +me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>In this same year, 1536, Lucia brought forth another child, a daughter, +and it was about this time that Cardan first attracted the attention of +Alfonso d'Avalos, the Governor of Milan, and an intimacy began which, +albeit fruitless at first, was destined to be of no slight service to +Jerome at the crisis of his fortunes.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> In the following year, in 1537, +he made a beginning of two of his books, which were subsequently found +worthy of being finished, and which may still be read with a certain +interest: the treatises <i>De Sapientia</i> and <i>De Consolatione</i>. Of the +last-named, he remarks that it pleased no one, forasmuch as it appealed +not to those who were happy, and the wretched rejected it as entirely +inadequate to give them solace in their evil case. In this year he made +another attempt to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> gain admission to the College at Milan, and was again +rejected; the issue of the <i>De Malo Medendi</i> was too recent, and it needed +other and more potent influences than those exercised by mere merit, to +appease the fury of his rivals and to procure him due status. But it would +appear that, in 1536 or 1537, he negotiated with the College to obtain a +quasi-recognition on conditions which he afterwards describes as +disgraceful to himself, and that this was granted to him.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> + +<p>Whatever his qualifications may have been, Cardan had no scruples in +treating the few patients who came to him. The first case he notes is that +of Donato Lanza,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> a druggist, who had suffered for many years with +blood-spitting, which ailment he treated successfully. Success of this +sort was naturally helpful, but far more important than Lanza's cure was +the introduction given by the grateful patient to the physician, +commending him to Francesco Sfondrato, a noble Milanese, a senator, and a +member of the Emperor's privy council. The eldest son of this gentleman +had suffered many months from convulsions, and Cardan worked a cure in his +case without difficulty. Shortly afterwards another child, only ten months +old, was attacked by the same complaint, and was treated by Luca della +Croce, the procurator of the College of Physicians, of which Sfondrato was +a patron. As the attack threatened to be a serious one, Della Croce +recommended that another physician, Ambrogio Cavenago, should be called +in, but the father, remembering Cardan's cure of Lanza, wished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> for him as +well. The description of the meeting of the doctors round the sick child's +bed, of their quotations from Hippocrates, of the uncertainty and +helplessness of the orthodox practitioners, and of the ready resource of +the free-lance—who happens also to be the teller of the story—is a +richly typical one.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> "We, the physicians and the father of the child, +met about seven in the morning, and Della Croce made a few general +observations on death, for he knew that Sfondrato was a sensible man, and +he himself was both honoured and learned. Cavenago kept silence at this +stage, because the last word had been granted to him. Then I said, 'Do you +not see that the child is suffering from Opisthotonos?' whereupon the +first physician stood as one dazed, as if I were trying to trouble his +wits by my hard words. But Della Croce at once swept aside all uncertainty +by saying, 'He means the backward contraction of the muscles.' I confirmed +his words, and added, 'I will show you what I mean.' Whereupon I raised +the boy's head, which the doctors and all the rest believed was hanging +down through weakness, and by its own weight, and bade them put it into +its former position. Then Sfondrato turned to me, and said, 'As you have +discovered what the disease is, tell us likewise what is the remedy +therefor.' Since no one else spoke, I turned towards him and—careful lest +I should do hurt to the credit I had gained already,—I said, 'You know +what Hippocrates lays down in a case like this—<i>febrem convulsioni</i>'—and +I recited the aphorism. Then I ordered a fomentation, and an application +of lint moistened with linseed-oil and oil of lilies, and gave directions +that the child should be gently handled until such time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> as the neck +should be restored; that the nurse should eat no meat, and that the child +should be nourished entirely by the milk of her breast, and not too much +of that; that it should be kept in its cradle in a warm place, and rocked +gently till it should fall asleep. After the other physicians had gone, I +remember that the father of the child said to me, 'I give you this child +for your own,' and that I answered, 'You are doing him an ill turn, in +that you are supplanting his rich father by a poor one.' He answered, 'I +am sure that you would care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught +that you might thereby give offence to these others' (meaning the +physicians). I said, 'It would please me well to work with them in +everything, and to win their support.' I thus blended my words, so that he +might understand I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was quite +confident thereanent. The cure came to a favourable end; for, after the +fourteenth day of the fever—the weather being very warm—the child got +well in four days' time. Now as I review the circumstances, I am of +opinion that it was not because I perceived what the disease really was, +for I might have done so much by reason of my special practice; nor +because I healed the child, for that might have been attributed to chance; +but because the child got well in four days, whereas his brother lay ill +for six months, and was then left half dead, that his father was so much +amazed at my skill, and afterwards preferred me to all others. That he +thought well of me is certain, because Della Croce himself, during the +time of his procuratorship, was full of spite and jealousy against me, and +declared in the presence of Cavenago and of Sfondrato, that he would not, +under compulsion, say a word in favour of a man like me, one whom the +College regarded with disfavour. Whereupon Sfondrato<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> saw that the envy +and jealousy of the other physicians was what kept me out of the College, +and not the circumstances of my birth. He told the whole story to the +Senate, and brought such influence to bear upon the Governor of the +Province and other men of worship, that at last the entrance to the +College was opened to me."</p> + +<p>Up to the time of his admission to the College, Jerome had never felt that +he could depend entirely upon medicine for his livelihood. He now +determined to publish his <i>Practica Arithmeticæ</i>, the book which he had +prepared <i>pari passu</i> with the ill-starred <i>De Malo Medendi</i>. It seems to +have been thoroughly revised and corrected, and was finally published in +1539, in Milan; Cardan only received ten crowns for his work, but the +sudden fame he achieved as a mathematician ought to have set him on firm +ground. His friends were still working to secure for him benefits yet more +substantial. Alfonso d'Avalos, Francesco della Croce, the jurisconsult +whose name has already been mentioned, and the senator Sfondrato, were +doing their best to bring the physicians of the city into a more +reasonable temper, and they finally succeeded in 1539; when, after having +been denied admission for twelve years, Jerome Cardan became a member of +the College, and a sharer in all the privileges appertaining thereto.</p> + +<p>Though Cardan was now a fully qualified physician, he spent his time for +the next year or two rather with letters than with medicine. He worked +hard at Greek, and as the result of his studies published somewhat +prematurely a treatise, <i>De Immortalitate Animorum</i>, a collection of +extracts from Greek writers which Julius <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>Cæsar Scaliger with justice +calls a confused farrago of other men's learning.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> He published also +about this period the treatise on Judicial Astrology, and the Essay <i>De +Consolatione</i>, the only one of his books which has been found worthy of an +English translation.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> In 1541 he became Rector of the College of +Physicians, but there is no record of any increase in the number of his +patients by reason of this superadded dignity. A passage in the <i>De Vita +Propria</i>, written with even more than his usual brutal candour, gives a +graphic view of his manner of life at this period. "It was in the summer +of the year 1543, a time when it was my custom to go every day to the +house of Antonio Vicomercato, a gentleman of the city, and to play chess +with him from morning till night. As we were wont to play for one real, or +even three or four, on each game, I, seeing that I was generally the +winner, would as a rule carry away with me a gold piece after each day's +play, sometimes more and sometimes less. In the case of Vicomercato it was +a pleasure and nothing else to spend money in this wise; but in my own +there was an element of conflict as well; and in this manner I lost my +self-respect so completely that, for two years and more, I took no thought +of practising my art, nor considered that I was wasting all my +substance—save what I made by play—that my good name and my studies as +well would suffer shipwreck. But on a certain day towards the end of +August, a new humour seized Vicomercato (either advisedly on account of +the constant loss he suffered, or perhaps because he thought his decision +would be for my benefit), a determination from which he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> to be moved +neither by arguments, nor adjurations, nor abuse. He forced me to swear +that I would never again visit his house for the sake of gaming, and I, on +my part, swore by all the gods as he wished. That day's play was our last, +and thenceforth I gave myself up entirely to my studies."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> + +<p>But these studies unfortunately were not of a nature to keep the wolf from +the door; and Jerome, albeit now a duly qualified physician, and known to +fame as a writer on Mathematics far beyond the bounds of Italy, was +well-nigh as poor as ever. His mother had died several years before, in +1537; but what little money she may have left would soon have been wasted +in gratifying his extravagant taste for costly things,<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> and at the +gaming-table. He found funds, however, for a journey to Florence, whither +he went to see d'Avalos, who was a generous, open-handed man, and always +ready to put his purse at the service of one whom he regarded as an honour +to his city and country. There can be little doubt that he helped Cardan +liberally at this juncture. The need for a loan was assuredly urgent +enough. The recent resumption of hostilities between the French and the +Imperialists had led to intolerable taxation throughout the Milanese +provinces, and in consequence of dearth of funds in 1543, the Academy at +Pavia was forced to close its class-rooms, and leave its teachers unpaid. +The greater part of the professors migrated to Pisa; and the Faculty of +Medicine, then vacant, was, <i>pro formâ</i>, transferred to Milan. This chair +was now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>offered to Cardan. He was in desperate straits—a third child had +been born this year—and, though there must have been even less chance of +getting his salary paid than when he had refused it before, he accepted +the post, explaining that he took this step because there was now no need +for him to leave Milan, or danger that he would be rated as an itinerant +teacher. It is not improbable that he may have been led to accept the +office on account of the additional dignity it would give to him as a +practising physician. When, a little later on, the authorities began to +talk of returning to Pavia, he was in no mind to follow them, giving as a +reason that, were he to leave Milan, he would lose his stipend for the +Plat lectureship, and be put to great trouble in the transport of his +household, and perhaps suffer in reputation as well. The Senate was +evidently anxious to retain his services. They bade him consider the +matter, promising to send on a certain date to learn his decision; and, as +fate would have it, the question was conveniently decided for him by a +portent.</p> + +<p>"On the night before the day upon which my answer was to be sent to the +Senate to say what course I was going to take, the whole of the house fell +down into a heap of ruins, and no single thing was left unwrecked, save +the bed in which I and my wife and my children were sleeping. Thus the +step, which I should never have taken of my own free will or without some +sign, I was compelled to take by the course of events. This thing caused +great wonder to all those who heard of it."<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>This was in 1544. Jerome hesitated no longer, and went forthwith to Pavia +as Professor of Medicine at a salary of two hundred and forty gold crowns +per annum; but, for the first year at least, this salary was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> not paid; +and the new professor lectured for a time to empty benches; but, as he was +at this time engaged in the final stage of his great work on Algebra, the +leisure granted to him by the neglect of the students must have been most +acceptable. He published at this time a treatise called <i>Contradicentium +Medicorum</i>, and in 1545 his <i>Algebra</i> or <i>Liber Artis Magnæ</i> was issued +from the press by Petreius of Nuremberg. The issue of this book, by which +alone the name of Cardan holds a place in contemporary learning, is +connected with an episode of his life important enough to demand special +and detailed consideration in a separate place.</p> + +<p>His practice in medicine was now a fairly lucrative one, but his +extravagant tastes and the many vices with which he charges himself would +have made short work of the largest income he could possibly have earned, +consequently poverty was never far removed from the household. Hitherto +his reputation as a man of letters and a mathematician had exceeded his +fame as a doctor; for, even after he had taken up his residence as +Professor of Medicine at Padua, many applications were made to him for his +services in other branches of learning. It was fortunate indeed that he +had let his reading take a somewhat eclectic course, for medicine at this +time seemed fated to play him false. At the end of 1544 no salary was +forthcoming at Pavia, so he abandoned his class-room, and returned to +Milan.</p> + +<p>During his residence there, in the summer of 1546, Cardinal Moroni, acting +on behalf of Pope Paul III., made an offer for his services as a teacher +of mathematics, accompanied by terms which, as he himself admits, were not +to be despised; but, as was his wont, he found some reason for demur, and +ultimately refused <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>the offer. In his Harpocratic vein he argued, "This +pope is an old man, a tottering wall, as it were. Why should I abandon a +certainty for an uncertainty?"<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The certainty he here alludes to must +have been the salary for the Plat lectureship; and, as this emolument was +a very small one, it would appear that he did not rate at a high figure +any profits which might come to him in the future from his acceptance of +the Pope's offer; but, as he admits subsequently, he did not then fully +realize the benevolence of the Cardinal who approached him on the subject, +or the magnificent patronage of the Farnesi.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> It is quite possible that +this refusal of his may have been caused by a reluctance to quit Milan, +the city which had treated him in such cruel and inhospitable fashion, +just at the time when he had become a man of mark. In the arrogance of +success it was doubtless a keen pleasure to let his fellow-townsmen see +that the man upon whom they had heaped insult after insult for so many +years was one who could afford to let Popes and Cardinals pray for his +services in vain. But whatever may have been his humour, he resolved to +remain in Milan; and, as he had no other public duty to perform except the +delivery of the Plat lectures, he had abundant leisure to spend upon the +many and important works he had on hand at this season.</p> + +<p>Cardan had now achieved European fame, and was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>apparently on the high +road to fortune, but on the very threshold of his triumph a great sorrow +and misfortune befell him, the full effect of which he did not experience +all at once. In the closing days of 1546 he lost his wife. There is very +scant record of her life and character in any of her husband's +writings,<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> although he wrote at great length concerning her father; and +the few words that are to be found here and there favour the view that she +was a good wife and mother. That Jerome could have been an easy husband to +live with under any circumstances it is hard to believe. Lucia's life, had +it been prolonged, might have been more free of trouble as the wife of a +famous and wealthy physician; but it was her ill fortune to be the +companion of her husband only in those dreary, terrible days at Sacco and +Gallarate, and in the years of uncertainty which followed the final return +to Milan. In the last-named period there was at least the Plat lectureship +standing between them and starvation; but children increased the while in +the nursery, and manuscripts in the desk of the physician without +patients, and Lucia's short life was all consumed in this weary time of +waiting for fame and fortune which, albeit hovering near, seemed destined +to mock and delude the seeker to the end. Cardan was before all else a man +of books and of the study, and it is not rare to find that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> one of this +sort makes a harsh unsympathetic husband. The qualities which he +attributes to himself in his autobiography suggest that to live with a man +cursed with such a nature would have been difficult even in prosperity, +and intolerable in trouble and privation. But fretful and irascible as +Cardan shows himself to have been, there was a warm-hearted, affectionate +side to his nature. He was capable of steadfast devotion to all those to +whom his love had ever been given. His reverence for the memory of his +tyrannical and irascible father had been noted already, and a still more +remarkable instance of his fidelity and love will have to be considered +when the time comes to deal with the crowning tragedy of his life. If +Cardan had this tender side to his nature, if he could speak tolerant and +even laudatory words concerning such a father as Fazio Cardano, and show +evidences of a love strong as death in the fight he made for the life of +his ill-starred and unworthy son, it may be hoped—in spite of his almost +unnatural silence concerning her—that he gave Lucia some of that +tenderness and sympathy which her life of hard toil and heavy sacrifice so +richly deserved; and that even in the days when he sold her trinkets to +pay his gambling losses, she was not destined to weep the bitter tears of +a neglected wife. If her early married life had been full of care and +travail, if she died when a better day seemed to be dawning, she was at +least spared the supreme sorrow and disgrace which was destined to fall so +soon upon the household. Judging by what subsequently happened, it will +perhaps be held that fate, in cutting her thread of life, was kinder to +her than to her husband, when it gave him a longer term of years under the +sun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>De Libris Propriis</i>, Opera, tom. i. p. 102.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Besides the <i>De Malo Medendi Usu</i>, he published in 1536 a +tract upon judicial astrology. This, in an enlarged form, was reprinted by +Petreius at Nuremburg in 1542.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Cardan writes of Brissac: "Erat enim Brissacus Prorex +singularis in studiosis amoris et humanitatis."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. +iv. p. 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> "Mirumque in modum venenis cornu ejus adversari +creditur."—<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 315. Sir Thomas Browne (<i>Vulgar Errors</i>, +Bk. iii. 23) deals at length with the pretended virtues of the horn, and +in the Bestiary of Philip de Thaun (<i>Popular Treatises on Science during +the Middle Ages</i>) is given an account of the many wonderful qualities of +the beast.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxiii. p. 105. He also alludes to +this case in <i>De Libris Propriis</i> (Opera, tom. i. p. 65), affirming that +the other doctors concerned in the case raised a great prejudice against +him on account of his reputation as an astrologer. "Ita tot modis et +insanus paupertate, et Astrologus profitendo edendoque libros, et +imperitus casu illustris pueri, et modum alium medendi observans ex titulo +libri nuper edito, jam prope ab omnibus habebar. Atque hæc omnia in Urbe +omnium nugacissima, et quæ calumniis maximè patet."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> The founder of this family was Indico d'Avalos, a Spanish +gentleman, who was chosen by Alfonso of Naples as a husband for Antonella, +the daughter and heiress of the great Marchese Pescara of Aquino. This +d'Avalos Marchese dal Guasto was the grandson of Indico. He commanded the +advanced guard at the battle of Pavia, and took part in almost every +battle between the French and Imperialists, and went with the Emperor to +Tunis in 1535. Though he was a brave soldier and a skilful tactician, he +was utterly defeated by d'Enghien at Cerisoles in 1544. He has been taxed +with treachery in the case of the attack upon the messengers Rincon and +Fregoso, who were carrying letters from Francis I. to the Sultan during a +truce, but he did little more than imitate the tactics used by the French +against himself; moreover, neither of the murdered men was a French +subject, or had the status of an ambassador. D'Avalos was a liberal patron +of letters and arts, and was very popular as Governor of Milan. He was a +noted gallant and a great dandy. Brantôme writes of him—"qu'il était si +dameret qu'il parfumait jusqu'aux selles de ses chevaux."—He died in +1546.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> "Violentia quorundam Medicorum adactus sum anno MDXXXVI, seu +XXXVII, turpi conditione pacisci cum Collegio, sed ut dixi, postmodum +dissoluta est, anno MDXXXIX et restitutus sum integrè."—<i>De Vita +Propria</i>, ch. xxxiii. p. 105.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xl. p. 133.—He gives a long list of +cases of his successful treatment in <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 82.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> There is a full account of this episode in <i>De Libris +Propriis</i>, p. 128, and in <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xl. p. 133.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Exotericarum exercitationum, p. 987.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <i>Cardanus Comforte, translated into Englishe</i>, 1573. It was +the work of Thomas Bedingfield, a gentleman pensioner of Queen Elizabeth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 116.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> "Delectant me gladii parvi, seu styli scriptorii, in quos +plus viginti coronatis aureis impendi: multas etiam pecunias in varia +pennarum genera, audeo dicere apparatum ad scribendum ducentis coronatis +non potuisse emi."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xviii. p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> "At ego qui, ut dixi, Harpocraticus sum dicebam:—Summus +Pont: decrepitus est: murus ruinosus, certa pro incertis +derelinquam?"—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 15. It is quite possible that +Paul III. may have desired to have Cardan about him on account of his +reputation as an astrologer, the Pope being a firm believer in the +influence of the stars.—<i>Vide</i> Ranke, <i>History of the Popes</i> i. 166.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> "Neque ego tum Moroni probitatem, nec Pharnesiorum +splendorem intelligebam."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> In writing of his own horoscope (<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. +461) he records that she miscarried thrice, brought forth three living +children, and lived with him fifteen years. He dismisses his marriage as +follows: "Duxi uxorem inexpectato, a quo tempore multa adversa concomitata +sunt."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 149. But in <i>De Rerum Subtilitate</i>, +p. 375, he records his grief at her death:—"Itaque cum a luctu dolor et +vigilia invadere soleant, ut mihi anno vertente in morte uxoris Luciæ +Bandarenæ quanquam institutis philosophiæ munitus essem, repugnante tamen +natura, memorque vinculi cōjugalis, suspiriis ac lachrymis et inedia +quinque dierum, a periculo me vindicavi."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> this point it may not be inopportune to make a break in the record of +Cardan's life and work, and to treat in retrospect of that portion of his +time which he spent in the composition of his treatises on Arithmetic and +Algebra. Ever since 1535 he had been working intermittently at one or +other of these, but it would have been impossible to deal coherently and +effectively with the growth and completion of these two books—really the +most important of all he left behind him—while chronicling the goings and +comings of a life so adventurous as that of the author.</p> + +<p>The prime object of Cardan's ambition was eminence as a physician. But, +during the long years of waiting, while the action of the Milanese doctors +kept him outside the bounds of their College, and even after this had been +opened to him without inducing ailing mortals to call for his services, he +would now and again fall into a transport of rage against his persecutors, +and of contempt for the public which refused to recognize him as a master +of his art, and cast aside his medical books for months at a time, +devoting himself diligently to Mathematics, the field of learning which, +next to Medicine, attracted him most powerfully. His father Fazio was a +geometrician of repute and a student of applied mathematics, and, though +his first desire was to make his son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> a jurisconsult, he gave Jerome in +early youth a fairly good grounding in arithmetic and geometry, deeming +probably that such training would not prove a bad discipline for an +intellect destined to attack those formidable tomes within which lurked +the mysteries of the Canon and Civil Law. Mathematical learning has given +to Cardan his surest title to immortality, and at the outset of his career +he found in mathematics rather than in medicine the first support in the +arduous battle he had to wage with fortune. His appointment to the Plat +lectureship at Milan has already been noted. In the discharge of his new +duties he was bound, according to the terms of the endowment of the Plat +lecturer, to teach the sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy, +and he began his course upon the lines laid down by the founder. Few +listeners came, however, and at this juncture Cardan took a step which +serves to show how real was his devotion to the cause of true learning, +and how lightly he thought of an additional burden upon his own back, if +this cause could be helped forward thereby. Keenly as he enjoyed his +mathematical work, he laid a part of it aside when he perceived that the +benches before him were empty, and, by way of making his lectures more +attractive, he occasionally substituted geography for geometry, and +architecture for arithmetic. The necessary research and the preparation of +these lectures led naturally to the accumulation of a large mass of notes, +and as these increased under his hand Jerome began to consider whether it +might not be worth his while to use them in the composition of one or more +volumes. In 1535 he delivered as Plat lecturer his address, the <i>Encomium +Geometriæ</i>, which he followed up shortly after by the publication <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>of a +work, <i>Quindecim Libri Novæ Geometriæ</i>. But the most profitable labour of +these years was that which produced his first important book, <i>The +Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration</i>, which was published in +1539, a venture which brought to the author a reward of ten crowns.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> It +was a well-planned and well-arranged manual, giving proof of the wide +erudition and sense of proportion possessed by the author. Besides dealing +with Arithmetic as understood by the modern school-boy, it discusses +certain astronomical operations, multiplication by memory, the mysteries +of the Roman and Ecclesiastical Calendars, and gives rules for the +solution of any problem arising from the terms of the same. It treats of +partnership in agriculture, the Mezzadria system still prevalent in +Tuscany and in other parts of Italy, of the value of money, of the strange +properties of certain numbers, and gives the first simple rules of Algebra +to serve as stepping-stones to the higher mathematics. It ends with +information as to house-rent, letters of credit and exchange, tables of +interest, games of chance, mensuration, and weights and measures. In an +appendix Cardan examines critically the work of Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo, +an earlier writer on the subject, and points out numerous errors in the +same. The book from beginning to end shows signs of careful study and +compilation, and the fame which it brought to its author was well +deserved.</p> + +<p>Cardan appended to the Arithmetic a printed notice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> which may be regarded +as an early essay in advertising. He was fully convinced that his works +were valuable and quite worth the sums of money he asked for them; the +world was blind, perhaps wilfully, to their merits, therefore he now +determined that it should no longer be able to quote ignorance of the +author as an excuse for not buying the book. This appendix was a +notification to the learned men of Europe that the writer of the <i>Practice +of Arithmetic</i> had in his press at home thirty-four other works in MS. +which they might read with profit, and that of these only two had been +printed, to wit the <i>De Malo Medendi Usu</i> and a tract on <i>Simples</i>. This +advertisement had something of the character of a legal document, for it +invoked the authority of the Emperor to protect the copyright of Cardan's +books within the Duchy of Milan for ten years, and to prevent the +introduction of them from abroad.</p> + +<p>The Arithmetic proved far superior to any other treatise extant, and +everywhere won the approval of the learned. It was from Nuremberg that its +appearance brought the most valuable fruits. Andreas Osiander,<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> a +learned humanist and a convert to Lutheranism, and Johannes Petreius, an +eminent printer, were evidently impressed by the terms of Cardan's +advertisement, for they wrote to him and offered in combination to edit +and print any of the books awaiting publication in his study at Milan. The +result of this offer was the reprinting of <i>De Malo Medendi</i>, and +subsequently of the tract on Judicial Astrology, and of the treatise <i>De +Consolatione</i>; the <i>Book of the Great Art</i>, the treatises <i>De Sapientia</i> +and <i>De Immortalitate Animorum</i> were published in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> first instance by +these same patrons from the Nuremberg press.</p> + +<p>But Cardan, while he was hard at work on his Arithmetic, had not forgotten +a certain report which had caused no slight stir in the world of +Mathematics some three years before the issue of his book on Arithmetic, +an episode which may be most fittingly told in his own words. "At this +time<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> it happened that there came to Milan a certain Brescian named +Giovanni Colla, a man of tall stature, and very thin, pale, swarthy, and +hollow-eyed. He was of gentle manners, slow in gait, sparing of his words, +full of talent, and skilled in mathematics. His business was to bring word +to me that there had been recently discovered two new rules in Algebra for +the solution of problems dealing with cubes and numbers. I asked him who +had found them out, whereupon he told me the name of the discoverer was +Scipio Ferreo of Bologna. 'And who else knows these rules?' I said. He +answered, 'Niccolo Tartaglia and Antonio Maria Fiore.' And indeed some +time later Tartaglia, when he came to Milan, explained them to me, though +unwillingly; and afterwards I myself, when working with Ludovico +Ferrari,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> made a thorough study of the rules aforesaid. We devised +certain others, heretofore unnoticed, after we had made trial of these new +rules, and out of this material I put together my <i>Book of the Great +Art</i>."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p> + +<p>Before dealing with the events which led to the composition of the famous +work above-named, it may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> be permitted to take a rapid survey of the +condition of Algebra at the time when Cardan sat down to write. Up to the +beginning of the sixteenth century the knowledge of Algebra in Italy, +originally derived from Greek and Arabic sources, had made very little +progress, and the science had been developed no farther than to provide +for the solution of equations of the first or second degree.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> In the +preface to the <i>Liber Artis Magnæ</i> Cardan writes:—"This art takes its +origin from a certain Mahomet, the son of Moses, an Arabian, a fact to +which Leonard the Pisan bears ample testimony. He left behind him four +rules, with his demonstrations of the same, which I duly ascribe to him in +their proper place. After a long interval of time, some student, whose +identity is uncertain, deduced from the original four rules three others, +which Luca Paciolus put with the original ones into his book. Then three +more were discovered from the original rules, also by some one unknown, +but these attracted very little notice though they were far more useful +than the others, seeing that they taught how to arrive at the value of the +<i>cubus</i> and the <i>numerus</i> and of the <i>cubus quadratus</i>.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> But in recent +times Scipio Ferreo of Bologna discovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> the rule of the <i>cubus</i> and the +<i>res</i> equal to the <i>numerus</i> (<i>x</i><sup>3</sup> + <i>px</i>=<i>q</i>), truly a beautiful and +admirable discovery. For this Algebraic art outdoes all other subtlety of +man, and outshines the clearest exposition mortal wit can achieve: a +heavenly gift indeed, and a test of the powers of a man's mind. So +excellent is it in itself that whosoever shall get possession thereof, +will be assured that no problem exists too difficult for him to +disentangle. As a rival of Ferreo, Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, my +friend, at that time when he engaged in a contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, made out this same rule to help secure the +victory, and this rule he imparted to me after I had diligently besought +him thereanent. I, indeed, had been deceived by the words of Luca +Paciolus, who denied that there could be any general rule besides these +which he had published, so I was not moved to seek that which I despaired +of finding; but, having made myself master of Tartaglia's method of +demonstration, I understood how many other results might be attained; and, +having taken fresh courage, I worked these out, partly by myself and +partly by the aid of Ludovico Ferrari, a former pupil of mine. Now all the +discoveries made by the men aforesaid are here marked with their names. +Those unsigned were found out by me; and the demonstrations are all mine, +except three discovered by Mahomet and two by Ludovico."<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +<p>This is Cardan's account of the scheme and origin of his book, and the +succeeding pages will be mainly an amplification thereof. The earliest +work on Algebra used in Italy was a translation of the MS. treatise of +Mahommed ben Musa of Corasan, and next in order is a MS. written by a +certain Leonardo da Pisa in 1202.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> Leonardo was a trader, who had learned +the art during his voyages to Barbary, and his treatise and that of +Mahommed were the sole literature on the subject up to the year 1494, when +Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> brought out his volume treating of +Arithmetic and Algebra as well. This was the first printed work on the +subject.</p> + +<p>After the invention of printing the interest in Algebra grew rapidly. From +the time of Leonardo to that of Fra Luca it had remained stationary. The +important fact that the resolution of all the cases of a problem may be +comprehended in a simple formula, which may be obtained from the solution +of one of its cases merely by a change of the signs, was not known, but in +1505 the Scipio Ferreo alluded to by Cardan, a Bolognese professor, +discovered the rule for the solution of one case of a compound cubic +equation. This was the discovery that Giovanni Colla announced when he +went to Milan in 1536.</p> + +<p>Cardan was then working hard at his Arithmetic—which dealt also with +elementary Algebra—and he was naturally anxious to collect in its pages +every item of fresh knowledge in the sphere of mathematics which might +have been discovered since the publication of the last treatise. The fact +that Algebra as a science had made such scant progress for so many years, +gave to this new process, about which Giovanni Colla was talking, an +extraordinary interest in the sight of all mathematical students; +wherefore when Cardan heard the report that Antonio Maria Fiore, Ferreo's +pupil, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>had been entrusted by his master with the secret of this new +process, and was about to hold a public disputation at Venice with Niccolo +Tartaglia, a mathematician of considerable repute, he fancied that +possibly there would be game about well worth the hunting.</p> + +<p>Fiore had already challenged divers opponents of less weight in the other +towns of Italy, but now that he ventured to attack the well-known Brescian +student, mathematicians began to anticipate an encounter of more than +common interest. According to the custom of the time, a wager was laid on +the result of the contest, and it was settled as a preliminary that each +one of the competitors should ask of the other thirty questions. For +several weeks before the time fixed for the contest Tartaglia studied +hard; and such good use did he make of his time that, when the day of the +encounter came, he not only fathomed the formula upon which Fiore's hopes +were based, but, over and beyond this, elaborated two other cases of his +own which neither Fiore nor his master Ferreo had ever dreamt of.</p> + +<p>The case which Ferreo had solved by some unknown process was the equation +<i>x</i><sup>3</sup> + <i>px</i> = <i>q</i>, and the new forms of cubic equation which Tartaglia +elaborated were as follows: <i>x</i><sup>3</sup> + <i>px</i><sup>2</sup> = <i>q</i>: and <i>x</i><sup>3</sup> - <i>px</i><sup>2</sup> = <i>q</i>. Before +the date of the meeting, Tartaglia was assured that the victory would be +his, and Fiore was probably just as confident. Fiore put his questions, +all of which hinged upon the rule of Ferreo which Tartaglia had already +mastered, and these questions his opponent answered without difficulty; +but when the turn of the other side came, Tartaglia completely puzzled the +unfortunate Fiore, who managed indeed to solve one of Tartaglia's +questions, but not till after all his own had been answered. By this +triumph the fame of Tartaglia spread far and wide, and Jerome Cardan, in +consequence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> of the rumours of the Brescian's extraordinary skill, became +more anxious than ever to become a sharer in the wonderful secret by means +of which he had won his victory.</p> + +<p>Cardan was still engaged in working up his lecture notes on Arithmetic +into the Treatise when this contest took place; but it was not till four +years later, in 1539, that he took any steps towards the prosecution of +his design. If he knew anything of Tartaglia's character, and it is +reasonable to suppose that he did, he would naturally hesitate to make any +personal appeal to him, and trust to chance to give him an opportunity of +gaining possession of the knowledge aforesaid, rather than seek it at the +fountain-head. Tartaglia was of very humble birth, and according to report +almost entirely self-educated. Through a physical injury which he met with +in childhood his speech was affected; and, according to the common Italian +usage, a nickname<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> which pointed to this infirmity was given to him. +The blow on the head, dealt to him by some French soldier at the sack of +Brescia in 1512, may have made him a stutterer, but it assuredly did not +muddle his wits; nevertheless, as the result of this knock, or for some +other cause, he grew up into a churlish, uncouth, and ill-mannered man, +and, if the report given of him by Papadopoli<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> at the end of his +history be worthy of credit, one not to be entirely trusted as an +autobiographer in the account he himself gives of his early days in the +preface to one of his works. Papadopoli's notice of him states that he was +in no sense the self-taught scholar he represented himself to be, but that +he was indebted for some portion at least of his training to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +beneficence of a gentleman named Balbisono,<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> who took him to Padua to +study. From the passage quoted below he seems to have failed to win the +goodwill of the Brescians, and to have found Venice a city more to his +taste. It is probable that the contest with Fiore took place after his +final withdrawal from his birthplace to Venice.</p> + +<p>In 1537 Tartaglia published a treatise on Artillery, but he gave no sign +of making public to the world his discoveries in Algebra. Cardan waited +on, but the morose Brescian would not speak, and at last he determined to +make a request through a certain Messer Juan Antonio, a bookseller, that, +in the interests of learning, he might be made a sharer of Tartaglia's +secret. Tartaglia has given a version of this part of the transaction; +and, according to what is there set down, Cardan's request, even when +recorded in Tartaglia's own words, does not appear an unreasonable one, +for up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> to this time Tartaglia had never announced that he had any +intention of publishing his discoveries as part of a separate work on +Mathematics. There was indeed a good reason why he should refrain from +doing this in the fact that he could only speak and write Italian, and +that in the Brescian dialect, being entirely ignorant of Latin, the only +tongue which the writer of a mathematical work could use with any hope of +success. Tartaglia's record of his conversation with Messer Juan Antonio, +the emissary employed by Cardan, and of all the subsequent details of the +controversy, is preserved in his principal work, <i>Quesiti et Inventioni +Diverse de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano</i>,<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> a record which furnishes +abundant and striking instance of his jealous and suspicious temper. Much +of it is given in the form of dialogue, the terms of which are perhaps a +little too precise to carry conviction of its entire sincerity and +spontaneity. It was probably written just after the final cause of quarrel +in 1545, and its main object seems to be to set the author right in the +sight of the world, and to exhibit Cardan as a meddlesome fellow not to be +trusted, and one ignorant of the very elements of the art he professed to +teach.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p> + +<p>The inquiry begins with a courteously worded request from Messer Juan +Antonio (speaking on behalf of Messer Hieronimo Cardano), that Messer +Niccolo would make known to his principal the rule by means of which he +had made such short work of Antonio Fiore's thirty questions. It had been +told to Messer Hieronimo that Fiore's thirty questions had led up to a +case of the <i>cosa</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> and the <i>cubus</i> equal to the <i>numerus</i>, and that +Messer Niccolo had discovered a general rule for such case. Messer +Hieronimo now especially desired to be taught this rule. If the inventor +should be willing to let this rule be published, it should be published as +his own discovery; but, if he were not disposed to let the same be made +known to the world, it should be kept a profound secret. To this request +Tartaglia replied that, if at any time he might publish his rule, he would +give it to the world in a work of his own under his own name, whereupon +Juan Antonio moderated his demand, and begged to be furnished merely with +a copy of the thirty questions preferred by Fiore, and Tartaglia's +solutions of the same; but Messer Niccolo was too wary a bird to be taken +with such a lure as this. To grant so much, he replied, would be to tell +everything, inasmuch as Cardan could easily find out the rule, if he +should be furnished with a single question and its solution. Next Juan +Antonio handed to Tartaglia eight algebraical questions which had been +confided to him by Cardan, and asked for answers to them; but Tartaglia, +having glanced at them, declared that they were not framed by Cardan at +all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, he declared, had sent him one of these +questions for solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) had +given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. Juan Antonio replied by +way of contradiction—somewhat lamely—that the questions had been handed +over to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, apparently, +that no one else could possibly have been concerned in them, whereupon +Tartaglia replied that, supposing the questions had been given by Cardan +to Juan Antonio his messenger, Cardan must have got the questions from +Colla, and have sent them on to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> (Tartaglia) for solution because he +could not arrive at the meaning of them himself. He waved aside Juan +Antonio's perfectly irrelevant and fatuous protests—that Cardan would not +in any case have sent these questions if they had been framed by another +person, or if he had been unable to solve them. Tartaglia, on the other +hand, declared that Cardan certainly did not comprehend them. If he did +not know the rule by which Fiore's questions had been answered (that of +the <i>cosa</i> and the <i>cubus</i> equal to the <i>numerus</i>), how could he solve +these questions which he now sent, seeing that certain of them involved +operations much more complicated than that of the rule above written? If +he understood the questions which he now sent for solution, he could not +want to be taught this rule. Then Juan Antonio moderated his demand still +farther, and said he would be satisfied with a copy of the questions which +Fiore had put to Tartaglia, adding that the favour would be much greater +if Tartaglia's own questions were also given. He probably felt that it +would be mere waste of breath to beg again for Tartaglia's answers. The +end of the matter was that Tartaglia handed over to the messenger the +questions which Fiore had propounded in the Venetian contest, and +authorized Juan Antonio to get a copy of his own from the notary who had +drawn up the terms of the disputation with Fiore. The date of this +communication is January 2, 1539, and on February 12 Cardan writes a long +letter to Tartaglia, complaining in somewhat testy spirit of the reception +given to his request. He is aggrieved that Tartaglia should have sent him +nothing but the questions put to him by Fiore, thirty in number indeed, +but only one in substance, and that he should have dared to hint that +those which he (Cardan) had sent for solution were not his own, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> the +property of Giovanni Colla. Cardan had found Colla to be a conceited fool, +and had dragged the conceit out of him—a process which he was now about +to repeat for the benefit of Messer Niccolo Tartaglia. The letter goes on +to contradict all Tartaglia's assertions by arguments which do not seem +entirely convincing, and the case is not made better by the abusive +passages interpolated here and there, and by the demonstration of certain +errors in Tartaglia's book on Artillery. In short a more injudicious +letter could not have been written by any man hoping to get a favour done +to him by the person addressed.</p> + +<p>In the special matter of the problems which he sent to Tartaglia by the +bookseller Juan Antonio, Cardan made a beginning of that tricky and +crooked course which he followed too persistently all through this +particular business. In his letter he maintains with a show of indignation +that he had long known these questions, had known them in fact before +Colla knew how to count ten, implying by these words that he knew how to +solve them, while in reality all he knew about them was the fact that they +existed. Tartaglia in his answer is not to be moved from his belief, and +tells Cardan flatly that he is still convinced Giovanni Colla took the +questions to Milan, where he found no one able to solve them, not even +Messer Hieronimo Cardano, and that the mathematician last-named sent them +on by the bookseller for solution, as has been already related.</p> + +<p>This letter of Tartaglia's bears the date of February 13, 1539, and after +reading it and digesting its contents, Cardan seems to have come to the +conclusion that he was not working in the right way to get possession of +this secret which he felt he must needs master, if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> wanted his +forthcoming book to mark a new epoch in this History of Mathematics, and +that a change of tactics was necessary. Alfonso d'Avalos, Cardan's friend +and patron, was at this time the Governor of Milan. D'Avalos was a man of +science, as well as a soldier, and Cardan had already sent to him a copy +of Tartaglia's treatise on Artillery, deeming that a work of this kind +would not fail to interest him. In his first letter to Tartaglia he +mentions this fact, while picking holes in the writer's theories +concerning transmitted force and views on gravitation. This mention of the +name of D'Avalos, the master of many legions and of many cannons as well, +to a man who had written a Treatise on the management of Artillery, and +devised certain engines and instruments for the management of the same, +was indeed a clever cast, and the fly was tempting enough to attract even +so shy a fish as Niccolo Tartaglia. In his reply to Jerome's scolding +letter of February 12, 1539, Tartaglia concludes with a description of the +instruments which he was perfecting: a square to regulate the discharge of +cannon, and to level and determine every elevation; and another instrument +for the investigation of distances upon a plane surface. He ends with a +request that Cardan will accept four copies of the engines aforesaid, two +for himself and two for the Marchese d'Avalos.</p> + +<p>The tone of this letter shows that Cardan had at least begun to tame the +bear, who now seemed disposed to dance <i>ad libitum</i> to the pleasant music +of words suggesting introductions to the governor, and possible patronage +of these engines for the working of artillery. Cardan's reply of March 19, +1539, is friendly—too friendly indeed—and the wonder is that Tartaglia's +suspicions were not aroused by its almost sugary politeness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> It begins +with an attempt to soften down the asperities of their former +correspondence, some abuse of Giovanni Colla, and an apology for the rough +words of his last epistle. Cardan then shows how their misunderstanding +arose chiefly from a blunder made by Juan Antonio in delivering the +message, and invites Tartaglia to come and visit him in his own house in +Milan, so that they might deliberate together on mathematical questions; +but the true significance of the letter appears in the closing lines. "I +told the Marchese of the instruments which you had sent him, and he showed +himself greatly pleased with all you had done. And he commanded me to +write to you forthwith in pressing terms, and to tell you that, on the +receipt of my letter, you should come to Milan without fail, for he +desires to speak with you. And I, too, exhort you to come at once without +further deliberation, seeing that this said Marchese is wonted to reward +all men of worth in such noble and magnanimous and liberal fashion that +none of them ever goes away dissatisfied."</p> + +<p>The receipt of this letter seems to have disquieted Tartaglia somewhat; +for he has added a note to it, in which he says that Cardan has placed him +in a position of embarrassment. He had evidently wished for an +introduction to D'Avalos, but now it was offered to him it seemed a burden +rather than a benefit. He disliked the notion of going to Milan; yet, if +he did not go, the Marchese d'Avalos might take offence. But in the end he +decided to undertake the journey; and, as D'Avalos happened then to be +absent from Milan on a visit to his country villa at Vigevano, he stayed +for three days in Cardan's house. As a recorder of conversations Tartaglia +seems to have had something of Boswell's gift. He gives an abstract of an +eventful dialogue with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> host on March 25, 1539, which Cardan begins by +a gentle reproach anent his guest's reticence in the matter of the rule of +the <i>cosa</i> and the <i>cubus</i> equal to the <i>numerus</i>. Tartaglia's reply to +this complaint seems reasonable enough (it must be borne in mind that he +is his own reporter), and certainly helps to absolve him from the charge +sometimes made against him that he was nothing more than a selfish +curmudgeon who had resolved to let his knowledge die with him, rather than +share it with other mathematicians of whom he was jealous. He told Cardan +plainly that he kept his rules a secret because, for the present, it +suited his purpose to do so. At this time he had not the leisure to +elaborate farther the several rules in question, being engaged over a +translation of Euclid into Italian; but, when this work should be +completed, he proposed to publish a treatise on Algebra in which he would +disclose to the world all the rules he already knew, as well as many +others which he hoped to discover in the course of his present work. He +concludes: "This is the cause of my seeming discourtesy towards your +excellency. I have been all the ruder, perhaps, because you write to me +that you are preparing a book similar to mine, and that you propose to +publish my inventions, and to give me credit for the same. This I confess +is not to my taste, forasmuch as I wish to set forth my discoveries in my +own works, and not in those of others." In his reply to this, Cardan +points out that he had promised, if Tartaglia so desired, that he would +not publish the rules at all; but here Messer Niccolo's patience and good +manners gave way, and he told Messer Hieronimo bluntly that he did not +believe him. Then said Cardan: "I swear to you by the Sacred Evangel, and +by myself as a gentleman, that I will not only abstain from publishing +your discoveries—if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> you will make them known to me—but that I will +promise and pledge my faith of a true Christian to set them down for my +own use in cypher, so that after my death no one may be able to understand +them. If you will believe this promise, believe it; if you will not, let +us have done with the matter." "If I were not disposed to believe such +oaths as these you now swear," said Tartaglia, "I might as well be set +down as a man without any faith at all. I have determined to go forthwith +to Vigevano to visit the Signor Marchese, as I have now been here for +three days and am weary of the delay, but I promise when I return that I +will show you all the rules." Cardan replied: "As you are bent on going to +Vigevano, I will give you a letter of introduction to the Marchese, so +that he may know who you are; but I would that, before you start, you show +me the rule as you have promised." "I am willing to do this," said +Tartaglia, "but I must tell you that, in order to be able to recall at any +time my system of working, I have expressed it in rhyme; because, without +this precaution, I must often have forgotten it. I care naught that my +rhymes are clumsy, it has been enough for me that they have served to +remind me of my rules. These I will write down with my own hand, so that +you may be assured that my discovery is given to you correctly." Then +follow Tartaglia's verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Quando chel cubo con le cose apresso<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Se agualia à qualche numero discreto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trouan dui altri differenti in esso<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dapoi terrai questo per consueto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ch'el lor' produtto sempre sia eguale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Al terzo cubo delle cose neto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">El residuo poi suo generale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Delli lor lati cubi ben sottratti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Varra la tua cosa principale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In el secondo de cotesti atti</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span><br /> +<span class="i0">Quando chel cubo restasse lui solo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tu osseruarai quest' altri contratti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Del numer farai due tal part 'a uolo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Che luna in l'altra si produca schietto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">El terzo cubo delle cose in stolo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Delle qual poi, per commun precetto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Torrai li lati cubi insieme gionti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et cotal summa sara il tuo concetto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et terzo poi de questi nostri conti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Se solve col recordo se ben guardi<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Che per natura son quasi congionti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Questi trouai, et non con passi tardi<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nel mille cinquecent' e quatro è trenta<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Con fondamenti ben sald' è gagliardi<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nella citta del mar' intorno centa."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Having handed over to his host these rhymes, with the precious rules +enshrined therein, Tartaglia told him that, with so clear an exposition, +he could not fail to understand them, ending with a warning hint to Cardan +that, if he should publish the rules, either in the work he had in hand, +or in any future one, either under the name of Tartaglia or of Cardan, he, +the author, would put into print certain things which Messer Hieronimo +would not find very pleasant reading.</p> + +<p>After all Tartaglia was destined to quit Milan without paying his respects +to D'Avalos. There is not a word in his notes which gives the reason of +this eccentric action on his part. He simply says that he is no longer +inclined to go to Vigevano, but has made up his mind to return to Venice +forthwith; and Cardan, probably, was not displeased at this exhibition of +petulant impatience on the part of his guest, but was rather somewhat +relieved to see Messer Niccolo ride away, now that he had extracted from +him the coveted information. From the beginning to the end of this affair +Cardan has been credited with an amount of subtle cunning which he +assuredly did not manifest at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> other times when his wits were pitted for +contest with those of other men. It has been advanced to his disparagement +that he walked in deceitful ways from the very beginning; that he dangled +before Tartaglia's eyes the prospect of gain and preferment simply for the +purpose of enticing him to Milan, where he deemed he might use more +efficaciously his arguments for the accomplishment of the purpose which +was really in his mind; that he had no intention of advancing Tartaglia's +fortunes when he suggested the introduction to D'Avalos, but that the +Governor of Milan was brought into the business merely that he might be +used as a potent ally in the attack upon Tartaglia's obstinate silence. +Whether this may have been his line of action or not, the issue shows that +he was fully able to fight his battle alone, and that his powers of +persuasion and hard swearing were adequate when occasion arose for their +exercise. It is quite possible that Tartaglia, when he began to reflect +over what he had done by writing out and handing over to Cardan his +mnemonic rhymes, fell into an access of suspicious anger—at Cardan for +his wheedling persistency, and at himself for yielding thereto—and packed +himself off in a rage with the determination to have done with Messer +Hieronimo and all his works. Certainly his carriage towards Cardan in the +weeks ensuing, as exhibited in his correspondence, does not picture him in +an amiable temper. On April 9 Jerome wrote to him in a very friendly +strain, expressing regret that his guest should have left Milan without +seeing D'Avalos, and fear lest he might have prejudiced his fortunes by +taking such a step. He then goes on to describe to Tartaglia the progress +he is making in his work with the Practice of Arithmetic, and to ask him +for help in solving one of the cases in Algebra, the rule<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> for which was +indeed contained in Tartaglia's verses, but expressed somewhat obscurely, +for which reason Cardan had missed its meaning.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> In his reply, +Tartaglia ignores Jerome's courtesies altogether, and tells him that what +he especially desires at the present moment is a sight of that volume on +the Practice of Arithmetic, "for," says he, "if I do not see it soon, I +shall begin to suspect that this work of yours will probably make manifest +some breach of faith; in other words, that it will contain as +interpolations certain of the rules I taught you." Niccolo then goes on to +explain the difficulty which had puzzled Cardan, using terms which showed +plainly that he had as poor an opinion of his correspondent's wit as of +his veracity.</p> + +<p>Cardan was an irascible man, and it is a high tribute to his powers of +restraint that he managed to keep his temper under the uncouth insults of +such a letter as the foregoing. The more clearly Tartaglia's jealous, +suspicious nature displays itself, the greater seems the wonder that a man +of such a disposition should ever have disclosed such a secret. He did not +believe Cardan when he promised that he would not publish the rules in +question without his (the discoverer's) consent—why then did he believe +him when he swore by the Gospel? The age was one in which the binding +force of an oath was not regarded as an obligation of any particular +sanctity if circumstances should arise which made the violation of the +oath more convenient than its observance. However, the time was not yet +come for Jerome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> to begin to quibble with his conscience. On May 12, 1539, +he wrote another letter to Tartaglia, also in a very friendly tone, +reproaching him gently for his suspicions, and sending a copy of the +<i>Practice of Arithmetic</i> to show him that they were groundless. He +protested that Tartaglia might search from beginning to end without +finding any trace of his jealously-guarded rules, inasmuch as, beyond +correcting a few errors, the writer had only carried Algebra to the point +where Fra Luca had left it. Tartaglia searched, and though he could not +put his finger on any spot which showed that Messer Hieronimo had broken +his oath, he found what must have been to him as a precious jewel, to wit +a mistake in reckoning, which he reported to Cardan in these words:</p> + +<p>"In this process your excellency has made such a gross mistake that I am +amazed thereat, forasmuch as any man with half an eye must have seen +it—indeed, if you had not gone on to repeat it in divers examples, I +should have set it down to a mistake of the printer." After pointing out +to Cardan the blunders aforesaid, he concludes: "The whole of this work of +yours is ridiculous and inaccurate, a performance which makes me tremble +for your good name."<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<p>Every succeeding page of Tartaglia's notes shows more and more clearly +that he was smarting under a sense of his own folly in having divulged his +secret. Night and day he brooded over his excess of confidence, and as +time went by he let his suspicions of Cardan grow into savage resentment. +His ears were open to every rumour which might pass from one class-room to +another. On July 10 a letter came to him from one Maphio of Bergamo, a +former pupil, telling how Cardan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> was about to publish certain new +mathematical rules in a book on Algebra, and hinting that in all +probability these rules would prove to be Tartaglia's, whereupon he at +once jumped to the conclusion that Maphio's gossip was the truth, and that +this book would make public the secret which Cardan had sworn to keep. He +left many of Cardan's letters unanswered; but at last he seems to have +found too strong the temptation to say something disagreeable; so, in +answer to a letter from Cardan containing a request for help in solving an +equation which had baffled his skill, Tartaglia wrote telling Cardan that +he had bungled in his application of the rule, and that he himself was now +very sorry he had ever confided the rule aforesaid to such a man. He ends +with further abuse of Cardan's <i>Practice of Arithmetic</i>, which he declares +to be merely a confused farrago of other men's knowledge,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> and with a +remark which he probably intended to be a crowning insult. "I well +remember when I was at your house in Milan, that you told me you had never +tried to discover the rule of the <i>cosa</i> and the <i>cubus</i> equal to the +<i>numerus</i> which was found out by me, because Fra Luca had declared it to +be impossible;<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> as if to say that, if you had set yourself to the task +you could have accomplished it, a thing which sets me off laughing when I +call to mind the fact that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> is now two months since I informed you of +the blunders you made in the extraction of the cube root, which process is +one of the first to be taught to students who are beginning Algebra. +Wherefore, if after the lapse of all this time you have not been able to +find a remedy to set right this your mistake (which would have been an +easy matter enough), just consider whether in any case your powers could +have been equal to the discovery of the rule aforesaid."<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<p>In this quarrel Messer Giovanni Colla had appeared as the herald of the +storm, when he carried to Milan in 1536 tidings of the discovery of the +new rule which had put Cardan on the alert, and now, as the crisis +approached, he again came upon the scene, figuring as unconscious and +indirect cause of the final catastrophe. On January 5, 1540, Cardan wrote +to Tartaglia, telling him that Colla had once more appeared in Milan, and +was boasting that he had found out certain new rules in Algebra. He went +on to suggest to his correspondent that they should unite their forces in +an attempt to fathom this asserted discovery of Colla's, but to this +letter Tartaglia vouchsafed no reply. In his diary it stands with a +superadded note, in which he remarks that he thinks as badly of Cardan as +of Colla, and that, as far as he is concerned, they may both of them go +whithersoever they will.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p> + +<p>Colla propounded divers questions to the Algebraists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> of Milan, and +amongst them was one involving the equation <i>x</i><sup>4</sup> + 6<i>x</i><sup>2</sup> + 36 = 60<i>x</i>, +one which he probably found in some Arabian treatise. Cardan tried all his +ingenuity over this combination without success, but his brilliant pupil, +Ludovico Ferrari, worked to better purpose, and succeeded at last in +solving it by adding to each side of the equation, arranged in a certain +fashion, some quadratic and simple quantities of which the square root +could be extracted.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> Cardan seems to have been baffled by the fact +that the equation aforesaid could not be solved by the recently-discovered +rules, because it produced a bi-quadratic. This difficulty Ferrari +overcame, and, pursuing the subject, he discovered a general rule for the +solution of all bi-quadratics by means of a cubic equation. Cardan's +subsequent demonstration of this process is one of the masterpieces of the +<i>Book of the Great Art</i>. It is an example of the use of assuming a new +indeterminate quantity to introduce into an equation, thus anticipating by +a considerable space of time Descartes, who subsequently made use of a +like assumption in a like case.</p> + +<p>How far this discovery of Ferrari's covered the rules given by Tartaglia +to Cardan, and how far it relieved Cardan of the obligation of secresy, is +a problem fitted for the consideration of the mathematician and the +casuist severally.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> An apologist of Cardan might affirm that he cannot +be held to have acted in bad faith in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>publishing the result of Ferrari's +discovery. If this discovery included and even went beyond Tartaglia's, so +much the worse for Tartaglia. The lesser discovery (Tartaglia's) Cardan +never divulged before Ferrari unravelled Giovanni Colla's puzzle; but it +was inevitable that it must be made known to the world as a part of the +greater discovery (Ferrari's) which Cardan was in no way bound to keep a +secret. The case might be said to run on all fours with that where a man +confides a secret to a friend under a promise of silence, which promise +the friend keeps religiously, until one day he finds that the secret, and +even more than the secret, is common talk of the market-place. Is the +obligation of silence, with which he was bound originally, still to lie +upon the friend, even when he may have sworn to observe it by the Holy +Evangel and the honour of a gentleman; and is the fact that great renown +and profit would come to him by publishing the secret to be held as an +additional reason for keeping silence, or as a justification for speech? +In forming a judgment after a lapse of three and a half centuries as to +Cardan's action, while having regard both to the sanctity of an oath at +the time in question, and to the altered state of the case between him and +Tartaglia consequent on Ludovico Ferrari's discovery, an hypothesis not +overstrained in the direction of charity may be advanced to the effect +that Cardan might well have deemed he was justified in revealing to the +world the rules which Tartaglia had taught him, considering that these +isolated rules had been developed by his own study and Ferrari's into a +principle by which it would be possible to work a complete revolution in +the science of Algebra.</p> + +<p>In any case, six years were allowed to elapse before Cardan, by publishing +Tartaglia's rules in the <i>Book of the Great Art</i>, did the deed which, in +the eyes of many,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> branded him as a liar and dishonest, and drove +Tartaglia almost wild with rage. That his offence did not meet with +universal reprobation is shown by negative testimony in the <i>Judicium de +Cardano</i>, by Gabriel Naudé.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> In the course of his essay Naudé lets it +be seen how thoroughly he dislikes the character of the man about whom he +writes. No evil disposition attributed to Cardan by himself or by his +enemies is left unnoticed, and a lengthy catalogue of his offences is set +down, but this list does not contain the particular sin of broken faith in +the matter of Tartaglia's rules. On the contrary, after abusing and +ridiculing a large portion of his work, Naudé breaks out into almost +rhapsodical eulogy about Cardan's contributions to Mathematical science. +"Quis negabit librum de Proportionibus dignum esse, qui cum pulcherrimis +antiquorum inventis conferatur? Quis in Arithmetica non stupet, eum tot +difficultates superasse, quibus explicandis Villafrancus, Lucas de Burgo, +Stifelius, Tartalea, vix ac ne vix quidem pares esse potuissent?" It seems +hard to believe, after reading elsewhere the bitter assaults of +Naudé,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> that he would have neglected so tempting an opportunity of +darkening the shadows, if he himself had felt the slightest offence, or if +public opinion in the learned world was in any perceptible degree +scandalized by the disclosure made by the publication of the <i>Book of the +Great Art</i>.</p> + +<p>This book was published at Nuremberg in 1545, and in its preface and +dedication Cardan fully acknowledges his obligations to Tartaglia and +Ferrari, with respect to the rules lately discussed, and gives a catalogue +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> former students of the Art, and attributes to each his particular +contribution to the mass of knowledge which he here presents to the world. +Leonardo da Pisa,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> Fra Luca da Borgo, and Scipio Ferreo all receive +due credit for their work, and then Cardan goes on to speak of "my friend +Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, who, in his contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, elaborated this rule to assure him of victory, +a rule which he made known to me in answer to my many prayers." He goes on +to acknowledge other obligations to Tartaglia:<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> how the Brescian had +first taught him that algebraical discovery could be most effectively +advanced by geometrical demonstration, and how he himself had followed +this counsel, and had been careful to give the demonstration aforesaid for +every rule he laid down.</p> + +<p>The <i>Book of the Great Art</i> was not published till six years after Cardan +had become the sharer of Tartaglia's secret, which had thus had ample time +to germinate and bear fruit in the fertile brain upon which it was cast. +It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole—leaving out of account +the special question of the solution of cubic equations—must have gained +enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed +to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and +beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for +several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> with Ferrari, +an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia or himself. The opening chapters of +the book show that Cardan was well acquainted with the chief properties of +the roots of equations of all sorts. He lays it down that all square +numbers have two different kinds of root, one positive and one +negative,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> <i>vera</i> and <i>ficta</i>: thus the root of 9 is either 3. or -3. +He shows that when a case has all its roots, or when none are impossible, +the number of its positive roots is the same as the number of changes in +the signs of the terms when they are all brought to one side. In the case +of <i>x</i><sup>3</sup> + 3<i>bx</i> = 2<i>c</i>, he demonstrates his first resolution of a cubic +equation, and gives his own version of his dealings with Tartaglia. His +chief obligation to the Brescian was the information how to solve the +three cases which follow, <i>i.e. x</i><sup>3</sup> + <i>bx</i> = <i>c. x</i><sup>3</sup> = <i>bx</i> + <i>c</i>. and <i>x</i><sup>3</sup> + <i>c</i> = <i>bx</i>, +and this he freely acknowledges, and furthermore admits the great +service of the system of geometrical demonstration which Tartaglia had +first suggested to him, and which he always employed hereafter. He claims +originality for all processes in the book not ascribed to others, +asserting that all the demonstrations of existing rules were his own +except three which had been left by Mahommed ben Musa, and two invented by +Ludovico Ferrari.</p> + +<p>With this vantage ground beneath his feet Cardan raised the study of +Algebra to a point it had never reached before, and climbed himself to a +height of fame to which Medicine had not yet brought him. His name as a +mathematician was known throughout Europe, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>the success of his book +was remarkable. In the <i>De Libris Propriis</i> there is a passage which +indicates that he himself was not unconscious of the renown he had won, or +disposed to underrate the value of his contribution to mathematical +science. "And even if I were to claim this art (Algebra) as my own +invention, I should perhaps be speaking only the truth, though Nicomachus, +Ptolemæus, Paciolus, Boetius, have written much thereon. For men like +these never came near to discover one-hundredth part of the things +discovered by me. But with regard to this matter—as with divers others—I +leave judgment to be given by those who shall come after me. Nevertheless +I am constrained to call this work of mine a perfect one, seeing that it +well-nigh transcends the bounds of human perception."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> It was published at Milan by Bernardo Caluschio, with a +dedication—dated 1537—to Francesco Gaddi, a descendant of the famous +family of Florence. This man was Prior of the Augustinian Canons in Milan, +and a great personage, but ill fortune seems to have overtaken him in his +latter days. Cardan writes (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 107):—"qui cum mihi +amicus esset dum floreret, Rexque cognomine ob potentiam appellaretur, +conjectus in carcerem, miseré vitam ibi, ne dicam crudeliter, finivit: nam +per quindecim dies in profundissima gorgyne fuit, ut vivus sepeliretur."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> There is a reference to Osiander in <i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. +523. Cardan gives a full account of his relations with Osiander and +Petreius in <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> November 1536.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Ferrari was one of Cardan's most distinguished pupils. +"Ludovicus Ferrarius Bononiensis qui Mathematicas et Mediolani et in +patria sua professus est, et singularis in illis eruditionis."—<i>De Vita +Propria</i>, ch. xxxv. p. 111. There is a short memoir of Ferrari in <i>Opera</i>, +tom. ix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Fra Luca's book, <i>Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni +é Proportionalita</i>, extends as far as the solution of quadratic equations, +of which only the positive roots were used. At this time letters were +rarely used to express known quantities.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> The early writers on Algebra used <i>numerus</i> for the absolute +or known term, <i>res</i> or <i>cosa</i> for the first power, <i>quadratum</i> for the +second, and <i>cubus</i> for the third. The signs + and - first appear in the +work of Stifelius, a German writer, who published a book of Arithmetic in +1544. Robert Recorde in his <i>Whetstone of Wit</i> seems first to have used +the sign of equality =. Vieta in France first applied letters as general +symbols of quantity, though the earlier algebraists used them +occasionally, chiefly as abbreviations. Aristotle also used them in the +<i>Physics.—Libri. Hist. des Sciences Mathématiques</i>. i. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. iv. p. 222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> In the conclusion of the Treatise on Arithmetic, Cardan +points out certain errors in the work of Fra Luca. Fra Luca was a pupil of +Piero della Francesca, who was highly skilled in Geometry, and who, +according to Vasari, first applied perspective to the drawing of the human +form.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Tartaglia, <i>i.e.</i> the stutterer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Papadopoli, <i>Hist. Gymn. Pata.</i> (Ven. 1724).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> "Balbisonem post relatam jurisprudentiæ lauream redeuntem +Brixiam Nicolaus secutus est, cæpitque ex Mathematicis gloriam sibi ac +divitias parare, æque paupertatis impatiens, ac fortunæ melioris cupidus, +quam dum Brixiæ tuetur, homo morosæ, et inurbanæ rusticitatis prope omnium +civium odia sibi conciliavit. Quamobrem alibi vivere coactus, varias +Italiæ urbes incoluit, ac Ferrariæ, Parmæ, Mediolani, Romæ, Genuæ, +arithmeticam, geometricam, ceteraque quæ ad Mathesim pertinent, docuit; +depugnavitque scriptis accerrimis cum Cardano ac sibi ex illis quæsivit +nomen et gloriam. Tandem domicilium posuit Venetiis, ubi non a Senatoribus +modo, ut mos Venetus habet eruditorum hominum studiosissimus, maximi +habitus est, at etiam a variis Magnatum ac Principum legatis præmiis ac +muneribus auctus sortem, quam tamdiu expetierat visus sibi est +conciliasse. Ergo ratus se majorem, quam ut a civibus suis contemneretur, +Brixiam rediit, ubi spe privati stipendii Euclidis elementa explanare +cœpit; sed quæ illum olim a civitate sua austeritas, rustica, acerba, +morosa, depulerat, eadem illum in eum apud omnes contemptum, et odium +iterum dejicit, ut exinde horrendus ac detestabilis omnibus fugere, atque +iterum Venetias confugere compulsus fuerit. Ibi persenex +decessit."—Papadopoli, <i>Hist. Gymn. Pata.,</i> ii. p. 210.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> This work is the chief authority for the facts which follow. +The edition referred to is that of Venice, 1546. There is also a full +account of the same in Cossali, <i>Origine dell' Algebra</i> (Parma, 1799). +vol. ii. p. 96.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>Quesiti et Inventioni</i>, p. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Cardan writes: "Vi supplico per l'amor che mi portati, et +per l'amicitia ch'è tra noi, che spero durara fin che viveremo, che mi +mandati sciolta questa questione. 1 cubo piu 3. cose egual à 10." Cardan +had mistaken (1/3 <i>b</i>)<sup>3</sup> for 1/3 <i>b</i><sup>3</sup>, or the cube of 1/3 of the +co-efficient for 1/3 of the cube of the co-efficient.—<i>Quesiti et +Inventioni</i> p. 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> <i>Quesiti et Inventioni</i>, p. 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> "Non ha datta fora tal opera come cose composto da sua +testa ma come cose ellette raccolte e copiate de diverse libri a +penna."—<i>Quesiti et Inventioni</i>, p. 127.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Cardan repeats the remark in the first chapter of the +<i>Liber Artis Magnæ</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. iv. p. 222). "Deceptus enim ego verbis +Lucæ Paccioli, qui ultra sua capitula, generale ullum aliud esse posse +negat (quanquam tot jam antea rebus a me inventis, sub manibus esset) +desperabam tamen invenire, quod quærere non audebam." Perhaps he wrote +them down as an apology or a defence against the storm which he +anticipated as soon as Tartaglia should have seen the new Algebra.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Subsequently Tartaglia wrote very bitterly against Cardan, +as the latter mentions in <i>De Libris Propriis</i>. "Nam etsi Nicolaus +Tartalea libris materna lingua editis nos calumniatur, impudentiæ tamen ac +stultitiæ suæ non aliud testimonium quæras, quam ipsos illius libros, in +quibus nominatim splendidiorem unumquemque e civibus suis proscindit: adeò +ut nemo dubitet insanisse hominem aliquo infortunio."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. +80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <i>Quesiti et Inventioni</i>, p. 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Montucla, <i>Histoire de Math.</i> i. 596, gives a full account +of Ferrari's process.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> In the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, Cardan dismisses the matter +briefly: "Ex hoc ad artem magnam, quam collegi, dum Jo. Colla certaret +nobiscum, et Tartalea, à quo primum acceperam capitulum, qui maluit æmulum +habere, et superiorem, quam amicum et beneficio devinctum, cum alterius +fuisset inventum."—ch. xlv. p. 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Prefixed to the <i>De Vita Propria</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> In a question of broken faith, Cardan laid himself open +especially to attack by reason of his constant self-glorification in the +matter of veracity.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Leonardo knew that quadratic equations might have two +positive roots, and Cardan pursued this farther by the discovery that they +might also have negative roots.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> "Caput xxviii. De capitulo generali cubi et rerum æqualium +numero, Magistri Nicolai Tartagliæ, Brixiensis—Hoc capitulum habui à +prefato viro ante considerationem demonstrationum secundi libri super +Euclidem, et æquatio hæc cadit in <img style="vertical-align: top" src="images/symbr.jpg" width="16" height="20" alt="℞" title="Symbol Rx" />. cu v binomii ex genere +binomii secundi et qunti m̃. <img style="vertical-align: top" src="images/symbr.jpg" width="16" height="20" alt="℞" title="Symbol Rx" />. cuba universali recisi ejusdem +binomii."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. iv. p. 341.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Montucla, who as a historian of Mathematics has a strong +bias against Cardan, gives him credit for the discovery of the <i>fictæ +radices</i>, but on the other hand he attributes to Vieta Cardan's discovery +of the method of changing a complete cubic equation into one wanting the +second term.—Ed. 1729, p. 595.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 66.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has been noted that Cardan quitted Pavia at the end of 1544 on account +of the bankruptcy of the University, and that in 1546 a generous offer was +made to him on condition of his entering the service of Pope Paul III.; an +offer which after some hesitation he determined to refuse. In the autumn +of this same year he resumed his teaching at Pavia, a fact which sanctions +the assumption that this luckless seat of learning must have been once +more in funds. In the year following, in 1547, there came to him another +offer of employment accompanied by terms still more munificent than the +Pope's, conveyed through Vesalius<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> and the ambassador of the King of +Denmark. "The emolument was to be a salary of three hundred gold crowns +per annum of the Hungarian currency, and in addition to these six hundred +more to be paid out of the tax on skins of price. This last-named money +differed in value by about an eighth from the royal coinage, and would be +somewhat slower in coming in. Also the security for its payment was not so +solid, and would in a measure be subject to risk. To this was farther +added maintenance for myself and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> five servants and three horses. This +offer I did not accept because the country was very cold and damp, and the +people well-nigh barbarians; moreover the rites and doctrines of religion +were quite foreign to those of the Roman Church."<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan was now forty-six years of age, a mathematician of European fame, +and the holder of an honourable post at an ancient university, which he +might have exchanged for other employment quite as dignified and far more +lucrative. In dealing with a character as bizarre as his, it would be as a +rule unprofitable to search deeply for motives of action, but in this +instance it is no difficult matter to detect upon the surface several +causes which may have swayed him in this decision to remain at Pavia. +However firmly he may have set himself to win fame as a physician, he was +in no way disposed to put aside those mathematical studies in which he had +already made so distinguished a name, nor to abandon his astrology and +chiromancy and discursive reading of all kinds. At Pavia he would find +leisure for all these, and would in addition be able to make good any +arrears of medical and magical knowledge into which he might have fallen +during the years so largely devoted to the production of the <i>Book of the +Great Art</i>. Moreover, the time in question was one of the prime epochs in +the history of the healing art. A new light had just arisen in Vesalius, +who had recently published his book, <i>Corporis Humani Fabrica</i>, and was +lecturing in divers universities on the new method of Anatomy, the actual +dissection of the human body. He went to Pavia in the course of his +travels and left traces of his visit in the form of a revived and +re-organized school of Anatomy. This fact alone would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> have been a +powerful attraction to Cardan, ever greedy as he was of new knowledge, but +there was another reason which probably swayed him more strongly still, to +wit, the care of his eldest son's education and training. Gian Battista +Cardano was now in his fourteenth year, and, according to the usages of +the time, old enough to make a beginning of his training in Medicine, the +profession he was destined to follow. It is not recorded whether or not he +chose this calling for himself; but, taking into account the deep and +tender affection Jerome always manifested towards his eldest son, it is +not likely that undue compulsion was used in the matter. The youth, +according to his father's description, strongly favoured in person his +grandfather Fazio.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> He had come into the world at a time when his +parents' fortunes were at their lowest ebb, during those terrible months +spent at Gallarate,<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> and in his adolescence he bore divers physical +evidences of the ill nurture—it would be unjust to call it neglect—which +he had received. At one time he was indeed put in charge of a good nurse, +but he had to be withdrawn from her care almost immediately through her +husband's jealousy, and he was next sent to a slattern, who fed him with +old milk, and not enough of that; or more often with chewed bread. His +body was swollen and unhealthy, he suffered greatly from an attack of +fever, which ultimately left him deaf in one ear. He gave early evidence +of a fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> taste in music, an inheritance from his father, and was, +according to Cardan's showing, upright and honest in his carriage, gifted +with talents which must, under happier circumstances, have placed him in +the first rank of men of learning, and in every respect a youth of the +fairest promise. The father records that he himself, though well furnished +by experience in the art of medicine, was now and again worsted by his son +in disputation, and alludes in words of pathetic regret to divers +problems, too deep for his own powers of solution, which Gian Battista +would assuredly have mastered in the course of time. He does not forget to +notice certain of the young man's failings; for he remarks that he was +temperate of speech, except when he was angered, and then he would pour +forth such a torrent of words that he scarce seemed in his right mind. +Cardan professes to have discerned a cause for these failings, and the +calamities flowing therefrom, in the fact that Gian Battista had the third +and fourth toes of his right foot united by a membrane; he declares that, +if he had known of this in time, he would have counteracted the evil by +dividing the toes.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Gian Battista eventually gained the <i>baccalaureat</i> +in his twenty-second year, and two years after became a member of the +College.</p> + +<p>The life which Cardan planned to lead at Pavia was unquestionably a full +one. He had several young men under his care as pupils besides his son, +amongst them being a kinsman of his, Gasparo Cardano, a youth of sterling +virtue and a useful coadjutor in times to come. He was at this time +engaged on his most important works in Medicine and Physical Science. He +worked hard at his profession, practising occasionally and reading +voraciously all books bearing on his studies. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> wrote and published +several small works during the four years—from 1547 to 1551—of his +Professorship at Pavia; the most noteworthy of which were the Book of +Precepts for the guidance of his children, and some Treatises on the +Preservation of Health. He also wrote a book on Physiognomy, or as he +called it Metoposcopy, an abstract of which appears as a chapter in <i>De +Utilitate</i> (lib. iii. c. 10), but the major part of his time must have +been consumed in collecting and reducing to form the huge mass of facts +out of which his two great works, <i>De Subtilitate</i> and <i>De Varietate +Rerum</i>, were built up.</p> + +<p>A mere abstract of the contents of these wonderful books would fill many +pages, and prove as uninteresting and unsuggestive as abstracts must +always be; and a commentary upon the same, honestly executed, would make a +heavy draft on the working life-time of an industrious student. In +reference to each book the author has left a statement of the reasons +which impelled him to undertake his task, the most cogent of which were +certain dreams.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> Soon after he had begun to write the <i>De Astrorum +Judiciis</i> he dreamt one night that his soul, freed from his body, was +ranging the vault of heaven near to the moon, and the soul of his father +was there likewise. But he could not see this spirit, which spake to him +saying, "Behold, I am given to you as a comrade." The spirit of the father +then went on to tell the son how, after various stages of probation, he +would attain the highest heaven, and in the terms of this discourse Cardan +professed to discern the scheme of his more important works.</p> + +<p>The <i>De Subtilitate</i> represents Cardan's original conception<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> of a +treatise dealing with the Cosmos, but during the course of its preparation +a vast mass of subsidiary and contingent knowledge accumulated in his +note-books, and rendered necessary the publication of a supplementary +work, the <i>De Varietate</i>,<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> which, by the time it was finished, had +grown to a bulk exceeding that of the original treatise. The seminal ideas +which germinated and produced such a vast harvest of printed words, were +substantially the same which had possessed the brains of Paracelsus and +Agrippa. Cardan postulates in the beginning a certain sympathy between the +celestial bodies and our own, not merely general, but distributive, the +sun being in harmony with the heart, and the moon with the animal humours. +He considers that all organized bodies are animated, so that what we call +the Spirit of Nature is present everywhere. Beyond this everything is +ruled by the properties of numbers.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Heat and moisture are the only +real qualities in Nature, the first being the formal, and the second the +material, cause of all things; these conceptions he gleaned probably from +some criticisms of Aristotle on the archaic doctrines of Heraclitus and +Thales as to the origin of the universe.</p> + +<p>It is no marvel that a writer, gifted with so bizarre and imaginative a +temper, so restless and greedy of knowledge, sitting down to work with +such a projection before him, should have produced the richest, and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +the same time the most chaotic, collection of the facts of Natural +Philosophy that had yet issued from the press. The erudition and the +industry displayed in the gathering together of these vast masses of +information, and in their verification by experiment, are indeed amazing; +and, in turning over his pages, it is impossible to stifle regret that +Cardan's confused method and incoherent system should have rendered his +work comparatively useless for the spread of true knowledge, and qualified +it only for a place among the <i>labores ineptiarum</i>.</p> + +<p>Cardan begins with a definition of Subtilty. "By subtilty I mean a certain +faculty of the mind by which certain phenomena, discernible by the senses +and comprehensible by the intellect, may be understood, albeit with +difficulty." Subtilty, as he understood it, possesses a threefold +character: substance, accident, and manifestation. With regard to the +senses he admits but four to the first rank: touch, sight, smell, and +hearing; the claims of taste, he affirms, are open to contention. He then +passes on to discuss the properties of matter: fire, moisture, cold, +dryness, and vacuum. The last-named furnishes him with a text for a +discourse on a wonderful lamp which he invented by thinking out the +principle of the vacuum. This digression on the very threshold of the work +is a sample of what the reader may expect to encounter all through the +twenty-one books of the <i>De Subtilitate</i> and the seventeen of the <i>De +Varietate</i>. Regardless of the claims of continuity, he jumps from +principle to practice without the slightest warning. Intermingled with +dissertations on abstract causes and the hidden forces of Nature are to be +found descriptions of taps and pumps and syphons, and of the water-screw +of Archimedes, the re-invention of which caused poor Galeazzo Rosso, +Fazio's blacksmith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> friend, to go mad for joy. There are diagrams of +furnaces, of machinery for raising sunken ships, and of the common +steelyard. Cardan finds no problem of the universe too recondite to essay, +and in like manner he sets down information as to the most trivial details +of every-day economy: how to kill mice, why dogs bay the moon, how to make +vinegar, why a donkey is stupid, why flint and steel produce fire, how to +make the hands white, how to tell good mushrooms from bad, and how to mark +household linen. He treats of the elements, Earth, Air, and Water, +excluding Fire, because it produces nothing material; of the heavens and +light: metals, stones, plants, and animals. Marvellous stories abound, and +the most whimsical theories are advanced to account for the working of +Nature. He tells how he once saw a man from Porto Maurizio, pallid, with +little hair on his face, and fat in person, who had in his breasts milk +enough to suckle a child. He was a soldier, and this strange property +caused him no slight inconvenience. Sages, he affirms, on account of their +studious lives, are little prone to sexual passion. With them the vital +power is carried from the heart to a region remote from the genitals, +<i>i.e.</i> to the brain, and for this reason such men as a rule beget children +weak and unlike themselves. Diet has a valid effect on character, as the +Germans, who subsist chiefly on the milk of wild cows, are fierce and bold +and brutal. Again, the Corsicans, who eat young dogs, wild as well as +domestic, are notably fierce, cruel, treacherous, fearless, nimble, and +strong, following thus the nature of dogs. He argues at length to show +that man is neither an animal nor a plant, but something between the two. +A man is no more an animal than an animal is a plant. The animal has the +<i>anima sensitiva</i> which the plant lacks, and man transcends the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> animal +through the gift of the <i>anima intellectiva</i>, which, as Aristotle +testifies, differs from the <i>sensitiva</i>. Some maintain that man and the +animals must be alike in nature and spirit, because it is possible for man +to catch certain diseases from animals. But animals take certain +properties from plants, and no one thinks of calling an animal a plant. +Man's nature is threefold: the Divine, which neither deceives nor is +deceived; the Human, which deceives, but is not deceived; the Brutish, +which does not deceive, but is deceived. Dissertations on the various +sciences, the senses, the soul and intellect, things marvellous, demons +and angels, occupy the rest of the chapters of the <i>De Subtilitate</i>.</p> + +<p>At the end of the last book of <i>De Varietate</i>, Cardan gives a table +showing the books of the two works arranged in parallel columns so as to +exhibit the relation they bear to each other. A comparison of the +treatment accorded to any particular branch of Natural Philosophy in the +<i>De Subtilitate</i> with that given in the <i>De Varietate</i>, will show that in +the last-named work Cardan used his most discursive and anecdotic method. +Mechanics are chiefly dealt with in the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, and all through +this treatise he set himself to observe in a certain degree the laws of +proportion, and kept more or less to the point with which he was dealing, +a system of treatment which left him with a vast heap of materials on his +hands, even after he had built up the heavy tome of the <i>De Subtilitate</i>. +Perhaps when he began his work upon the fresh volume he found this <i>ingens +acervus</i> too intractable and heterogeneous to be susceptible of +symmetrical arrangement, and was forced to let it remain in confusion. Few +men would sit down with a light heart to frame a well-ordered treatise out +of the <i>débris</i> of a heap of note-books, and it would be unjust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> to +censure Cardan's literary performance because he failed in this task. +Probably no other man living in his day would have achieved a better +result. It is certain that he expended a vast amount of labour in +attempting to reduce his collected mass of facts even to the imperfect +form it wears in the <i>De Varietate Rerum</i>.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + +<p>Considering that this book covers to a great extent the same ground as its +predecessor, Cardan must be credited with considerable ingenuity of +treatment in presenting his supplementary work without an undue amount of +repetition. In the <i>De Varietate</i> he always contrives to bring forward +some fresh fact or fancy to illustrate whatever section of the universe he +may have under treatment, even though this section may have been already +dealt with in the <i>De Subtilitate</i>. The characteristic most strongly +marked in the later book is the increased eagerness with which he plunges +into the investigation of certain forces, which he professes to appreciate +as lying beyond Nature, and incapable of scientific verification in the +modern sense, and the fabled manifestations of the same. He loses no +opportunity of trying to peer behind the curtain, and of seeking—honestly +enough—to formulate those various pseudo-sciences, politely called +occult, which have now fallen into ridicule and disrepute with all except +the charlatan and the dupe, who are always with us. Where he occupies in +the <i>De Subtilitate</i> one page in considering those things which lie +outside Nature—demons, ghosts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> incantations, succubi, incubi, +divinations, and such like—he spends ten in the <i>De Varietate</i> over +kindred subjects. There is a wonderful story<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> told by his father of a +ghost or demon which he saw in his youth while he was a scholar in the +house of Giovanni Resta at Pavia. He searches the pages of Hector +Boethius, Nicolaus Donis, Rugerus, Petrus Toletus, Leo Africanus, and +other chroniclers of the marvellous, for tales of witchcraft, prodigies, +and monstrous men and beasts, and devotes a whole chapter to +chiromancy,<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> a subject with which he had occupied his plenteous +leisure when he was waiting for patients at Sacco. The diagram of the +human hand given by him does not differ greatly from that of the +contemporary hand-books of the "Art," and the leading lines are just the +same. The heavenly bodies are as potent here as in Horoscopy. The thumb is +given to Mars, the index finger to Jupiter, the middle finger to Saturn, +the ring finger to the Sun, and the little finger to Venus. Each +finger-joint has its name, the lowest being called the procondyle, the +middle the condyle, and the upper the metacondyle. He passes briefly over +as lines of little import, the <i>via combusta</i> and the <i>Cingulus Orionis</i>, +but lays some stress on the character of the nails and the knitting +together of the hand, declaring that hands which can be bent easily +backward denote effeminacy or a rapacious spirit. He teaches that lines +are most abundant in the hands of children, on account of the tenderness +of the skin, and of old men on account of the dryness, a statement which +might suggest the theory that lines come into existence through the +opening and closing of the hand. But the adoption of this view would have +proved more disastrous to chiromancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> than ridicule or serious criticism; +so he straightway finds an explanation for this fact in the postulate that +lines in young people's hands speak as to the future, and in old men's as +to the past. Later he goes on to affirm that lines in the hand cannot be +treated as mere wrinkles arising from the folding of the skin, unless we +are prepared to admit that wrinkled people are more humorous than others, +alluding no doubt to the lines in the face caused by laughter, a +proposition which does not seem altogether convincing or consequential, +unless we also postulate that all humorous men laugh at every joke. There +is a line in the hand which he calls the <i>linea jecoraria</i>, and the +triangle formed by this and the <i>linea vitæ</i> and the <i>linea cerebri</i>, +rules the disposition of the subject, due consideration being given to the +acuteness or obtuseness of the angles of this triangle. Cardan seems to +have based his treatise on one written by a certain Ruffus Ephesius, and +it is without doubt one of the dullest portions of his work.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> + +<p>It is almost certain that Cardan purposed to let the <i>De Varietate</i> come +forth from the press immediately after the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, but before +the MS. was ready, it came to pass that he was called to make that +memorable journey to Scotland in order to find a remedy for the ailment +which was troubling the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a journey which has +given to Britons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> a special interest in his life and work. In dealing with +the Cosmos in the <i>De Subtilitate</i> he had indeed made brief mention of +Britain; but, writing then, he had no personal relations with either +England or Scotland, or the people thereof; and, but for his subsequent +visit, he would not have been able to set down in the pages of his second +book so many interesting and suggestive notes of what he had seen and +heard, and his ideas of the politics of the time. Again, if he had not +been urged by the desire all men feel to read what others may have to say +about places they have visited, it is not likely that he would have +searched the volumes of Hector Boethius and other early writers for +legends and stories of our island. Writing of Britain<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> in the <i>De +Subtilitate</i> he had praised its delicate wool and its freedom from +poisonous beasts: a land where the wolf had been exterminated, and where +the sheep might roam unvexed by any beast more formidable than the fox. +The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> to have led +to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to +that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> men yet living. +But besides this one, he records, in the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, few facts +concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in +support of the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in +intellect,<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> and he likewise notices the use of a fertilizing +earth—presumably marl—in agriculture,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> and the longevity of the +people, some of whom have reached their hundred and twentieth year.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> +The first notice of us in the <i>De Varietate</i> is in praise of our forestry, +forasmuch as he remarked that the plane tree, which is almost unknown in +Italy through neglect, thrives well in Scotland, he himself having seen +specimens over thirty feet high growing in the garden of the Augustinian +convent near Edinburgh. The lack of fruit in England he attributes rather +to the violence of the wind than to the cold; but, in spite of our cruel +skies, he was able to eat ripe plums in September, in a district close to +the Scottish border. He bewails the absence of olives and nuts, and +recommends the erection of garden-walls in order to help on the +cultivation of the more delicate fruits.</p> + +<p>In a conversation with the Archbishop of St. Andrews he was told that the +King of Scots ruled over one hundred and sixty-one islands, that the +people of the Shetland Islands lived for the most part on fish prepared by +freezing or sun-drying or fire, and had no other wealth than the skins of +beasts. Cardan pictures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the Shetlanders of that time as leading an ideal +life, unvexed by discord, war, or ambition, labouring in the summer for +the needs of winter, worshipping Christ, visited only once a year by a +priest from Orkney, who came over to baptize the children born within the +last twelve months, and was remunerated by a tenth of the catch of fish. +He speaks of the men of Orkney as a very lively, robust, and open-hearted +crew, furnished with heads strong enough to defy drunkenness, even after +swallowing draughts of the most potent wine. The land swarms with birds, +and the sheep bring forth two or even three lambs at a time. The horses +are a mean breed, and resemble asses both as to their size and their +patience. Some one told him of a fish, often seen round about the islands, +as big or even bigger than a horse, with a hide of marvellous toughness, +and useful for the abundance of oil yielded by its carcase. He attributes +the bodily strength of these northerners to the absence of four +deleterious influences—drunkenness, care, heat, and dry air. Cardan seems +to have been astonished at the wealth of precious stones he found in +Scotland—dark blue stones, diamonds, and carbuncles<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>—"maxime juxta +academiam Glaguensis oppidi in Gludisdalia regione," and he casts about to +explain how it is that England produces nothing of the kind, but only +silver and lead. He solves the question by laying down an axiom that the +harder the environment, the harder the stone produced. The mountains of +Scotland are both higher and presumably harder than those of England, +hence the carbuncles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was evidently fascinated with the wealth of local legend and story +which haunted the misty regions he visited. In dealing with demons and +familiar spirits he cites the authority of Merlin, "whose fame is still +great in England," and tells a story of a young woman living in the +country of Mar.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> This damsel was of noble family and very fair in +person, but she displayed a great unwillingness to enter the marriage +state. One day it was discovered that she was pregnant, and when the +parents went to make inquisition for the seducer, the girl confessed that, +both by day and night, a young man of surpassing beauty used to come and +lie with her. Who he was and whence he came she knew not. They, though +they gave little credit to her words, were informed by her handmaid, some +three days afterwards, that the young man was once more with her; +wherefore, having broken open the door, they entered, bearing lights and +torches, and beheld, lying in their daughter's arms, a monster, fearsome +and dreadful beyond human belief. All the neighbours ran quickly to behold +the grisly sight, and amongst them a good priest, well acquainted with +pagan rites. When he had come anear, and had said some verses of the +Gospel of Saint John, the fiend vanished with a terrible noise, bearing +away the roof of the chamber, and leaving the bed in flames. In three +days' time the girl gave birth to a monstrous child, more hideous than +anything heretofore seen in Scotland, wherefore the nurses, to keep off +disgrace from the family, caused it to be burnt on a pile of wood. There +is another story of a youth living about fourteen miles from Aberdeen, who +was visited every night by a demon lady of wonderful loveliness, though he +bolted and locked his chamber-door; but by fasting and praying and +keeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> his thoughts fixed on holy things he rid himself at last of the +unclean spirit.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> He quotes from Boethius the whole story of +Macbeth,<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> and tells how "Duffus rex" languished and wasted under the +malefic arts of certain witches who made an image of the king in wax and, +by using various incantations, let the same melt slowly away before the +fire. The unhappy king came near to die, but, as soon as these nefarious +practices were discovered, the image was destroyed, whereupon the king was +restored to health.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> + +<p>When Cardan received the first letter from Scotland the manuscript of the +<i>De Varietate</i> must have been ready or nearly ready for the printer; but, +for some reason or other, he determined to postpone the publication of the +work until he should have finished with the Archbishop, and took his +manuscript with him when he set forth on his travels. In 1550 there came +another break in Cardan's life as Professor at Pavia, the reason being the +usual one of dearth of funds.<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> In 1551 he went back for a short time, +but the storms of war were rising on all sides, and the luckless city of +Pavia was in the very centre of the disturbance. The French once more +crossed the Alps, pillaging and devastating the country, their ostensible +mission being the vindication of the rights of Ottavio Farnese to the +Duchy of Parma. Ottavio had quarrelled with Pope Julius III., who called +upon the Emperor for assistance. War was declared, and Charles set to work +to annex Parma and Piacenza as well to the Milanese. Cardan withdrew to +Milan at the end of the year. Gian Battista had now completed his medical +course, so there was now no reason why he should continue to live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +permanently at Pavia. Moreover at this juncture he seems to have been +strongly moved to augment the fame which he had already won in Mathematics +and Medicine by some great literary achievement, and he worked diligently +with this object in view.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p> + +<p>At the beginning of November 1551, a letter came to him from +Cassanate,<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> a Franco-Spanish physician, who was at that time in +attendance upon the Archbishop of St. Andrews, requesting him to make the +journey to Paris, and there to meet the Archbishop, who was suffering from +an affection of the lungs. The fame of Cardan as a physician had spread as +far as Scotland, and the Archbishop had set his heart on consulting him. +Cassanate's letter is of prodigious length. After a diffuse exordium he +proceeds to praise in somewhat fulsome terms the <i>De Libris Propriis</i> and +the treatises <i>De Sapientia</i><a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> and <i>De Consolatione</i>, which had been +given to him by a friend when he was studying at Toulouse in 1549. He had +just read the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, and was inflamed with desire to become +acquainted with everything which Cardan had ever written. But what struck +Cassanate more than anything was a passage in the <i>De Sapientia</i> on a +medical question, which he extracts and incorporates in his epistle. +Cardan writes there: "But if my profession itself will not give me a +living, nor open out an avenue to some other career, I must needs set my +brains to work, to find therein something unknown hitherto, for the charm +of novelty is unfailing, something which would prove of the highest +utility in a particular case. In Milan,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> while I was fighting the battle +against hostile prejudice, and was unable to earn enough to pay my way (so +much harder is the lot of manifest than of hidden merit, and no man is +honoured as a prophet in his own country), I brought to light much fresh +knowledge, and worked my hardest at my art, for outside my art there was +naught to be done. At last I discovered a cure for phthisis, which is also +known as Phthœ, a disease for many centuries deemed incurable, and I +healed many who are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the +<i>Gallicus morbus</i>. I also discovered a cure for intercutaneous water in +many who still survive. But in the matter of invention, Reason will be the +leader, but Experiment the Master, the stimulating cause of work in +others. If in any experiment there should seem to be an element of danger, +let it be performed gently, and little by little."<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> It is not +wonderful that the Archbishop, who doubtless heard all about Cardan's +asserted cure of phthisis from Cassanate, should have been eager to submit +his asthma to Cardan's skill. After acknowledging the deep debt of +gratitude which he, in common with the whole human race, owed to Cardan in +respect to the two discoveries aforesaid, Cassanate comes to the business +in hand, to wit, the Archbishop's asthma. Not content with giving a most +minute description of the symptoms, he furnishes Cardan also with a theory +of the operations of the distemper. He writes: "The disease at first took +the form of a distillation from the brain into the lungs, accompanied with +hoarseness, which, with the help of the physician in attendance, was cured +for a time, but the temperature of the brain continued unfavourable, being +too cold and too moist, so that certain unhealthy humours were collected +in the head and there remained,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> because the brain could neither +assimilate its own nutriment, nor disperse the humours which arose from +below, being weakened through its nutriment of pituitous blood. After an +attack of this nature it always happened that, whenever the body was +filled with any particular matter, which, in the form of substance, or +vapour, or quality, might invade the brain, a fresh attack would certainly +arise, in the form of a fresh flow of the same humour down to the lungs. +Moreover these attacks were found to agree almost exactly with the +conjunctions and oppositions of the moon."<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> + +<p>Cassanate goes on to say that his patient had proved somewhat intractable, +refusing occasionally to have anything to do with his medical attendants, +and that real danger was impending owing to the flow of humour having +become chronic. Fortunately this humour was not acrid or salt; if it were, +phthisis must at once supervene. But the Archbishop's lungs were becoming +more and more clogged with phlegm, and a stronger effort of coughing was +necessary to clear them. Latterly much of the thick phlegm had adhered to +the lungs, and consequently the difficulty of breathing was great. +Cassanate declares that he had been able to do no more than to keep the +Archbishop alive, and he fears no one would be able to work a complete +cure, seeing that the air of Scotland is so moist and salt, and that the +Archbishop is almost worried to death by the affairs of State. He next +urges Cardan to consent to meet the Archbishop in Paris, a city in which +learning of all sorts flourishes exceedingly, the nurse of many great +philosophers, and one in which Cardan would assuredly meet the honour and +reverence which is his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> due. The Archbishop's offer was indeed magnificent +in its terms. Funds would be provided generous enough to allow the +physician to travel post the whole of the journey, and the goodwill of all +the rulers of the states <i>en route</i> would be enlisted in his favour. +Cassanate finishes by fixing the end of January 1552 as a convenient date +for the <i>rendezvous</i> in Paris, and, as time and place accorded with +Cardan's wishes, he wrote to Cassanate accepting the offer.</p> + +<p>The Archbishop of St. Andrews was John Hamilton, the illegitimate brother +of James, Earl of Arran, who had been chosen Regent of the kingdom after +the death of James V. at Flodden, and the bar sinister, in this case as in +many others, was the ensign of a courage and talent and resource in which +the lawful offspring was conspicuously wanting. Any student taking a +cursory glance at the epoch of violence and complicated intrigue which +marked the infancy of Mary of Scotland, may well be astonished that a man +so weak and vain and incompetent as James Hamilton—albeit his footing was +made more secure by his position as the Queen's heir-presumptive—should +have held possession of his high dignities so long as he did. Alternately +the tool of France and of England, he would one day cause his great rival +Cardinal Beatoun to be proclaimed an enemy of his country, and the next +would meet him amicably and adopt his policy. After becoming the partisan +of Henry VIII. and the foe of Rome, he finally put the coping-stone to his +inconsistencies by becoming a convert to Catholicism in 1543. But in spite +of his indolence and weakness, he was still Regent of Scotland, when his +brother, the Archbishop, was seized with that attack of periodic asthma +which threatened to change vitally the course of Scottish politics. A very +slight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> study of contemporary records will show that Arran had been +largely, if not entirely, indebted to the distinguished talents and to the +ambition of his brother for his continued tenure of the chief power of the +State. If confirmation of this view be needed, it will be found in the +fact that, as soon as the Archbishop was confined to a sick-room, Mary of +Guise, the Queen Mother, supported by her brothers in France and by the +Catholic party at home, began to undermine the Regent's position by +intrigue, and ultimately, partly by coaxing, partly by threats, won from +him a promise to surrender his power into her hands.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Cardan was waiting for further intelligence and directions +as to his journey. The end of January had been fixed as the date of the +meeting at Paris, and it was not until the middle of February that any +further tidings came to him. Then he received a letter from Cassanate and +a remittance to cover the expenses of his journey.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> He set out at once +on February 22, undaunted by the prospect of a winter crossing of the +Simplon, and, having travelled by way of Sion and Geneva, arrived at Lyons +on March 13. In Cassanate's first letter Paris had been named as the place +of meeting; but, as a concession to Cardan's convenience, Lyons was added +as an alternative, in case he should find it impossible to spare time for +a longer journey. Cardan accordingly halted at Lyons, but neither +Archbishop nor physician was there to meet him. After he had waited for +more than a month, Cassanate appeared alone, and brought with him a heavy +purse of money for the cost of the long journey to Scotland, which he now +begged Cardan to undertake, and a letter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> from the Archbishop himself, who +wrote word that, though he had fully determined in the first instance to +repair to Paris, or even to Lyons, to meet Cardan, he found himself at +present mastered by the turn of circumstances, and compelled to stay at +home. He promised Cardan a generous reward, and a reception of a nature to +convince him that the Scots are not such Scythians as they might perchance +be deemed in Milan.<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> Cardan's temper was evidently upset by this turn +of affairs, and his suspicions aroused; for he sets down his belief that +patient and physician had from the first worked with the intention of +dragging him all the way to Scotland, but that they had waited till he was +across the Alps before showing their hand, fearing lest if the word +Scotland should have been used at the outset, he would never have moved +from Milan.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> In describing his journey he writes:—"I tarried in Lyons +forty-six days, seeing nothing of the Archbishop, nor of the physician +whom I expected, nevertheless I gained more than I spent. I met there +Ludovico Birago, a gentleman of Milan, and commander of the King's +foot-soldiers, and with him I contracted a close friendship, so much so +that, had I been minded to take service under Brissac, the King's +lieutenant, I might have enjoyed a salary of one thousand crowns a year. +Shortly afterwards Guglielmo Cassanate, the Archbishop's physician, +arrived in Lyons and brought with him three hundred other golden crowns, +which he handed to me, in order that I might make the journey with him to +Scotland, offering in addition to pay the cost of travel, and promising me +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>divers gifts in addition. Thus, making part of our journey down the +Loire, I arrived at Paris. While I was there I met Orontius; but he for +some reason or other refused to visit me. Under the escort of +Magnienus<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> I inspected the treasury of the French Kings, and the +Church of Saint Denis. I saw likewise something there, not so famous, but +more interesting to my mind, and this was the horn of a unicorn, whole and +uninjured. After this we met the King's physicians, and we all dined +together, but I declined to hold forth to them during dinner, because +before we sat down they were urgent that I should begin a discussion. I +next set forth on my journey, my relations with Pharnelius and Silvius, +and another of the King's physicians,<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> whom I left behind, being of a +most friendly nature, and travelled to Boulogne in France, where, by the +command of the Governor of Sarepont, an escort of fourteen armed horsemen +and twenty foot-soldiers was assigned to me, and so to Calais. I saw the +tower of Cæsar still standing. Then having crossed the narrow sea I went +to London, and at last met the Archbishop at Edinburgh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> on the +twenty-ninth of June. I remained there till the thirteenth of September. I +received as a reward four hundred more gold crowns; a chain of gold worth +a hundred and twenty crowns, a noble horse, and many other gifts, in order +that no one of those who were with me should return empty-handed."<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<p>The Archbishop's illness might in itself have supplied a reason for his +inability to travel abroad and meet Cardan as he had agreed to do; but the +real cause of his change of plan was doubtless the condition of public +affairs in Scotland at the beginning of 1552. In the interval of time +between Cassanate's first letter to Cardan and the end of 1551, the Regent +had half promised to surrender his office into the hands of the Guise +party in Scotland, wherefore it was no wonder that the Primate, +recognizing how grave was the danger which threatened the source of his +power, should have resolved that, sick or sound, his proper place was at +the Scottish Court.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Vesalius had certainly lectured on anatomy at Pavia, but it +would appear that Cardan did not know him personally, seeing that he +writes in <i>De Libris Propriis</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 138): "Brasavolum ... +nunquam vidi, ut neque Vesalium quamquam intimum mihi amicum."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxii. p. 99.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> In describing Fazio, Jerome writes: "Erat Euclidis operum +studiosus, et humeris incurvis: et filius meus natu major ore, oculis, +incessu, humeris, illi simillimus."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iii. p. 8. In +the same chapter Fazio is described as "Blæsus in loquendo; variorum +studiorum amator: ruber, oculis albis et quibus noctu videret."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> "At uxor mea imaginabatur assidue se videre calvariam +patris, qui erat absens dum utero gereret Jo: +Baptistam."—<i>Paralipomenon</i>, lib. iii. c. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 832.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> "Post ex geminatis somniis, scripsi libros de Subtilitate +quos impressos auxi et denuo superauctos tertio excudi curavi."—<i>De Vita +Propria</i>, ch. xlv. p. 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> "Libros de Rerum varietate anno MDLVIII edidi: erant enim +reliquiæ librorum de subtilitate."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, p. 176. "Reversus +in patriam, perfeci libros XVII de Rerum varietate quos jampridem +inchoaveram."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 110. He had collected much material +during his life at Gallarate.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Aristotle, <i>Metaphysics</i>, book I. ch. v., contains an +examination of the Pythagorean doctrine which maintains Number to be the +Substance of all things:—<ins class="greek" title="all' to apeiron kai auto to hen ousian einai toutôn ôn katêgorountai"> +áùαλλ' αυτὸ τὸ απειρον και αυτὸ τὸ ἑν ουσίαν ειναι τουτων ων κατηγορου̃νταιto</ins>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> "Sed nullus major labor quam libri de Rerum Varietate quem +cum sæpius mutassem, demum traductis quibuscunque insignioribus rebus in +libros de Subtilitate, ita illum exhausi, ut totus denuo conscribendus +fuerit atque ex integro restituendus."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 74. +</p><p> +He seems to have utilized the services of Ludovico Ferrari in compiling +this work.—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 661.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> Book XV. ch. lxxix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> He gives one example of his skill as a palmist in the <i>De +Vita Propria</i>: "Memini me dum essem adolescens, persuasum fuisse cuidam +Joanni Stephano Biffo, quod essem Chiromanticus, et tamen nil minus: rogat +ille, ut prædicam ei aliquid de vita; dixi delusum esse a sociis, urget, +veniam peto si quicquam gravius prædixero: dixi periculum imminere brevi +de suspendio, intra hebdomadam capitur, admovetur tormentis: pertinaciter +delictum negat, nihilominus tandem post sex menses laqueo vitam +finivit."—ch. xlii. p. 156.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> "Ergo nunc Britannia inclyta vellere est. Nec mirum cum +nullū animal venenatū mittat, imò nec infestum præter vulpem, olim et +lupum: nunc vero exterminatis etiam lupis, tutò pecus vagat. Rore cœli +sitim sedant greges, ab omni alio potu arcentur, quod aquæ ibi ovibus sint +exitiales: quia tamen in pabulo humido vermes multi abundant, cornicū adeo +multitudo crevit, ut ob frugum damna nuper publico consilio illas +perdentibus proposita præmia sint: ubi enim pabulum, ibi animalia sunt quæ +eo vescuntur, atque immodicè tunc multiplicantur cum ubique abundaverit. +Caret tamen ut dixi, serpentibus, tribus ex causis: nam pauci possunt +generari ob frigus immensum."—<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 298.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Æneas Sylvius in describing his visit to Britain a century +earlier says that rooks had been recently introduced, and that the trees +on which they roosted and built belonged to the King's Exchequer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> "Ejusdem insulæ accola fuit Ioannes, ut dixi, Suisset +[Richard Swineshead] cognomēto Calculator; in cujus solius unius argumenti +solutione, quod contra experimentū est de actione mutua tota laboravit +posteritas; quem senem admodum, nec inventa sua dum legeret intelligentem, +flevisse referunt. Ex quo haud dubium esse reor, quod etiam in libro de +animi immortalite scripsi, barbaros ingenio nobis haud esse inferiores: +quandoquidem sub Brumæ cælo divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tam clari +ingenii viros emiserit."—<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 444.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 142.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> p. 369.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> The fame of Scots as judges of precious stones had spread +to Italy before Cardan's time. In the <i>Novellino</i> of Masuccio, which was +first printed in 1476, there is a passage in the tenth novel of the first +part, in which a rogue passes as "grandissimo cognoscitore" of gems +because he had spent much time in Scotland.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 636.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 637.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 637.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 565.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> "Peracto L anno quod stipendium non remuneraretur mansi +Mediolani."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> About this time he wrote the <i>Liber Decem Problematum</i>, and +the treatise <i>Delle Burle Calde</i>, one of his few works written in +Italian.—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Cassanate's letter is given in full (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. +89).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> The quotation from the <i>De Sapientia</i> differs somewhat from +the original passage which stands on p. 578 of the same volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> In a subsequent interview with Cardan, Cassanate modifies +this statement.—<i>Opera</i>, tom. ix. p. 124.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> "Accepique antequam discederem aureos coronatos Gallicos +500 et M.C.C. in reditu."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> "Difficillimis causis victus venire non potui." The +Archbishop's letter is given in <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. 469.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> He mentions this personage in <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 672: +"Johannes Manienus medicus, vir egregius et mathematicaram studiosus." He +was physician to the monks of Saint Denis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> The reception given to Cardan in Paris was a very friendly +one. Orontius was a mechanician and mathematician; and jealousy of +Cardan's great repute may have kept him away from the dinner, but the +physicians were most hospitable. Pharnelius [Fernel] was Professor of +Medicine at the University, and physician to the Court. Sylvius was an old +man of a jocular nature, but as an anatomist bitterly opposed to the novel +methods of Vesalius, who was one of Cardan's heroes. With this possibility +of quarrelling over the merits of Vesalius, it speaks well for the temper +of the doctors that they parted on good terms. Ranconet, another Parisian +who welcomed Cardan heartily, was one of the Presidents of the Parliament +of Paris. He seems to have been a man of worth and distinguished +attainments, and Cardan gives an interesting account of him in +<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. 423.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxix. p. 75. Cardan refers more than +once to the generosity of the Archbishop. He computes (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. +93) that his visit must have cost Hamilton four talents of gold; that is +to say, two thousand golden crowns.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Cardan</span>, as he has himself related, arrived at Edinburgh on June 29, 1552. +The coming of such a man at such a time must have been an event of +extraordinary interest. In England the Italy of the Renaissance had been +in a measure realized by men of learning and intellect through the reports +of the numerous scholars—John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Henry Parker, +Lord Morley, Howard Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyat, may be taken as +examples—who had wandered thither and come back with a stock of histories +setting forth the beauty and charm, and also the terror and wickedness, of +that wonderful land. Some echoes of this legend had doubtless drifted down +to Scotland, and possibly still more may have been wafted over from +France. Ascham had taken up his parable in the <i>Schoolmaster</i>, describing +the devilish sins and corruptions of Italy, and now the good people of +Edinburgh were to be given the sight of a man coming thence, one who was +fabled to have gathered together more knowledge, both of this world and of +that other hidden one which was to them just as real, than any mortal man +alive. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Cardan should +have been regarded rather as a magician than as a doctor, and in the +<i>Scotichronicon</i><a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> it is recorded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> that the Primate was cured of a +lingering asthma by the incantations of an astrologer named Cardan, from +Milan. Cardan in his narrative speaks of Edinburgh as the place where he +met his patient, and does not mention any other place of sojourn, but the +record just quoted goes on to say that he abode with the Primate for +eleven weeks at his country residence at Monimail, near Cupar, Fife, where +there is a well called to this day Cardan's Well.</p> + +<p>Cardan, as it has been noticed already, refused to commit himself to any +opinion as to the character of the Archbishop's distemper over the +dinner-table where he and Cassanate had been entertained by the French +King's physicians. Cassanate had set forth his views in full as to the +nature of the asthma which had to be dealt with in his letter to Cardan, +and it is highly probable that he would again bring forward these views in +the hearing of the Paris doctors. It is certain that some of the French +physicians had, previous to this, prescribed a course of treatment for the +Archbishop, probably without seeing him, and that the course was being +tried when Cardan arrived in Edinburgh.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> For the first six weeks of +his stay he watched the case, and let the treatment aforesaid go +on—whether it differed from that which Cassanate recommended or not there +is no evidence to show. But no good result came of it. The Archbishop +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>wasted in body and became fretful and disturbed in mind, and, at last, +Cardan was obliged to let his opinion of the case be known; and, as this +was entirely hostile to the treatment which was being pursued, the +inevitable quarrel between the doctors burst forth with great violence. +The Archbishop was irate with his ordinary medical attendant, probably the +physician who was left in charge during Cassanate's absence—and this man +retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's +position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full +of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory +conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself +getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of +this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this +proposition the Primate took in very ill part.</p> + +<p>Cassanate in his first diagnosis had traced the Archbishop's illness to an +excess of coldness and humidity in the brain. Now Cardan, on the other +hand, maintained that the brain was too hot. He found Cassanate's +treatment too closely fettered by his theory as to the causes of periodic +asthma, but he did not venture to exhibit his own course of treatment till +after he had gained some knowledge of the Archbishop's temper and habits. +He came to the conclusion that his patient was overwrought with the cares +of State, that he ate too freely, that he did not sleep enough, and that +he was of a temper somewhat choleric. Cardan set forth this view of the +case in a voluminous document, founding the course of treatment he +proposed to pursue upon the aphorisms of Galen. He altogether rejected +Cassanate's view as to the retention of the noxious humours in the head. +The Archbishop had the ruddy complexion of a man in good health, a +condition which could scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> co-exist with the loading of the brain +with matter which would certainly putrify if retained for any long time. +Cardan maintained that the serous humour descended into the lungs, not by +the passages, but by soaking through the membranes as through linen.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> +After describing the origin and the mode of descent of this humour, he +goes on to search for an auxiliary cause of the mischief, and this he +finds in the imperfect digestive powers of the stomach and liver. If the +cause lay entirely in the brain, how was it that all the cerebral +functions were not vitiated? In fine, the source of the disease lay, not +in the weakness of the brain, but in an access of heat, caused possibly by +exposure to the sun, by which the matter of the brain had become so +rarefied that it showed unhealthy activity in absorbing moisture from the +other parts. This heat, therefore, must be reduced.</p> + +<p>To accomplish this end three lines of treatment must be followed. First, a +proper course of diet; second, drugs; and third, certain manual +operations. As to diet, the Archbishop was ordered to take nothing but +light and cooling food, two to four pints of asses' milk in the early +morning, drawn from an ass fed on cooling herbs, and to use all such foods +as had a fattening tendency; tortoise or turtle-soup,<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> distilled +snails, barley-water and chicken-broth, and divers other rich edibles. The +purging of the brain was a serious business; it was to be compassed by an +application to the coronal suture of an ointment made of Greek pitch, +ship's tar, white mustard, euphorbium, and honey of anathardus: the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +compound to be sharpened, if necessary, by the addition of blister fly, or +rendered less searching by leaving out the euphorbium and mustard. Cardan +adds, that, by the use of this persuasive application, he had sometimes +brought out two pints of water in twenty-four hours. The use of the +shower-bath and plentiful rubbing with dry cloths was also recommended.</p> + +<p>The purging of the body was largely a question of diet. To prevent +generation of moisture, perfumes were to be used; the patient was to sleep +on raw silk and not upon feathers, and to let an hour and a half come +between supper and bed-time. Sleep, after all, was the great thing to be +sought. The Archbishop was counselled to sleep from seven to ten hours, +and to subtract time from his studies and his business and add the same to +sleep.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan's treatment, which seems to have been suggested as much by the man +of common-sense as by the physician, soon began to tell favourably upon +the Archbishop. He remained for thirty-five days in charge of his patient, +during which time the distemper lost its virulence and the patient gained +flesh. In the meantime the fame of his skill had spread abroad, and +well-nigh the whole nobility of Scotland flocked to consult him,<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> and +they paid him so liberally that on one day he made nineteen golden crowns. +But when winter began to draw near, Cardan felt that it was time to move<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +southward. He feared the cold; he longed to get back to his sons, and he +was greatly troubled by the continued ill-behaviour of one of the servants +he had brought with him—"maledicus, invidus, avarissimus, Dei +contemptor;" but he found his patient very loth to let him depart. The +Archbishop declared that his illness was alleviated but not cured, and +only gave way unwillingly when Cardan brought forward arguments to show +what dangers and inconveniences he would incur through a longer stay. +Cardan had originally settled to return by way of Paris, but letters which +he received from his young kinsman, Gasparo Cardano, and from Ranconet, +led him to change his plans. The country was in a state of anarchy, the +roads being infested with thieves, and Gasparo himself had the bad fortune +to be taken by a gang of ruffians. In consequence of these things Cardan +determined to return by way of Flanders and the Empire.</p> + +<p>It was not in reason that Cardan would quit Scotland and resign the care +of his patient without taking the stars into his counsel as to the future. +He cast the Archbishop's horoscope, and published it in the <i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i>. It was not a successful feat. In his forty-eighth year, <i>i.e.</i> +in 1560, the astrologer declared that Hamilton would be in danger of +poison and of suffering from an affection of the heart. But the time of +the greatest peril seemed to lie between July 30 and September 21, 1554. +The stars gave no warning of the tragic fate which befell Archbishop +Hamilton in the not very distant future. For the succeeding six years he +governed the Church in Scotland with prudence and leniency, but in 1558 he +began a persecution of the reformers which kindled a religious strife, +highly embarrassing to the Catholic party then holding the reins of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +power. His cruelties were borne in mind by the reformers when they got the +upper hand. In 1563 he was imprisoned for saying mass. In 1568 Mary, after +her escape from Loch Leven, gave the chief direction of her affairs into +the hands of the Archbishop, who was the bitter foe of the Regent Murray. +Murray having defeated the Queen's forces at Langside, Hamilton took +refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which was surprised and captured in 1571, when +the Archbishop was taken to Stirling and hanged. In the words of the +<i>Diurnal of Occurrants</i>: "as the bell struck six hours at even, he was +hangit at the mercat cross of Stirling upon a jebat."<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> His enemies +would not let him rest even there, for the next day, fixed to the tree, +were found the following verses:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Frondibus ut nobis talia poma feras."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To return to Cardan. Having at last won from his patient leave to depart, +he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most +generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment +which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the French +Viceroy, he contrasts it with the liberal rewards granted to him in what +must then have been the poorest of the European kingdoms;<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> and in the +Preface of the <i>De Astrorum Judiciis</i> (Basel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> 1554) he writes in +sympathetic and grateful terms of the kind usage he had met in the +North.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> It must have been a severe disappointment to him that he was +unable to revisit Paris on his way home, for letters from his friend +Ranconet told him that a great number of illustrious men had proposed to +repair to Paris for the sake of meeting him; and many of the nobles of +France were anxious to consult him professionally, one of them offering a +fee of a thousand gold crowns. But Cardan was so terrified by the report +given by Gasparo of the state of France, that he made up his mind he would +on no account touch its frontiers on his homeward journey.</p> + +<p>Before he quitted Scotland there had come to him letters from the English +Court entreating him to tarry there some days on his way home to Italy, +and give his opinion on the health of Edward VI., who was then slowly +recovering from an attack of smallpox and measles. The young King's +recovery was more apparent than real, for he was, in fact, slowly sinking +under the constitutional derangement which killed him a few months later. +Cardan could hardly refuse to comply with this request, nor is there any +evidence to show that he made this visit to London unwillingly. But he +soon found out that those about the Court were anxious to hear from him +something more than a statement of his opinion as to Edward's health. They +wanted, before all else, to learn what the stars had to say as to the +probable duration of the sovereign's life. During his stay in Scotland +Cardan would certainly have gained some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> intelligence of the existing +state of affairs at the English Court; how in the struggle for the custody +of the regal power, the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Protector, the +King's uncles, had lost their heads; and how the Duke of Northumberland, +the son of Dudley, the infamous minion of Henry VII. and the destroyer of +the ill-fated Seymours, had now gathered all the powers and dignities of +the kingdom into his own hands, and was waiting impatiently for the death +of Edward, an event which would enable him to control yet more completely +the supreme power, through the puppet queen whom he had ready at hand to +place upon the throne. An Italian of the sixteenth century, steeped in the +traditions of the bloody and insidious state-craft of Milan and the +Lombard cities, Cardan would naturally shrink from committing himself to +any such perilous utterance: all the more for the reason that he had +already formed an estimate of the English as a fierce and cruel people. +With his character as a magician to maintain he could scarcely keep entire +silence, so he wrote down for the satisfaction of his interrogators a +horoscope: a mere perfunctory piece of work, as we learn afterwards. He +begins by reciting the extraordinary nature of the King's birth, repeating +the legend that his mother was delivered of him by surgical aid, and only +lived a few hours afterwards; and declares that, in his opinion, it would +have been better had this boy never been born at all. "Nevertheless, +seeing that he had come into this world and been duly trained and +educated, it would be well for mankind were he to live long, for all the +graces waited upon him. Boy as he was, he was skilled in divers tongues, +Latin, English, and French, and not unversed in Greek, Italian, and +Spanish; he had likewise knowledge of dialectics, natural philosophy, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +music. His culture is the reflection of our mortal nature; his gravity +that of kingly majesty, and his disposition is worthy of so illustrious a +prince. Speaking generally, it was indeed a strange experience to realize +that this boy of so great talent and promise was being educated in the +knowledge of the affairs of men. I have not set forth his accomplishments, +tricked out with rhetoric so as to exceed the truth; of which, in sooth, +my relation falls short." Cardan next draws a figure of Edward's +horoscope, and devotes several pages to the customary jargon of +astrologers; and, under the heading "De animi qualitatibus," says: "There +was something portentous about this boy. He had learnt, as I heard, seven +languages, and certainly he knew thoroughly his own, French, and Latin. He +was skilled in Dialectic, and eager to be instructed in all subjects. When +I met him, he was in his fifteenth year, and he asked me (speaking Latin +no less perfectly and fluently than myself), 'What is contained in those +rare books of yours, <i>De rerum varietate</i>?' for I had dedicated these +manuscripts to his name.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> Whereupon I began by pointing out to him +what I had written in the opening chapter on the cause of the comets which +others had sought so long in vain. He was curious to hear more of this +cause, so I went on to tell him that it was the collected light of the +wandering stars. 'Then,' said he, 'how is it, since the stars are set +going by various impulses, that this light is not scattered, or carried +along with the stars in their courses?' I replied: 'It does indeed move +with them, but at a speed vastly greater on account of the difference of +our point of view; as, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> instance, when the prism is cast upon the wall +by the sun and the crystal, then the least motion of the crystal will +shift the position of the reflection to a great distance.' The King said: +'But how can this be done when no <i>subjectum</i> is provided? for in the case +you quote the wall is the <i>subjectum</i> to the reflection.' I replied: 'It +is a similar effect to that which we observe in the Milky Way, and in the +reflection of light when many candles are lighted in a mass; these always +produce a certain clear and lucent medium. <i>Itaque ex ungue leonem</i>.'</p> + +<p>"This youth was the great hope of good and learned men everywhere, by +reason of his frankness and the gentleness of his manners. He began to +take an interest in the Arts before he understood them, and to understand +them before he had full occasion to use them. The production of such a +personality was an effort of humanity; and, should he be snatched away +before his time, not only England, but all the world must mourn his loss.</p> + +<p>"When he was required to show the gravity of a king, he would appear to be +an old man. He played upon the lyre; he took interest in public affairs; +and was of a kingly mind, following thus the example of his father, who, +while he was over-careful to do right, managed to exhibit himself to the +world in an evil light. But the son was free from any suspicion of such a +charge, and his intelligence was brought to maturity by the study of +philosophy."</p> + +<p>Cardan next makes an attempt to gauge the duration of the King's life, and +when it is considered that he was a skilled physician, and Edward a sickly +boy, fast sinking into a decline, it is to be feared that he let sincerity +give way to prudence when he proclaimed that, in his fifty-sixth year the +King would be troubled with divers illnesses. "Speaking generally of the +whole duration of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> his life he will be found to be steadfast, firm, +severe, chaste, intelligent, an observer of righteousness, patient under +trouble, mindful both of injuries and benefits, one demanding reverence +and seeking his own. He would lust as a man, but would suffer the curse of +impotence. He would be wise beyond measure, and thereby win the admiration +of the world; very prudent and high-minded; fortunate, and indeed a second +Solomon."</p> + +<p>Edward VI. died on July 6, 1553, about six months after Cardan had +returned to Milan; and, before the publication of the <i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i> in 1554, the author added to the King's horoscope a supplementary +note, explaining his conduct thereanent and shedding some light upon the +tortuous and sinister intrigues which at that time engaged the ingenuity +of the leaders about the English Court. Now that he was safe from the +consequences of giving offence, he wrote in terms much less guarded as to +the state of English affairs. It must be admitted that his calculations as +to the King's length of days, published after death, have no special value +as calculations; but his impressions of the probable drift of events in +England are interesting as the view of a foreigner upon English politics, +and moreover they exhibit in strong light the sinister designs of +Northumberland. Cardan records his belief that, in the fourth month of his +fifteenth year, the King had been in peril of his life from the plottings +of those immediately about him. On one occasion a particular disposition +of the sun and Mars denoted that he was in danger of plots woven by a +wicked minister, nay, there were threatenings even of poison.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> He does +not shrink from affirming that this unfortunate boy met his death by the +treachery of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> about him. As an apology for the horoscope he drew +when he was in England, he lays down the principle that it is inexpedient +to give opinions as to the duration of life in dealing with the horoscopes +of those in feeble health, unless you shall beforehand consult all the +directions and processes and ingresses of the ruling planets, "and if I +had not made this reservation in the prognostic I gave to the English +courtiers, they might justly have found fault with me."</p> + +<p>He next remarks that he had spent much time in framing this +horoscope—albeit it was imperfect—according to his usual practice, and +that if he had gone on somewhat farther, and consulted the direction of +the sun and moon, the danger of death in which the King stood would +straightway have manifested itself. If he had still been distrustful as to +the directions aforesaid, and had gone on to observe the processes and +ingresses, the danger would have been made clear, but even then he would +not have dared to predict an early death to one in such high position: he +feared the treacheries and tumults and the transfer of power which must +ensue, and drew a picture of all the evils which might befall himself, +evils which he was in no mood to face. Where should he look for protection +amongst a strange people, who had little mercy upon one another and would +have still less for him, a foreigner, with their ruler a mere boy, who +could protect neither himself nor his guest? It might easily come about +that his return to Italy would be hindered; and, supposing the crisis to +come to the most favourable issue, what would he get in return for all +this danger and anxiety? He calls to mind the cases of two soothsayers who +were foolish enough to predict the deaths of princes, Ascletarion, and a +certain priest, who foretold the deaths of Domitian and Galeazzo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> Sforza; +and describes their fate, which was one he did not desire to call down +upon himself. Although his forecast as to Edward's future was incomplete +and unsatisfactory, he foresaw what was coming upon the kingdom from the +fact that all the powers thereof, the strong places, the treasury, the +legislature, and the fleet, were gathered into the hands of one man +(Northumberland). "And this man, forsooth, was one whose father<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> the +King's father had beheaded; one who had plunged into confusion all the +affairs of the realm; seeing that he had brought to the scaffold, one +after the other, the two maternal uncles of the King. Wherefore he was +driven on both by his evil disposition and by his dread of the future to +conspire against his sovereign's life. Now in such a season as this, when +all men held their tongues for fear (for he brought to trial whomsoever he +would), when he had gained over the greater part of the nobles to his side +by dividing amongst them the spoil of the Church; when he, the most bitter +foe of the King's title and dignity, had so contrived that his own will +was supreme in the business of the State, I became weary of the whole +affair; and, being filled with pity for the young King, proved to be a +better prophet on the score of my inborn common-sense, than through my +skill in Astrology. I took my departure straightway, conscious of some +evil hovering anigh, and full of tears."<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> + +<p>The above is Cardan's view of the machinations of the statesmen in high +places in the English Court during the last months of Edward's life. +Judged by the subsequent action of Northumberland it is in the main +correct; and, taking into consideration his associations and environment +during his stay in London, this view bears evident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> traces of independent +judgment. Sir John Cheke, the King's former preceptor, and afterwards +Professor of Greek at Cambridge, had received him with all the courtesy +due to a fellow-scholar, and probably introduced him at Court. Cheke was a +Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and just about this time was appointed Clerk +to the Privy Council, wherefore he must have been fully acquainted with +the aims and methods of the opposing factions about the Court. His +fellow-clerk, Cecil, was openly opposed to Northumberland's designs, and +prudently advanced a plea of ill health to excuse his absence from his +duties: but Cheke at this time was an avowed partisan of the Duke, and of +the policy which professed to secure the ascendency of the anti-Papal +party. Cardan, living in daily intercourse with Cheke, might reasonably +have taken up the point of view of his kind and genial friend; but no,—he +evidently rated Northumberland, from beginning to end, as a knave and a +traitor, and a murderer at least in will.</p> + +<p>When he quitted England in the autumn of 1552 Cardan did not shake himself +entirely free from English associations. In an ill-starred moment he +determined to take back to Italy with him an English boy.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> He was +windbound for several days at Dover, and the man with whom he lodged seems +to have offered to let him take his son, named William, aged twelve years, +back to Italy. Cardan was pleased with the boy's manner and appearance, +and at once consented; but the adventure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>proved a disastrous one. The boy +and his new protector could not exchange a word, and only managed to make +each other understand by signs, and that very imperfectly. The boy was +resolute to go on while Cardan wanted to be rid of him; but his conscience +would not allow him to send him home unless he should, of his own free +will, ask to be sent, and by way of giving William a distaste for the life +he had chosen, he records that he often beat him cruelly on the slightest +pretext. But the boy was not to be shaken off. He persisted in following +his venture to the end, and arrived in Cardan's train at Milan, where he +was allowed to go his own way. The only care for his training Cardan took +was to have him taught music. He chides the unhappy boy for his +indifference to learning and for his love of the company of other youths. +What with his literary work and the family troubles which so soon fell +upon him, Cardan's hands were certainly full; but, all allowance being +made, it is difficult to find a valid excuse for this neglect on his part. +William grew up to be a young man, and was finally apprenticed to a tailor +at Pavia, but his knavish master set him to work as a vinedresser, +suspecting that Cardan cared little what happened so long as the young man +was kept out of his sight. William seems to have been a merry, +good-tempered fellow; but his life was a short one, for he took fever, and +died in his twenty-second year.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + +<p>Besides chronicling this strange and somewhat pathetic incident, Cardan +sets down in the <i>Dialogus de Morte</i> his general impressions of the +English people. Alluding to the fear of death, he remarks that the +English, so far as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> he has observed, were scarcely at all affected by it, +and he commends their wisdom, seeing that death is the last ill we have to +suffer, and is, moreover, inevitable. "And if an Englishman views his own +death with composure, he is even less disturbed over that of a friend or +kinsman: he will look forward to re-union in a future state of +immortality. People like these, who stand up thus readily to face death +and mourn not over their nearest ones, surely deserve sympathy, and this +boy (William) was sprung from the same race. In stature the English +resemble Italians, they are fairer in complexion, less ruddy, and broad in +the chest. There are some very tall men amongst them: they are gentle in +manner and friendly to travellers, but easily angered, and in this case +are much to be dreaded. They are brave in battle, but wanting in caution; +great eaters and drinkers, but in this respect the Germans exceed them, +and they are prone rather than prompt to lust. Some amongst them are +distinguished in talent, and of these Scotus and Suisset<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> may be given +as examples. They dress like Italians, and are always fain to declare that +they are more nearly allied to us than to any others, wherefore they try +specially to imitate us in habit and manners as closely as they can. They +are trustworthy, freehanded, and ambitious; but in speaking of bravery, +nothing can be more marvellous than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> conduct of the Highland Scots, +who are wont to take with them, when they are led to execution, one +playing upon the pipes, who, as often as not, is condemned likewise, and +thus he leads the train dancing to death." Like as the English were to +Italians in other respects, Cardan was struck with the difference between +the two nations as soon as the islanders opened their mouths to speak. He +could not understand a single word, but stood amazed, deeming them to be +Italians who had lost their wits. "The tongue is curved upon the palate; +they turn about their words in the mouth, and make a hissing sound with +their teeth." He then goes on to say that all the time of his absence his +mind was full of thoughts of his own people in Italy, wherefore he sought +leave to return at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> <i>Scotichronicon</i>, vol. i. p. 286 [ed. G. F. S. Gordon, +Glasgow, 1867]. Naudé, in his <i>Apologie pour les grands hommes soupçonnez</i> +de Magie, writes: "Ceux qui recherchoiant les Mathématiques et les +Sciences les moins communes étoient soupçonnez d'être enchanteurs et +Magiciens."—p. 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> "Curam agebat Medicus ex constituto Medicorum +Lutetianorum."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xl. p. 137. Cardan makes no direct +mention of any other physician in Scotland besides Cassanate; but the +Archbishop would certainly have a body physician in attendance during +Cassanate's absence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> "Per totam tunicam sicut in linteis."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. ix. p. +128.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> "Accipe testudinem maximam et illam incoque in aqua, donec +dissolvatur, deinde abjectis corticibus accipiantur caro, et ossa et +viscera omnia mundata."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. ix. p. 140.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Another piece of advice runs as follows: "De venere certe +non est bona, neque utilis, ubi tamen contingat necessitas, debet uti ea +inter duos somnos, scilicet post mediam noctem, et melius est exercere eam +ter in sex diebus pro exemplo ut singulis duobus diebus semel, quam bis in +una die, etiam quod staret per decem dies."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. ix. p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> "Interim autem concurrebant multi, imo pené tota +nobilitas."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. l. p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> <i>Scotichronicon</i>, vol. i. p. 234. Larrey in his <i>History of +England</i> seems to have given currency to the legend that Cardan foretold +the Archbishop's death. "S'il en faut croire ce que l'Histoire nous dit de +ce fameux Astrologe, il donna une terrible preuve de sa science à +l'Archevêque qu'il avoit gueri, lorsque prenait congé de lire, il lui tint +ce discours: 'Qu'il avoit bien pu le guerir de sa maladie; mais qu'il +n'étoit pas en son pouvoir de changer sa destinée, ni d'empêcher qu'il ne +fût pendu.'"—Larrey, <i>Hist. d'Angleterre</i>, vol. ii. p. 711.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxii. p. 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> "Scoticū nomen antea horruerā, eorum exemplo qui prius +cœperunt odisse quam cognoscere. Nunc cum ipsa gens per se humanissima sit +atque supra existimationem civilis, tu tamen tantum illi addis ornamenti, +ut longe nomine tuo jam nobilior evadat."—<i>De Astrorum Judiciis</i>, p. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Cardan evidently carried the MS. with him, for he writes +(<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 72): "Hoc fuit quod Regi Angliæ Edoardo sexto admodum +adolescenti dum redirem a Scotia ostendi."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> "Cumque ibi esset nodus etiā venenum, quod utinā +abfuerit."—<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. 411.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Edmund Dudley, the infamous minister of Henry VII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. 412.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> In the prologue to <i>Dialogus de Morte</i>, Opera, tom. i. p. +673, he gives a full account of this transaction. Of the boy himself he +writes: "hospes ostendit mihi filium nomine Guglielmum, ætatis annorum +duodecim, probum, scitulum, et parentibus obsequentem. Avus paternus +nomine Gregorius adhuc vivebat, et erat Ligur: pater Laurentius, familia +nobili Cataneorum."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 119. Cardan here calls him "Gulielmus +<i>Lataneus</i> Anglus adolescens mihi charissimus." In the <i>De Morte</i>, +however, he speaks of him as "ex familia Cataneorum" (see last page).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Cardan writes (<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 444) that Suisset +[Richard Swineshead], who lived about 1350, was known as the Calculator; +but Kästner [<i>Gesch. der Math.</i> I. 50] maintains that the title Calculator +should be applied to the book rather than to the author, and hints that +this misapprehension on Cardan's part shows that he knew of Suisset only +by hearsay. The title of the copy of Suisset in the British Museum stands +"Subtilissimi Doctoris Anglici Suiset. Calculationes Liber," Padue [1485]. +Brunet gives one, "Opus aureum calculationum," Pavia, 1498.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Cardan</span> travelled southward by way of the Low Countries. He stayed some +days at Antwerp, and during his visit he was pressed urgently to remain in +the city and practise his art. A less pleasant experience was a fall into +a ditch when he was coming out of a goldsmith's shop. He was cut and +bruised about the left ear, but the damage was only skin-deep. He went on +by Brussels and Cologne to Basel, where he once more tarried several days. +He had a narrow escape here of falling into danger, for, had he not been +forewarned by Guglielmo Gratarolo, a friend, he would have taken up his +quarters in a house infected by the plague. He was received as a guest by +Carlo Affaidato, a learned astronomer and physicist, who, on the day of +departure, made him accept a valuable mule, worth a hundred crowns. +Another generous offer of a similar kind was made to him shortly +afterwards by a Genoese gentleman of the family of Ezzolino, who fell in +with him accidentally on the road. This was the gift of a very fine horse +(of the sort which the English call Obinum), but, greatly as Cardan +desired to have the horse, his sense of propriety kept him back from +accepting this gift.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></p> + +<p>He went next to Besançon, where he was received by Franciscus Bonvalutus, +a scholar of some note, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> by Berne to Zurich. He must have crossed +the Alps by the Splugen Pass, as Chur is named in his itinerary, and he +also describes his voyage down the Lake of Como on the way to Milan, where +he arrived on January 3, 1553. Cardan was a famous physician when he set +out on his northward journey; but now on his return he stood firmly placed +by the events of the last few months at the head of his profession. +Writing of the material results of his mission to Scotland, he declares +that he is ashamed to set down the terms upon which he was paid, so +lavishly was he rewarded for his services. The offers made to him by so +many exalted personages to secure his permanent and exclusive attention +would indeed have turned the heads of most men. There was the offer from +the King of Denmark; another, in 1552, from the King of France at a salary +of thirteen hundred crowns a year; and yet another made by the agents of +Charles V., who was then engaged in his disastrous attack upon Metz. All +of them he refused: he had no inclination to share the perils of the +leaguer of Metz, and his sense of loyalty forbad him to join himself to +the power which was at that time warring against his sovereign. He speaks +also of another offer made to him by the Queen of Scotland of a generous +salary if he would settle in Scotland; but the country was too remote for +his taste. There is no authority for this offer except the <i>De Vita +Propria</i>, and it is there set down in terms which render it somewhat +difficult to identify the Queen aforesaid.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a></p> + +<p>As soon as he entered Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> Governor, desired to +secure his services as physician to the Duke of Mantua, his brother, +offering him thirty thousand gold crowns as honorarium; but, in spite of +the Governor's persuasions and threats, he would not accept the office. +When the news had come to Paris that Cardan was about to quit Britain, +forty of the most illustrious scientists of France repaired to Paris in +order to hear him expound the art of Medicine; but the disturbed state of +the country deterred him from setting foot in France. He refers to a +letter from his friend Ranconet as a testimony of the worship that was +paid to him, and goes on to say that, in his journeying through France and +Germany, he fared much as Plato fared at the Olympic games.</p> + +<p>In a passage which Cardan wrote shortly after his return from Britain, he +lets it be seen that he was not ill-satisfied with the figure he then made +in the world. He writes—"Therefore, since all those with whom I am +intimate think well of me for my truth and probity, I can let my envious +rivals indulge themselves as they list in the shameful habit of +evil-speaking. With regard to folly, if I now utter, or ever have uttered, +foolish words, let those who accuse me show their evidence. I, who was +born poor, with a weakly body, in an age vexed almost incessantly by wars +and tumults, helped on by no family influence, but forced to contend +against the bitter opposition of the College at Milan, contrived to +overcome all the plots woven against me, and open violence as well. All +the honours which a physician can possess I either enjoy, or have refused +when they were offered to me. I have raised the fortunes of my family, and +have lived a blameless life. I am well known to all men of worship, and to +the whole of Europe. What I have written has been lauded; in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> sooth, I +have written of so many things and at such length, that a man could +scarcely read my works if he spent his life therewith. I have taken good +care of my domestic affairs, and by common consent I have come off victor +in every contest I have tried. I have refused always to flatter the great; +and over and beyond this I have often set myself in active opposition to +them. My name will be found scattered about the pages of many writers. I +shall deem my life long enough if I come in perfect health to the age of +fifty-six. I have been most fortunate as the discoverer of many and +important contributions to knowledge, as well as in the practice of my art +and in the results attained; so much so that if my fame in the first +instance has raised up envy against me, it has prevailed finally, and +extinguished all ill-feeling."<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a></p> + +<p>These words were written before the publication of the <i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i> in 1554. Cardan's life for the six years which followed was busy +and prosperous, but on the whole uneventful. The Archbishop of St. Andrews +wrote to him according to promise at the end of two years to give an +account of the results of his treatment. His letter is worthy of remark as +showing that he, the person most interested, was well satisfied with +Cardan's skill as a physician. Michael, the Archbishop's chief +chamberlain, was the bearer thereof, and as Hamilton speaks of him as +"epistolam vivam," it is probable that he bore likewise certain verbal +messages which could be more safely carried thus than in writing. A +sentence in the <i>De Vita Propria</i>,<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> mixed up with the account of +Hamilton's cure, seems to refer to this embassy, and to suggest that +Michael was authorized to promise Cardan a liberal salary if he would +accept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> permanent office in the Primate's household. Moreover, Hamilton +writes somewhat querulously about Cassanate's absence abroad on a visit to +his family, a fact which would make him all the more eager to secure +Cardan's services. His letter runs as follows—"Two of your most welcome +letters, written some months ago, I received by the hand of an English +merchant; others came by the care of the Lord Bishop of Dunkeld, together +with the Indian balsam. The last were from Scoto, who sent at the same +time your most scholarly comments on that difficult work of Ptolemy.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> +To all that you have written to me I have replied fully in three or four +letters of my own, but I know not whether, out of all I have written, any +letter of mine has reached you. But now I have directed that a servant of +mine, who is known to you, and who is travelling to Rome, shall wait upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +you and salute you in my name, and bear to you my gratitude, not only for +the various gifts I have received from you, but likewise because my health +is well-nigh restored, the ailment which vexed me is driven away, my +strength increased, and my life renewed. Wherefore I rate myself debtor +for all these benefits, as well as this very body of mine. For, from the +time when I began to take these medicines of yours, selected and +compounded with so great skill, my complaint has afflicted me less +frequently and severely; indeed, now, as a rule, I am not troubled +therewith more than once a month; sometimes I escape for two months."<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p> + +<p>In the following year (1555) Cardan's daughter Chiara, who seems to have +been a virtuous and well-conducted girl, was married to Bartolomeo Sacco, +a young Milanese gentleman of good family, a match which proved to be +fortunate. Cardan had now reached that summit of fame against which the +shafts of jealousy will always be directed. The literary manners of the +age certainly lacked urbanity, and of all living controversialists there +was none more truculent than Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who had begun his +career as a man of letters by a fierce assault upon Erasmus with regard to +his <i>Ciceronianus</i>, a leading case amongst the quarrels of authors. +Erasmus he had attacked for venturing to throw doubts upon the suitability +of Cicero's Latin as a vehicle of modern thought; this quarrel was over a +question of form; and now Scaliger went a step farther, and, albeit he +knew little of the subject in hand, published a book of <i>Esoteric +Exercitations</i> to show that the <i>De Subtilitate</i> of Cardan was nothing but +a tissue of nonsense.<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> The book<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> was written with all the heavy-handed +brutality he was accustomed to use, but it did no hurt to Cardan's +reputation, and, irritable as he was by nature, it failed to provoke him +to make an immediate rejoinder, a delay which was the cause of one of the +most diverting incidents in the whole range of literary warfare.</p> + +<p>Scaliger sat in his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no +notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the +spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Cæsar +the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of +abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was +touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal +result of his onslaught; still there can be little doubt that his mind was +filled with a certain satisfaction when he reflected that he was in sooth +a terrible assailant, and that his fist was heavier than any other man's. +In any case, he felt that it behoved him to make some sign, wherefore he +sat down and penned a funeral oration over his supposed victim, which is +worth giving at length.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p> + +<p>"At this season, when fate has dealt with me in a fashion so wretched and +untoward that it has connected my name with a cruel public calamity, when +a literary essay of mine, well known to the world, and undertaken at the +call of duty, has ensued in dire misfortune, it seems to me that I am +bound to bequeath to posterity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> a testimony that, sharp as may have been +the vexation brought upon Jerome Cardan by my trifling censures, the grief +which now afflicts me on account of his death is ten times sharper. For, +even if Cardan living should have been a terror to me, I, who am but a +single unit in the republic of letters, ought to have postponed my own and +singular convenience to the common good, seeing how excellent were the +merits of this man, in every sort of learning. For now the republic is +bereft of a great and incomparable scholar, and must needs suffer a loss +which, peradventure, none of the centuries to come will repair. What +though I am a person of small account, I could count upon him as a +supporter, a judge, and (immortal gods) even a laudator of my +lucubrations; for he was so greatly impressed by their weighty merits, +that he deemed he would best defend himself by avoiding all comment on the +same, despairing of his own strength, and knowing not how great his powers +really were. In this respect he was so skilful a master, that he could +assuredly have fathomed the depths of every method and every device used +against him, and would thereby have made his castigation of myself to +serve as an augmentation of his own fame. He, in sooth, was a man of such +quality that, if he had deemed it a thing demanded of him by equity, he +would never have hesitated to point out to other students the truth of +those words which I had written against him as an accusation, while, on +the other hand, this same constancy of mind would have made him adhere to +the opinions he might have put forth in the first instance, so far as +these opinions were capable of proof. I, when I addressed my +<i>Exercitations</i> to him during his life—to him whom I knew by common +report to be the most ingenious and learned of mortal men—was in good +hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> that I might issue from this conflict a conqueror; and is there +living a man blind enough not to perceive that what I looked for was +hard-earned credit, which I should certainly have won by finding my views +confirmed by Cardan living, and not for inglorious peace brought about by +his death? And indeed I might have been suffered to have share in the +bounty and kindliness of this illustrious man, whom I have always heard +described as a shrewd antagonist and one full of confidence in his own +high position, for it was an easy task to win from him the ordinary rights +of friendship by any trifling letter, seeing that he was the most +courteous of mankind. It is scarcely likely that I, weary as I was, one +who in fighting had long been used to perils of all sorts, should thus +cast aside my courage; that I, worn out by incessant controversies and +consumed by the daily wear and tear of writing, should care for an +inglorious match with so distinguished an antagonist; or that I should +have set my heart upon winning a bare victory in the midst of all this +dust and tumult. For not only was the result which has ensued unlooked for +in the nature of things and in the opinion of all men qualified to judge +in such a case; it was also the last thing I could have desired to happen, +for the sake of my good name. My judgment has ever been that all men (for +in sooth all of us are, so to speak, little less than nothing) may so lose +their heads in controversy that they may actually fight against their own +interests. And if such a mischance as this may happen to any man of +eminence—as has been my case, and the case of divers others I could +recall—it shall not be written down in the list of his errors, unless in +aftertimes he shall seek to justify the same. It is necessary to advance +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>roughness in the place of refinement, and stubborn tenacity for +steadfastness. No man can be pronounced guilty of offence on the score of +some hasty word or other which may escape his lips; such a charge should +rather be made when he defends himself by unworthy methods. Therefore if +Cardan during his life, being well advised in the matter, should have kept +silent over my attempts to correct him, what could have brought me greater +credit than this? He would have bowed to my opinion in seemly fashion, and +would have taken my censures as those of a father or a preceptor. But +supposing that he had ventured to engage in a sharper controversy with me +over this question, is there any one living who would fail to see that he +might have gone near to lose his wits on account of the mental agitation +which had afflicted him in the past? But as soon as his superhuman +intellect had thoroughly grasped the question, it seemed to him that he +must needs be called upon to bear what was intolerable. He could not pluck +up courage enough to bear it by living, so he bore it by dying. Moreover, +what he might well have borne, he could not bring himself to bear, to wit +that he and I should come to an agreement and should formulate certain +well-balanced decisions for the common good. For this reason I lament +deeply my share in this affair, I who had most obvious reasons for +engaging in this conflict, and the clearest ones for inventing a story as +to the victory I hoped to gain; reasons which a man of sober temper could +never anticipate, which a brave man would never desire.</p> + +<p>"Cardan's fame has its surest foundation in the praise of his adversaries. +I lament greatly this misfortune of our republic: the causes of which the +parliament of lettered men may estimate by its particular rules, but it +cannot rate this calamity in relation to the excellences of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +illustrious personality. For in a man of learning three properties ought +to stand out pre-eminently—a spotless and gentle rule of life; manifold +and varied learning; and consummate talent joined to the shrewdest +capacity for forming a judgment. These three points Cardan attained so +completely that he seemed to have been made entirely for himself, and at +the same time to have been the only mortal made for mankind at large. No +one could be more courteous to his inferiors or more ready to discuss the +scheme of the universe with any man of mark with whom he might chance to +foregather. He was a man of kingly courtesy, of sympathetic loftiness of +mind, one fitted for all places, for all occasions, for all men and for +all fortunes. In reference to learning itself, I beg you to look around +upon the accomplished circle of the learned now living on the earth, in +this most fortunate age of ours; here the combination of individual talent +shows us a crowd of illustrious men, but each one of these displays +himself as occupied with some special portion of Philosophy. But Cardan, +in addition to his profound knowledge of the secrets of God and Nature, +was a consummate master of the humaner letters, and was wont to expound +the same with such eloquence that those who listened to him would have +been justified in affirming that he could have studied nothing else all +his life. A great man indeed! Great if he could lay claim to no other +excellence than this; and forsooth, when we come to consider the quickness +of his wit, his fiery energy in everything he undertook, whether of the +least or the greatest moment, his laborious diligence and unconquerable +steadfastness, I affirm that the man who shall venture to compare himself +with Cardan may well be regarded as one lacking in all due modesty. I +forsooth feel no hostility<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> towards one whose path never crossed mine, nor +envy of one whose shadow never touched mine; the numerous and weighty +questions dealt with in his monumental work urged me on to undertake the +task of gaining some knowledge of the same. After the completion of the +Commentaries on Subtlety, he published as a kind of appendix to these that +most learned work the <i>De Rerum Varietate</i>. And in this case, before news +was brought to me of his death, I followed my customary practice, and in +the course of three days compiled an Excursus in short chapters. When I +heard that he was dead I brought them together into one little book, in +order that I also might lend a hand in this great work of his, and this +thing I did after a fashion which he himself would have approved, +supposing that at some time or other he might have held discourse with me, +or with some other yet more learned man, concerning his affairs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p> + +<p>It is a matter of regret that this cry of <i>peccavi</i> was not published till +all the chief literary contemporaries of Scaliger were in their graves. As +it did not appear till 1621, the men of his own time were not able to +enjoy the shout of laughter over his discomfiture which would surely have +gone up from Paris and Strasburg and Basel and Zurich. Estienne and +Gessner would hardly have felt acute sorrow at a flout put upon Julius +Cæsar Scaliger. Crooked-tempered as he was, Cardan, compared with +Scaliger, was as a rose to a thistle, but there were reasons altogether +unconnected with the personalities of the disputants which swayed the +balance to Cardan's advantage. The greater part of Scaliger's criticism +was worthless, and the opinion of learned Europe weighed overwhelmingly on +Cardan's side. Thuanus,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> who assuredly did not love him, and Naudé, +who positively disliked him, subsequently gave testimony in his favour. He +did not follow the example of Erasmus, and let Scaliger's abuse go by in +silence, but he took the next wisest course. He published a short and +dignified reply, <i>Actio prima in Calumniatorem</i>, in which, from +title-page<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> to colophon, Scaliger's name never once occurs. The gist of +the book may best be understood by quoting an extract from the criticism +of Cardan by Naudé prefixed to the <i>De Vita Propria</i>. He writes: "This +proposition of mine will best be comprehended by the man who shall set to +work to compare Cardan with Julius Cæsar Scaliger, his rival, and a man +endowed with an intellect almost superhuman. For Scaliger, although he +came upon the stage with greater pomp and display, and brought with him a +mind filled with daring speculation, and adequate to the highest flights, +kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical +philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of +argument he might find most advantageous in any other of the fields of +learning. Moreover, if any one shall give daily study to these celebrated +<i>Exercitations</i>, he will find therein nothing to show that Cardan is +branded by any mark of shame which may not be removed with the slightest +trouble, if the task be undertaken in a spirit of justice. For, in the +first place, who can maintain that Scaliger was justified in publishing +his <i>Exercitations</i> three years after the issue of the second edition of +the <i>Libri de Subtilitate</i>, without ever having taken the trouble to read +this edition, and without exempting from censure the errors which Cardan +had diligently expunged from his book in the course of his latest +revision, lest he (Scaliger) should find that all the mighty labour +expended over his criticisms had been spent in vain? Besides, who does not +know that Cardan, in his <i>Actio prima in Calumniatorem</i>, blunted the point +of all his assailant's weapons, swept away all his objections, and broke +in pieces all his accusations, in such wise that the very reason of their +existence ceased to be? Cardan, in sooth, was a true man, and held all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +humanity as akin to him. There is small reason why we should marvel that +he erred now and again; it is a marvel much greater that he should only +have gone astray so seldom and in things of such trifling moment. Indeed I +will dare to affirm, and back my opinion with a pledge, that the errors +which Scaliger left behind him in these <i>Exercitations</i> were more in +number than those which he so wantonly laid to Cardan's charge, having +sweated nine years over the task. And this he did not so much in the +interests of true erudition as with the desire of coming to blows with all +those whom he recognized as the chiefs of learning."</p> + +<p>During the whole dispute Cardan kept his temper admirably. Scaliger was a +physician of repute; and it is not improbable that the spectacle of +Cardan's triumphal progress back to Milan from the North may have aroused +his jealousy and stimulated him to make his ill-judged attack. But even on +the ground of medical science he was no match for Cardan, while in +mathematics and philosophy he was immeasurably inferior. Cardan felt +probably that the attack was nothing more than the buzzing of a gadfly, +and that in any case it would make for his own advantage and credit, +wherefore he saw no reason why he should disquiet himself; indeed his +attitude of dignified indifference was admirably calculated to win for him +the approval of the learned world by the contrast it furnished to the +raging fury of his adversary.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></p> + +<p>After the heavy labour of editing and issuing to the world the <i>De Rerum +Varietate</i>, and of re-editing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> first issue of the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, +Cardan might well have given himself a term of rest, but to a man of his +temper, idleness, or even a relaxation of the strain, is usually irksome. +The <i>De Varietate</i> was first printed at Basel in 1553, and, as soon as it +was out of the press, it brought a trouble—not indeed a very serious +one—upon the author. The printer, Petrus of Basel (who must not be +confused with Petreius of Nuremberg) took it upon him to add to Chapter +LXXX of the work some disparaging remarks about the Dominican +brotherhoods, making Cardan responsible for the assertion that they were +rapacious wolves who hunted down reputed witches and despisers of God, not +because of their offences, but because they chanced to be the possessors +of much wealth. Cardan remonstrated at once—he always made it his +practice to keep free from all theological wrangling,—but Petrus treated +the whole question with ridicule,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> and it does not seem that Cardan +could have had any very strong feeling in the matter, for the obnoxious +passage is retained in the editions of 1556 and 1557. The religious +authorities were however fully justified in assuming that the presence of +such a passage in the pages of a book so widely popular as the <i>De +Varietate</i> would necessarily prove a cause of scandal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> and give cause to +the enemy to blaspheme. For Reginald Scot, in the eighth chapter of +<i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, alludes to the passage in question in the +following terms: "Cardanus writeth that the cause of such credulitie +consisteth in three points: to wit in the imagination of the melancholike, +in the constancie of them that are corrupt therewith, and in the deceipt +of the Judges; who being inquisitors themselves against heretikes and +witches, did both accuse and condemne them, having for their labour the +spoile of their goods. So as these inquisitors added many fables hereunto, +least they should seeme to have doone injurie to the poore wretches, in +condemning and executing them for none offense. But sithens (said he) the +springing up of Luther's sect, these priests have tended more diligentlie +upon the execution of them; bicause more wealth is to be caught from them; +insomuch as now they deale so looselie with witches (through distrust of +gaines) that all is seene to be malice, follie, or avarice that hath beene +practised against them. And whosoever shall search into this cause, or +read the cheefe writers hereupon, shall find his words true."</p> + +<p>In 1554 Cardan published also with Petrus of Basel the <i>Ptolemæi de +astrorum judiciis</i> with the <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, bound in one volume, +but he seems to have written nothing but a book of fables for the young, +concerning which he subsequently remarks that, in his opinion, grown men +might read the same with advantage. It is a matter of regret that this +work should have disappeared, for it would have been interesting to note +how far Cardan's intellect, acute and many-sided as it was, was capable of +dealing with the literature of allegory and imagination. He has set down +one fact concerning it, to wit that it contained "multa de futuris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +arcana." The next year he produced only a few medical trifles, but in 1557 +he brought out two other scientific works which he characterizes as +admirable—one the <i>Ars parva curandi</i>, and the other a treatise <i>De +Urinis</i>. In the same year he published the book which, in forming a +judgment of him as a man and a writer, is perhaps as valuable as the <i>De +Vita Propria</i> and the <i>De Utilitate</i>, to wit the <i>De Libriis Propriis</i>. +This work exists in three forms: the first, a short treatise, "cui titulus +est ephemerus," is dedicated to "Hieronymum Cardanum medicum, affinem +suum," and has the date of 1543. The second has the date of 1554, and, +according to Naudé, was first published "apud Gulielmum Rovillium sub +scuto Veneto, Lugduni, 1557." The third was begun in 1560,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> and +contains comments written in subsequent years. The first is of slight +interest, the second is a sort of register of his works, amplified from +year to year, while the third has more the form of a treatise, and +presents with some degree of symmetry the crude materials contained in the +first. Having finished with his writings up to the year 1564, Cardan +lapses into a philosophizing strain, and opens his discourse with the +ominous words, "Sed jam ad institutum revertamur, déque ipso vitæ humanæ +genere aliquo dicamus." He begins with a disquisition on the worthlessness +of life, and repeats somewhat tediously the story of his visit to +Scotland. He gives a synopsis of all the sciences he had ever +studied—Theology, Dialectics, Arithmetic, Music, Optics, Astronomy, +Astrology, Geometry, Chiromancy, Agriculture, Medicine, passing on to +treat of Magic, portents and warnings, and of his own experience of the +same at the crucial moments of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> life. He ends by a reference to an +incident already chronicled in the <i>De Vita Propria</i>,<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> how he escaped +death or injury from a falling mass of masonry by crossing the street in +obedience to an impulse he could not explain, and speculates why God, who +was able to save him on this occasion with so little trouble, should have +let him rush on and court the overwhelming stroke which ultimately laid +him low.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxii. p. 100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iv. p. 16: "cum Scotorum Regina +cujus levirum curaveram." Cardan had probably prescribed for a brother of +the Duc de Longueville, the first husband of Mary of Guise, during his +sojourn in Paris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. 459.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xl. p. 137.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> <i>Commentaria in Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis</i> (Basil, +1554). He wrote these notes while going down the Loire in company with +Cassanate on his way from Lyons to Paris in 1552.—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. +xlv. p. 175. +</p><p> +He gives an interesting account (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 110) as to how the +book first came under his notice. The day before he quitted Lyons with +Cassanate, a school-master came to ask for advice, which Cardan gave +gratis. Then the patient, knowing perhaps the physician's taste for the +marvellous, related how there was a certain boy in the place who could see +spirits by looking into an earthen vessel, but Cardan was little impressed +by what he saw, and began to talk with the school-master about Archimedes. +The school-master brought out a work of the Greek philosopher with which +was bound up the <i>Ptolemæi Libri de Judiciis</i>. Cardan fastened upon it at +once, and wanted to buy it, but the school-master insisted that he should +take it as a gift. He declares that his Commentaries thereupon are the +most perfect of all his writings. The book contains his famous Nativity of +Christ. A remark in <i>De Libris Propriis</i> (cf. <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 67) +indicates that there was an earlier edition of Ptolemy, printed at Milan +at Cardan's own cost, because when he saw the numerous mistakes made by +Ottaviano Scoto in printing the <i>De Malo Medendi</i> and the <i>De +Consolatione</i>, he determined to go to another printer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 93.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Cardan notices the attack in these words—"His diebus +quidam conscripserat adversus nostrum de Subtilitate librum, Opus ingens. +Adversus quem ego Apologiam scripsi."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 117. Scaliger +absurdly calls his work the <i>fifteenth</i> book of <i>Exercitations</i>, and +wished the world to believe that he had written, though not printed, the +fourteen others.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> It was not printed until many years after the deaths of +both disputants, and appeared for the first time in a volume of Scaliger's +letters and speeches published at Toulouse in 1621, and it was afterwards +affixed to the <i>De Vita Propria</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> "Si Scaliger avoit eu un peu moins de démangeaison de +contre dire, il auroit acquis plus de gloire, qu'il n'a fait dans ce +combat: mais, ce que les Grecs ont apellé <ins class="greek" title="ametria tês antholkês">άμετρία τη̑ϛ άνθολκη̑ϛ</ins>, +une passion excessive de prendre le contrepied des autres, a fait grand +tort à Scaliger. C'est par ce principe qu'il a soutenu que le perroquet +est une très laide bête. Si Cardan l'eût dit, Scaliger lui eût opposé ce +qu'on trouve dans les anciens Poètes touchant la beauté de cet oiseau. +Vossius a fait une Critique très judicieuse de cette humeur contrariante +de Scaliger, et a marqué en même temps en quoi ces deux Antagonistes +étoient supérieurs et inférieures, l'un à l'autre."—(Scaliger, in +<i>Exercitat.,</i> 246.) "Quia Cardanus psittacum commendarat a colorum +varietate ac præterea fulgore, quod et Appuleius facit in secundo +Floridorum, contra contendit esse deformem, non modo ob fœditatem rostri, +ac crurum, et linguæ, sed etiam quia sit coloris fusci ac cinericii, qui +tristis. Quid faciamus summo Viro? Si Cardanus ea dixisset, provocasset ad +judicia poëtarum, atque adeo omnium hominum. Nunc quia pulchri dixit +coloris, ille deformis contendit. Hoc contradictionis studium, quod ubique +in hisce exercitationibus se prodit, sophista dignius est, quamque +philosopho."—Bayle: Article "Cardan." (Sir Thomas Browne, in one of his +Commonplace Books, observes—"If Cardan saith a parrot is a beautiful +bird, Scaliger will set his wits on work to prove it a deformed animal.") +</p><p> +Naudé (<i>Apologie</i>, ch. xiii.) says that of the great men of modern times +Scaliger and Cardan each claimed the possession of a guardian spirit, and +hints that Scaliger may have been moved to make this claim in order not to +be outdone by his great antagonist. It should, however, be remembered that +Cardan did not seriously assert this belief till long after his +controversy with Scaliger. Naudé sums up thus: "D'où l'on peut juger +asseurement, que lui et Scaliger n'ont point eu d'autre Genie que la +grande doctrine qu'ils s'étoient acquis par leurs veilles, par leurs +travaux, et par l'expérience qu'ils avoient des choses sur lesquelles +venant à élever leur jugement ils jugeoint pertinemment de toutes +matières, et ne laissoient rien échapper qui ne leur fust conneu et +manifeste."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Thuanus, ad Annum MDLXXVI, part of the Appendix to the <i>De +Vita Propria</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Cardan does not seem to have harboured animosity against +Scaliger. In the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xlviii. p. 198, he writes: "Julius +Cæsar Scaliger plures mihi titulos ascribit, quam ego mihi concedi +postulassem, appellans <i>ingenium profundissimum, felicissimum, et +incomparabile</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> "Quid tua interest quod quatuor verba adjecerim? an hoc +tantum crimen est! quid facerem absens absenti?" Cardan writes on in +meditative strain: "Cœterum cum non ignorem maculatos fuisse codices B. +Hieronimi, atque aliorum patrum nostrorum, ab his qui aliter sentiebant, +erroremque suum auctoritate viri tegere voluerunt: ut ne quis in nostris +operibus hallucinetur vel ab aliis decipiatur, sciant omnes me nullibi +Theologum agere, nec velle in alienam messem falcem ponere."—<i>Opera</i>, +tom. i. p. 112. +</p><p> +Johannes Wierus, one of the first rationalists on the subject of +witchcraft, has quoted largely from Chapter LXXX of <i>De Varietate</i> in his +book <i>De Præstigiis Dæmonum</i>, in urging his case against the orthodox +view.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 96. "Annus hic est Salutis millesimus +quingentesimus ac sexagesimus."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 78.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> year 1555 may be held to mark the point of time at which Cardan +reached the highest point of his fortunes. After a long and bitter +struggle with an adverse world he had come out a conqueror, and his rise +to fame and opulence, if somewhat slow, had been steady and secure. He +longed for wealth, not that he might figure as a rich man, but so that he +might win the golden independence which permits a student to prosecute the +task which seems to subserve the highest purposes of true learning, and +frees him from the irksome battle for daily bread. He loved, indeed, to +spend money over beautiful things, and there are few more attractive +touches in the picture he draws of himself than the confession of his +passion for costly penholders, gems, rare books, vessels of brass and +silver, and painted spheres.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> In this brief season of ease and +security, there were no flaming portents in the sky to foretell the cruel +stroke of evil fortune which was destined so soon to fall upon him.</p> + +<p>Cardan has left a very pathetic sketch of his own miserable boyhood in the +strangely ordered home in Milan, with his callous, tyrannical father, his +quick-tempered mother, and the superadded torment of his Aunt Margaret's +presence. Fazio Cardano was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> of rigorous sobriety, and he seems +moreover to have atoned for his early irregularities by the practice of +that austere piety which Jerome notices more than once as a characteristic +of his old age.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> The discipline was hard, and the life unlovely, but +the home was at least decent and orderly, and no opportunities or +provocations to loose manners or ill doing existed therein. In Cardan's +own case it is to be feared that, after Lucia's death, the affairs of his +household fell into dire confusion, in spite of the presence of his +mother-in-law, Thadea, who had come to him as housekeeper—her husband, +Altobello, having died soon after the marriage of his daughter with +Cardan. He was an ardent lover of music, and, as a consequence, his house +would be constantly filled with singing men and boys, a tribe of somewhat +sinister reputation.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> Then, when he was not engaged with music, he +would be gambling in some fashion or other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> After lamenting the vast +amount of time he has wasted over the game of chess, he goes on: "But the +play with the dice, an evil far more noxious, found its way into my house; +and, after my sons had learned to play the same, my doors always stood +open to dicers. I can find no excuse for this practice except the trivial +one, that, what I did, I did in the hope of relieving the poverty of my +children."<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> In a home of this sort, ruled by a father who was +assuredly more careful of his work in the study and class-room than of his +duties as paterfamilias, it is not wonderful that the two young men, Gian +Battista and Aldo, should grow up into worthless profligates. It has been +recorded how Cardan, during a journey to Genoa, wrote a Book of Precepts +for his children,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> a task the memory of which afterwards wrung from +him a cry of despair. There never was compiled a more admirable collection +of maxims; but, excellent as they were, it was not enough to write them +down on paper; and the young men, if ever they took the trouble to read +them, must have smiled as they called to mind the difference between their +father's practices and the precepts he had composed for their guidance. +Furthermore, he had written at length, in the <i>De Consolatione</i>, on the +folly which parents for the most part display in the education of their +children. "They show their affection in such foolish wise, that it would +be nearer the mark to say they hate, rather than love, their offspring. +They bring them up not to follow virtue, but to occupy themselves with all +manner of hurtful things; not to learning, but to riot; not to the worship +of God, but to foster in them the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> desire to drain the cup of lustful +pleasure; not for the life eternal, but to the enticements of +lechery."<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> + +<p>At this time Gian Battista had gained the doctorate of medicine at Pavia, +and had made his contribution to medical knowledge by the publication of +an insignificant tract, <i>De cibis fœtidis non edendis</i>. Cardan was +evidently full of hope for his elder son's career, but Aldo seems to have +been a trouble from the first. Yet, in casting Aldo's horoscope (probably +at the time of his birth) Cardan predicts for him a flourishing +future.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> Never was there made a worse essay in prophecy. Aldo's +childhood had been a sickly one. He had well-nigh died of convulsions, and +later on he had been troubled with dysentery, abscesses of the brain, and +a fever which lasted six months. Moreover, he could not walk till he was +three years old. With a weakly body, his nature seems to have put forth +all sorts of untoward growths. There is a story which Naudé brings forward +as part of his indictment against Cardan, that the father being irritated +beyond endurance by some ill conduct of his younger son during supper, cut +off his ear by way of punishment. It was a most barbarous act; one going +far beyond the range of any tradition of the early <i>patria potestas</i>, +which may have yet lingered in Italy; and scarcely calculated to bring +about reformation in the youth thus punished. In any case, Aldo went on +from bad to worse; at one time his father found it necessary to place him +under restraint, and the last record of him is that one in Cardan's +testament, by which he was disinherited.</p> + +<p>Gian Battista's failings were doubtless grave and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> numerous, but he had at +least sufficient industry to qualify himself as a physician. He was +certainly his father's favourite child, and on this account the eulogies +written of him in those dark hours when Cardan's reason was reeling under +the accumulated blows of private grief and public disgrace, must be +accepted with caution. There is no evidence to show he was in intellect +anything like the budding genius his father deemed him; as to conduct and +manner of life, his carriage was exactly what the majority of youths, +brought up in a similar fashion, would have adopted. There must have been +something in the young man's humours which from the first made his father +apprehensive as to the future, for Cardan soon came to see that an early +marriage would be the surest safeguard for Gian Battista's future. With +his mind bent on this scheme, he pointed out to his son various damsels of +suitable station, any one of whom he would be ready to welcome into his +family, but Gian Battista always found some excuse for declining +matrimony. He declared that he was too closely engaged with his work; and, +over and beyond this, it would not be seemly to bring home a bride into a +house like their own, full of young men, for Cardan, as usual, had several +pupils living with him. It was at the end of 1557 that the first +forebodings of misfortune appeared. To Cardan, according to custom, they +came in the form of a portent, for he records how he lay awake at midnight +on December 20, and was suddenly conscious that his bed was shaking. He at +once attributed this to a shock of an earthquake, and in the morning he +demanded of the servant, Simone Sosia, who occupied the truckle bed in the +room, whether he had felt the same. Simone replied that he had, whereupon +Cardan, as soon as he arose, went to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> piazza and asked of divers +persons he met there, whether they had also been disturbed, but no one had +felt anything of the shock he alluded to. He went home, and while the +family were at table, a messenger, sent, as he afterwards records, by a +certain woman of the town,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> entered the room, and told him that his +son was going to be married immediately after breakfast. Cardan asked who +the bride might be, but the messenger said he knew not, and departed. It +is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon +as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst +over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and +setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good +family, of whom two were certainly enamoured of him. Any one of the four +would have been acceptable as a daughter-in-law, but he declared that now +he would insist upon having full information as to the antecedents of any +other bride his son might have selected, before admitting her to the +shelter of his roof. Over and over again had he counselled Gian Battista +that he must on no account marry in haste, or without his advice, or +without making sure that his income would be sufficient to support the +responsibilities of the married state; rather than this should happen, he +would willingly allow the young man to keep a mistress in the house for +the sake of offspring, for he desired beyond all else to rear +grandchildren from Gian Battista, because he nursed the belief that, as +the son resembled his grandfather Fazio, so the son's children would +resemble their grandfather—himself. When he was questioned, Gian Battista +declared he knew nothing about the report, and was fully as astonished as +his father; but two days later Gian Battista's own servant came to the +house, and announced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> that his master had been married that same +morning,<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> but that he knew not the name of the bride. Cardan now +ascertained that Gian Battista's disinclination for matrimony had arisen +from the fact that he had been amusing himself with a girl who was nothing +else than an attractive and finely-dressed harlot, named Brandonia Seroni, +the last woman in all Milan whom he could with decency receive into his +house. And the pitiful story was not yet complete. In marrying her the +foolish youth had burdened himself with her mother, two or more sisters, +and three brothers, the last-named being rough fellows without any calling +but that of common soldiers. The character of the girl herself may be +judged by the answer given by her father Evangelista Seroni to Cardan +during the subsequent trial. When Seroni was asked whether he had given +his daughter as a virgin in marriage, he answered frankly in the negative.</p> + +<p>Cardan at once made up his mind to shut his door upon the newly-married +pair; but the unconquerable tenderness he felt for Gian Battista urged him +on to send to the young man all the ready money he had saved. After two +years of married life, two children, a boy and a girl, were born: husband +and wife alike were in ill health, and every day brought its domestic +quarrel. In the meantime sinister whispers were heard, set going in the +first instance by the mother and sister of Brandonia, that Gian Battista +was the father neither of the first nor of the second child. They even +went so far as to designate the men to whom they rightly belonged,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> and +contrived that this rumour should come to the ears of the injured husband. +The consequence of their malignant tale-bearing was a quarrel more violent +than ever, and the rise of a resolution in Gian Battista's mind to rid +himself at all hazard of the accursed burden he had bound upon his +shoulders.</p> + +<p>Until the end of 1559 Cardan continued to live in Milan, vexed no doubt by +the ever-present spectacle of the wretched case into which his beloved son +had fallen. He records how the young wife, unknown to her husband, handed +over to her father the wedding-ring which he (Cardan) had given to his +son, along with a piece of silken stuff, in order to pledge them for +money. This outrage, joined to the certain conviction that his wife was +false to him, proved a provocation beyond the limits of Gian Battista's +patience, and finally incited him to make a criminal attempt upon +Brandonia's life. Hitherto he had been earnest enough in his desire to rid +himself of his wife so long as she raged against him; but, on the +restoration of peace, his anger against her would vanish. Now he had lost +all patience; he laid his plans advisedly, and set to work to execute them +by enlisting the cooperation of the servant who had been with him ever +since his marriage, and by taking to live with him in his own house +Seroni, his wife, and son and daughter.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> It cannot be said that the +would-be murderer displayed at this juncture any of the traditional +Italian craft in setting about his deadly task. The day before the attempt +was made he took out of pawn the goods which Evangelista Seroni had +pledged, and promised his servant a gift of clothes and money if he would +compass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the death of Brandonia, who was still ailing from the effects of +her second confinement. To this suggestion the servant, who had also +warned Gian Battista of his wife's misconduct, at once assented.</p> + +<p>But even on the very day when he had fully determined to make his essay in +murder he vacillated again and again, and it seemed likely that Brandonia +would once more be reprieved. When he entered her bed-chamber, full of his +resolve to strike for freedom, he found her lying gravely ill with an +attack of fever, shivering violently, and cold at the extremities. His +anger forthwith vanished, and his hand was stayed; but as if urged on by +ruthless fate, the mother-in-law, and the sister, and Brandonia herself, +ill as she was, attacked Gian Battista with the foulest abuse and +reproaches; this was the last straw. He went out and sought his servant, +and told the fellow at once to make a cake and put a poison therein. The +date of this fatal action was some day early in 1560.</p> + +<p>On October 1, 1559, Cardan had left Milan, and gone back to Pavia to +resume his work as professor, taking Aldo with him. He threw himself into +the discharge of his office and the life of the city with his customary +ardour. Over and above his work of teaching he completed his treatise <i>De +Secretis</i>, and likewise found time to hold a long disputation on the +decisions of Galen with Andrea Camutio, one of the most illustrious +physicians of the age. Concerning this episode he writes: "In disputation +I showed myself so keen of wit that all men marvelled at the instances I +brought forward, but for a long time no one ventured to put me to the +proof. Thus I escaped the trouble of any such undertaking until two +accidents both unforeseen involved me therein. At Pavia, Branda Porro, my +whilom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> teacher in Philosophy, interrupted me one day when I was disputing +with Camutio<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> on some matter of Philosophy, for, as I have said +before, my colleagues were wont to lead me on to argue in philosophy +because they were well assured that it would be vain to try to get the +better of me in Medicine. Now Branda began by advancing Aristotle as an +authority, whereupon I, when he brought out his citation, said, 'Take +care, you have left out the "<i>non</i>" which should stand after "<i>album</i>."' +Then Branda contradicted me, and I, spitting out the phlegm with which I +am often troubled, told him quietly that he was in the wrong. He sent for +the Codex in great rage, and when it was brought I asked that it might be +given to me. I then read out the words just as they stood; but he, as if +he suspected that I was reading falsely, snatched the volume out of my +hands, and declared that I was puting a cheat upon my hearers. When he +came to the word in dispute he held his tongue forthwith, and all the +others looked at me in amazement."<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p> + +<p>It is certain that Cardan was still vexed in mind by the trouble he had +left behind him at Milan. If he had not forgiven Gian Battista, he was +full of kindly thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> of him. He sent him from Pavia a new silk cloak, +such as physicians wear, so that he might make a better show in his +calling, and doubtless continued his supplies of money. Just a week before +the quarrel last recorded, Aldo, against his father's wish, left Pavia and +returned to Milan. Cardan used every argument he could bring forward to +keep his younger son with him, but in vain; and, as he was unwilling to +put constraint upon him, Aldo departed. Cardan says that he was within an +ace of going with him, for the University was then in vacation: then the +crowning catastrophe might have been averted, but the same fate which was +driving on the son to destruction, kept the father at Pavia. Thus it +happened that Aldo was an inmate of his brother's house when the poisoned +cake was made. Cardan has written down a detailed account of the +perpetration of this squalid tragedy, and no clearer presentation can be +given than the one which his own words supply.</p> + +<p>He writes: "Thus my son and the servant went together to make the cake, +and the servant put therein secretly some of the poison which had been +given him. After the cake had been made, a small piece was given to my +son's wife, who was very ill at the time, but her stomach rejected it at +once. Her mother ate some of it, and likewise vomited after taking it. +Though Gian Battista saw what happened he did not believe that the cake +was really poisoned, for two reasons. First, because he had not, in truth, +ordered that the poison should be mixed therewith; and second, because his +brother-in-law (Bartolomeo Sacco) had said to him, before the cake was +finished, 'See that you make it big enough, for I also am minded to taste +it.' Next he gave some to his father-in-law, who straightway vomited, and +complained of a pricking of the tongue. He warned my son; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> he, still +holding that the cake was harmless, ate thereof somewhat greedily; and, +after having been sick, had to lie by for some time. On the second day +after this Gian Battista, and his brother, and the servant as well were +taken in hold: and on the Sunday following I, having been informed of what +had happened, went to Milan in great anxiety as to what I should do."</p> + +<p>The news which had been brought to Cardan at Pavia told him, over and +beyond what is written above, that his son's wife was dead, poisoned as +every one believed through having eaten the cake, which had caused nausea +and pain to every one else who had tasted it.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> The catastrophe was +accompanied by the usual portents. Some weeks previous to the attempt Gian +Battista had chanced to walk out to the Porta Tonsa, clad in the smart +silk gown which his father had recently given him, and as he was passing a +butcher's shop, a certain pig, one of a drove which was there, rose up out +of the mud and attacked the young physician and befouled his gown. The +butcher and his men, to whom the thing seemed portentous, drove off the +hog with staves, but this they could only do after the beast had wearied +itself, and after Gian Battista had gone away. Again, at the beginning of +February following, while Cardan was in residence as a Professor at Pavia, +he chanced to look at the palm of his hand, and there, at the root of the +third finger of the right hand, he beheld a mark like a bloody sword. That +same evening a messenger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> arrived from Milan with the news of his son's +arrest, and a letter from his son-in-law, begging him to come at once. The +mark on his hand grew and grew for fifty-three days, gradually mounting up +the finger, until the last fatal day, when it extended to the tip of the +finger, and shone bright like fiery blood. The morning after Gian +Battista's execution the mark had almost vanished, and in a day or two no +sign of it remained.</p> + +<p>Cardan hurried to Milan to hear from Bartolomeo Sacco, his son-in-law, the +full extent of the calamity. Probably there were few people in the city +who did not regard Gian Battista as a worthless fellow, whose death would +be a gain to the State and a very light loss to his immediate friends, but +Cardan was not of this mind. He turned his back upon his professional +engagements at Pavia, and threw himself, heart and soul, into the fight +for his son's life. He could not make up his mind as to Gian Battista's +recent conduct; if he ate of the cake, he surely could not have put in +poison himself, or directed others to do so; if, on the other hand, he had +poisoned the cake, Cardan feared greatly that, in the simplicity of his +nature, he would assuredly let his accusers know what he had done. And his +mind was greatly upset by the prodigies of which he had recently had +experience. For some reason or other he did not visit the accused in +prison, or give him any advice as to what course he should follow, a piece +of neglect which he cites as a reproach against himself afterwards; but +certain associates of Gian Battista, and his fellow-captives as well, +urged him to assert his innocence, a course which Cardan recognized as the +only safe one. At the first examination the accused followed this counsel; +at the second he began to waver when the servant deposed that his master +had given him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> a certain powder to mix with Brandonia's food in order to +increase her flow of milk; and, later on, when confronted with the man +from whom he had received the poison, he confessed all; and, simpleton as +he was, admitted that for two months past his mind had been set upon the +deed, and that on two previous occasions he had attempted to administer to +her the noxious drug against the advice of his servant. From the first +Cardan had placed his hopes of deliverance in the intervention of the +Milanese Governor, the Duca di Sessa, who had not long ago consulted him +as physician,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> but the Duke refused to interfere. The intervention of +an executive officer in the procedure of a Court of Justice was no rare +occurrence at that period, and Cardan was deeply disappointed at the +squeamishness or indolence of his whilom patient. He records afterwards +how the Duke met his full share of the calamities which fell upon all +those who were concerned in Gian Battista's condemnation;<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> and in the +<i>Dialogus Tetim</i>, a work which he wrote immediately after the trial, he +bewails afresh the inaction of this excellent ruler and the consequent +loss of his son.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p> + +<p>For twenty days and more, while Gian Battista lay in prison, Cardan, +almost mad with apprehension and suspense, spent his time studying in the +library at Milan. Sitting there one day, he heard a warning voice which +told him that the thing he most feared had indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> come to pass. He felt +that his heart was broken, and, springing up, he rushed out into the +court, where he met certain of the Palavicini, the friends with whom he +was staying, and cried out, "Alas, alas, he was indeed privy to the death +of his wife, and now he has confessed it all, therefore he will be +condemned to death and beheaded." Then having caught up a garment he went +out to the piazza, and, before he had gone half-way he met his son-in-law, +who asked him in sorrowful tones whither he was going. Cardan answered +that he was troubled with apprehensions lest Gian Battista should have +confessed his crime, whereupon Bartolomeo Sacco told him that what he +feared had indeed come to pass. Gian Battista had admitted the truth of +the charge against him: he was ultimately put on his trial before the +Senate of Milan,<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> the President of the Court being one Rigone, a man +whom Cardan afterwards accused of partiality and of a hostile bias towards +the prisoner. Cardan himself stood up to defend his son; but with a full +confession staring him in the face, he was sorely puzzled to fix upon a +line of defence. This he perceived must of necessity be largely +rhetorical; and, after he had grasped the entire situation, he set to work +to convince the Court on two main points, first, that Gian Battista was a +youth of simple guileless character; and, second, there was no proof that +Brandonia had died of poison. A physician of good repute, Vincenzo +Dinaldo, swore that she had died of fever (<i>lipyria</i>), and not from the +effect of poison; and five others, men of the highest character, declared +that she bore no signs of poison, either externally or internally. Her +tongue and extremities and her body were not blackened, nor was the +stomach swollen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> nor did the hair and nails show any signs of falling, +nor were the tissues eaten away. In the opening of his defence Cardan +attempted to discredit the character of Brandonia. He showed how great +were the injuries and provocations which Gian Battista had received from +her, and that she was a dissolute wanton; her father himself, when under +examination, having refused to say that she was a virgin when she left his +house to be married. He claimed justification for the husband who should +slay his wife convicted of adultery; and here, in this case, Brandonia was +convicted by her own confession. He maintained that, if homicide is to be +committed at all, poison is preferable to the knife, and then he went on +to weave a web of ineffectual casuistry in support of his view, which +moved the Court to pity and contempt. He cited the <i>Lex Cornelia</i>, which +doomed the common people to the arena, and the patricians to exile, and +claimed the penalty last-named as the one fitting to the present +case.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> Then he proceeded to show that the woman had really died from +natural causes; for, even granting that she had swallowed arsenic in the +cake, she had vomited at once, and the poison would have no time to do its +work; moreover there was no proof that Gian Battista had given specific +directions to anybody to mix poison with the ingredients of the cake. The +most he had done was to utter some vague words thereanent to his servant, +who forthwith took the matter into his own hands.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> If Gian Battista<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +had known, if he had merely been suspicious that the cake was poisoned, +would he have let a crumb of it pass his lips; and if any large quantity +of poison had been present, would he and the other persons who had eaten +thereof have recovered so quickly? Cardan next went on to argue that, +whatever motive may have swayed Gian Battista at this juncture, it could +not have been the deliberate intent to kill his wife, because forsooth the +wretched youth was incapable of deliberate action of any sort. He could +never keep in the same mood for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch. He +nursed alternately in his heart vengeance and forgiveness, changing as +discord or peace ruled in his house. Cardan showed what a life of misery +the wretched youth had passed since his marriage. Had this life continued, +the finger of shame would have been pointed at him, he must have lost his +status as a member of his profession, and have been cut off from the +society of all decent people; nay, he would most likely have died by the +hand of one or other of his wife's paramours. This was to show how +powerful was the temptation to which the husband was exposed, and again he +sang the praises of poison as an instrument of "removal"; because if +effectively employed, it led to no open scandal.</p> + +<p>He next brought forward the simple and unsophisticated character of the +accused, and the physical afflictions which had vexed him all his life, +giving as illustrations of his son's folly the headlong haste with which +he had rushed into a marriage, his folly in giving an ineffectual dose, if +he really meant to poison his wife, in letting his plot be known to his +servant, and in confessing. Lastly, Cardan had in readiness one of his +favourite portents to lay before the Court. When Brandonia's brother had +come into the house and found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> his father and sister sick through eating +the cake, he suspected foul play and rushed at Gian Battista and at Aldo +who was also there, and threatened them with his sword; but before he +could harm them he fell down in a fit, his hand having been arrested by +Providence. Providence had thus shown pity to this wretched youth, and now +Cardan besought the Senate to be equally merciful.</p> + +<p>Cardan's pleas were all rejected; indeed such issue was inevitable from +the first, if the Senate of Milan were not determined to abdicate the +primary functions of a judicial tribunal. Gian Battista was condemned to +death, but a strange condition was annexed to the sentence, to wit that +his life would be spared, if the prosecutors, the Seroni family, could be +induced to consent. But their consent was only to be gained by the payment +of a sum of money entirely beyond Cardan's means, their demand having been +stimulated through some foolish boasting of the family wealth by the +condemned prisoner.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> Cardan was powerless to arrest the course of the +law, and Gian Battista was executed in prison on the night of April 7, +1560.</p> + +<p>In the whole world of biographic record it would be hard to find a figure +more pathetic than that of Cardan fighting for the life of his unworthy +son. No other episode of his career wins from the reader sympathy half so +deep. The experience of these terrible days certainly shook still further +off its balance a mind not over steady in its calmest moments. Cardan +wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> voluminously and laboriously over Gian Battista's fate, but in his +dirges and lamentations he never lets fall an expression of detestation or +regret with regard to the crime itself: all his soul goes out in +celebrating the charm and worth of his son, and in moaning over the ruin +of mind, body, and estate which had fallen upon him through this cruel +stroke of adverse fate. When he sat down to write the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, +Cardan was strongly possessed with the belief that all through his career +he had been subject to continuous and extraordinary persecution at the +hands of his enemies. The entire thirtieth chapter is devoted to the +description of these plots and assaults. In his earlier writings he +attributes his calamities to evil fate and the influences of the stars; +his wit was indeed great, and assuredly it was allied to madness, so it is +not impossible that these personal foes who dogged his steps were largely +the creatures of an old man's monomaniacal fancies. The persecution, he +affirms, began to be so bitter as to be almost intolerable after the +condemnation of Gian Battista. "Certain members of the Senate afterwards +admitted (though I am sure they would be loth that men should hold them +capable of such a wish) that they condemned my son to death in the hope +that I might be killed likewise, or at least might lose my wits, and the +powers above can bear witness how nearly one of these ills befell me. I +would that you should know what these times were like, and what practices +were in fashion. I am well assured that I never wrought offence to any of +these men, even by my shadow. I took advice how I might put forward a +defence of some kind on my son's behalf, but what arguments would have +prevailed with minds so exasperated against me as were theirs?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> "In ore illud semper ei erat: Omnis spiritus laudet +Dominum, qui ipse est fons omnium virtutum."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. iii. +p. 7. Reginald Scot, in the <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, says that the +aforesaid exclamation of Fazio was the Paracelsian charm to drive away +spirits that haunt any house. There is a passage in <i>De Consolatione</i> +(<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 600) which gives Fazio's view of happiness after +death:—"Memineram patrem meum, Facium Cardanum, cum viveret, in ore +semper habuisse, se mortem optare, quod nullum suavius tempus experiretur, +quā id in quo profundissime dormiens omnium quæ in hac vita fiunt expers +esset."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Cardan gives his impressions of musicians:—"Unde nostra +ætate neminem ferine musicum invenias, qui non omni redundat vitiorum +genere. Itaque hujusmodi musica maximo impedimento non solum pauperi et +negotioso viro est, sed etiam omnibus generaliter. Quin etiam virorum +egregiorum nostræ ætatis neminem musicum agnovimus, Erasmum, Alciatum, +Budæum, Jasonem, Vesalium, Gesnerum. At vero quod domum everterit meam, si +dicam, vera fatebor meo more. Nam et pecuniæ non levem jacturam feci, et +quod majus est, filiorum mores corrupi. Sunt enim plerique ebrii, gulosi, +procaces, inconstantes, impatientes, stolidi, inertes, omnisque libidinis +genere coinquinati. Optimi quique inter illos stulti sunt."—<i>De +Utilitate</i>, p. 362.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xiii. p. 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> "Quid profuit hæc tua industria, quis infelicior in filiis? +quorum alter male periit: alter nec regi potest nec regere?"—<i>Opera</i>, +tom. i. p. 109.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 614.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> "In cæteris erit elegans, splendidus, humanus, gravis et +qui ab omnibus, potentioribusque, præsertim probetur."—<i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i>, p. 464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> "A scorto nuntius venit."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 833.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> This incident is taken from the <i>De Utilitate</i>, which was +written soon after the events chronicled. The account given in the <i>De +Vita Propria</i>, written twenty years later, differs in some details. "Venio +domum, accurrit famulus admodum tristis, nunciat Johannem Baptistam +duxisse uxorem Brandoniam Seronam."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> Cardan in describing this action of Gian Battista, who was +then determined to murder his wife, says of him: "Erat enim natura clemens +admodum et gratus."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 834.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> "Triduana illa disceptatio Papiæ cum Camutio instituta, +publicata apud Senatum: ipse primo argumento primæ diei siluit."—<i>De Vita +Propria</i>, ch. xii. p. 37. This does not exactly tally with Camutio's +version. With regard to Cardan's assertion that his colleagues hesitated +to meet him in medical discussion it may be noted that Camutio printed a +book at Pavia in 1563, with the following title: "Andrææ Camutii +disputationes quibus Hieronymi Cardani magni nominis viri conclusiones +infirmantur, Galenus ab ejusdem injuria vindicatur, Hippocratis præterea +aliquot loca diligentius multo quam unquam alias explicantur." In his +version (<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xii. p. 37) Cardan inquires sarcastically: +"Habentur ejusdem imagines quædam typis excusæ in Camutii monumentis."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xii. p. 39. The Third Book of the +<i>Theonoston</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. ii. p. 403) is in the form of a disputation, +"De animi immortalite," with this same Branda.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> In his defence at the trial Cardan affirmed that, while +Brandonia was lying sick from eating the cake, her mother and the nurse +quarrelled and fought, and finally fell down upon the sick woman. When the +fight was over Brandonia was dead. In <i>Opera</i>, tom. ii. p. 311 +(<i>Theonoston</i>, lib. i.) he writes: "Obiit illa non veneno, sed vi morbi +atque Fato quo tam inclytus juvenis morte sua, omnia turbare debuerat."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> "Vocatus sum enim ad Ducem Suessanum ex Ticinensi Academia +accepique C. aureos coronatos et dona ex serico."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. +xl. p. 138.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 671. He cites the names of former +Governors of Milan and other patrons, many of them harsh men, and not one +as kind and beneficent as the Duca di Sessa; to wit Antonio Leva, Cardinal +Caracio, Alfonso d'Avalos, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Cardinal of Trent, and +the Duca d'Alba. Yet the rule of his best friend brought him his worst +misfortune.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> There is a full account of the trial in an appendix to the +<i>De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda</i> (Basel, 1561). It is not included in +the edition hitherto cited.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Laudabatur ejus benignitas ac simul factum Io. Petri +Solarii tabellionis, qui cum filium spurium convictum haberet de +veneficio, in duas sorores legitimas, solum hæreditatis consequendæ causa, +satis habuit damnasse illum ad triremes."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. +33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> "Evasit nuper ob constantiam in tormentis famulus filii +mei, qui pretio venenum dederat dominæ sine causa: periit filius meus, qui +nec jusserat dari."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> Gian Battista seems to have boasted about the family +wealth, and thus stirred up the Seroni to demand an excessive and +impossible sum. "Hæc et alia hujusmodi cum protulissem, non valere, nisi +eousque, ut decretum sit, si impetrare pacem potuissem vitæ parceretur. +Sed non potuit filii stultitia, qui dum jactat opes quæ non sunt, illi +quod non erat exigunt."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. 33.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Cardan</span> had risen to high and well-deserved fame, and this fact alone might +account for the existence of jealousy and ill-feeling amongst certain of +those whom he had passed in the race. Some men, it is true, rise to +eminence without making more than a few enemies, but Cardan was not one of +these. His foes must have been numerous and truculent, the assault they +delivered must have been deadly and overwhelming to have brought to such +piteous wreck fortunes which seemed to rest upon the solid ground of +desert. The public voice might accuse him of folly, but assuredly not of +crime; he was the victim and not the culprit; his skill as a physician was +as great as ever, but these considerations weighed little with the hounds +who were close upon his traces. Now that the tide of his fortune seemed to +be on the ebb they gathered around him. He writes: "And this, in sooth, +was the chief, the culminating misfortune of my life: forasmuch as I could +not with any show of decency be kept in my office, nor could I be +dismissed without some more valid excuse, I could neither continue to +reside in Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As I walked +about the city men looked askance at me; and whenever I might be forced to +exchange words with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus, +being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> shunned my friends. I +had no notion what I should do, or whither I should go. I cannot say +whether I was more wretched in myself than I was odious to my +fellows."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan gathered a certain amount of consolation from meditating over the +ills which befell all those who were concerned in Gian Battista's fate. +The Senator Falcutius, a man of the highest character in other respects, +died about four months later, exclaiming with his dying breath that he was +undone through the brutal ignorance of a certain man, who had been eager +for the death sentence. One Hala shortly afterwards followed Falcutius to +the grave, having fallen sick with phthisis immediately after the trial. +Rigone, the President of the Court, lost his wife, and gave her burial +bereft of the usual decencies of the last rite, a thing which Cardan says +he could not have believed, had he not been assured of the same by the +testimony of many witnesses. It was reported too, that Rigone himself, +though a man of good reputation, was forced to feign death in order to +escape accusation on some charge or other. His only son had died shortly +before, so it might be said with reason that his house was as it were +thrown under an evil spell by the avenging Furies of the youth whom he had +sent to die in a dungeon. Again, within a few days the prosecutor himself, +Evangelista Seroni, the man who was the direct cause of his son-in-law's +death, was thrown into prison, and, having been deprived of his office of +debt collector, became a beggar. Moreover, the son whom he specially loved +was condemned to death in Sicily, and died on the gallows. Public and +private calamity fell upon the Duca di Sessa,<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> the Governor of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Milan, +doubtless because he had allowed the law to take its course. Indeed every +person great or small who had been concerned in Gian Battista's +condemnation, was, by Cardan's showing, overtaken by grave misfortune.</p> + +<p>Cardan still held his Professorship at Pavia, and in spite of the +difficulties and embarrassments of his position he went back to resume his +work of teaching a few days after the fatal issue of his son's trial and +condemnation. By the pathetic simplicity of its diction the following +extract gives a vivid and piteous picture of the utter desolation and +misery into which he was cast: it shows likewise that, after a lapse of +fifteen years, the memory of his shame and sorrow was yet green, and that +a powerful stimulus had been given to his superstitious fancies by the +events lately chronicled. "In the month of May, in the year MDLX, a time +when sleep had refused to come to me because of my grief for my son's +death: when I could get no relief from fasting nor from the flagellation I +inflicted upon my legs when I rode abroad, nor from the game of chess +which I then played with Ercole Visconti, a youth very dear to me, and +like myself troubled with sleeplessness, I prayed God to have pity upon +me, because I felt that I must needs die, or lose my wits, or at least +give up my work as Professor, unless I got some sleep, and that soon. Were +I to resign my office, I could find no other means of earning my bread: if +I should go mad I must become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>a laughing-stock to all. I must in any case +lavish what still remained of my patrimony, for at my advanced age I could +not hope to find fresh employment. Therefore I besought God that He would +send me death, which is the lot of all men. I went to bed: it was already +late, and, as I must needs rise at four in the morning, I should not have +more than two hours' rest. Sleep, however, fell upon me at once, and +meseemed that I heard a voice speaking to me out of the darkness. I could +discern naught, so it was impossible to say what voice it was, or who was +the speaker. It said, 'What would you have?' or 'What are you grieving +over?' and added, 'Is it that you mourn for your son's death?' I replied, +'Can you doubt this?' Then the voice answered, 'Take the stone which is +hanging round your neck and place it to your mouth, and so long as you +hold it there you will not be troubled with thoughts of your son.' Here I +awoke, and at once asked myself what this beryl stone could have to do +with sleep, but after a little, when I found no other means of escape from +my trouble, I called to mind the words spoken of a certain man: 'He hoped +even beyond hope, and it was accounted to him as righteousness' (spoken of +Abraham), and put the stone in my mouth, whereupon a thing beyond belief +came to pass. In a moment all remembrance of my son faded from my mind, +and the same thing happened when I fell asleep a second time after being +aroused."<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p> + +<p>The record of Cardan's life for the next two years is a meagre one. His +rest was constantly disturbed either by the machinations of his foes or by +the dread thereof, the evil last-named being probably the more noxious of +the two. As long ago as 1557 he had begun the treatise <i>De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda</i>, a work giving evidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> of careful construction, and +one which, as a literary performance, takes the first rank.<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> This book +had been put aside, either through pressure of other work or family +troubles, but now the circumstances in which he found himself seemed +perfectly congenial for the elaboration of a subject of this nature, so he +set to work to finish it, concluding with the chapter <i>De Luctu</i>, which +has been used largely as the authority for the foregoing narrative of Gian +Battista's crime and death. At this period, when his mind was fully stored +and his faculties adequately disciplined for the production of the best +work, he seems to have realized with sharp regret that the time before him +was so short, and that whatever fresh fruit of knowledge he might put +forth would prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his +replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him +problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack +of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In +his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three +very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a +marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? If he had written this +treatise when he was thirty he would straightway have risen to fame and +fortune, in spite of his poverty, his rivals, and his enemies. Then, in +ten years' space, he would have finished and brought out all those books +which were now lying unfinished around him in his old age; and moreover +would have won so great gain and glory, that no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> farther good fortune +would have remained for him to ask for. Another work which he had begun +about the same time (1558) was the treatise on <i>Dialectic</i>, illustrated by +geometrical problems and theorems, and likewise by the well-known logical +catch lines <i>Barbara Celarent</i>. During the summer vacation of 1561 he +returned to Milan, and began a <i>Commentary on the Anatomy of Mundinus</i>, +the recognized text-book of the schools up to the appearance of Vesalius. +In the preface to this work he puts forward a vigorous plea for the +extended use of anatomy in reaching a diagnosis.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> He had likewise on +hand the <i>Theonoston</i>, a set of essays on Moral subjects written something +in the spirit of Seneca; and, after Gian Battista's death, he wrote the +dialogue <i>Tetim, seu de Humanis Consiliis</i>. In the year following, 1561, a +farther sorrow and trouble came upon him by the death of the English +youth, William. If he was guilty of neglect in the case of this young +man—and by his own confession he was—he was certainly profoundly grieved +at his death. In the Argument to the <i>Dialogus de Morte</i> he laments that +he ever let the youth leave his house without sending him back to England, +and tells how he was cozened by Daldo, the crafty tailor, out of a premium +of thirty-one gold crowns, in return for which William was to be taught a +trade. "But during the summer, Daldo, who had a little farm in the +country, took the youth there and let him join in the village games, and +by degrees made him into a vinedresser. But if at any time it chanced that +William's services were also wanted at the tailor's shop, his master would +force him to return thereto in the evening (for the farm was two miles +distant), and sit sewing all the night. Besides this the boy would go +dancing with the villagers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> and in the course of their merry-making he +fell in love with a girl. While I was living at Milan he was taken with +fever, and came to me; but, for various reasons, I did not give proper +attention to him, first, because he himself made light of his ailment; +second, because I knew not that his sickness had been brought on by +excessive toil and exposure to the sun; and third, because, when he had +been seized with a similar distemper on two or three occasions before +this, he had always got well within four or five days. Besides this I was +then in trouble owing to the running away of my son Aldo and one of my +servants. What more is there to tell? Four days after I had ordered him to +be bled, messengers came to me in the night and begged me to go and see +him, for he was apparently near his end. He was seized with convulsions +and lost his senses, but I battled with the disease and brought him round. +I was obliged to return to Pavia to resume my teaching, and William, when +he was well enough to get up, was forced to sleep in the workshop by his +master, who had been bidden to a wedding. There he suffered so much from +cold and bad food that, when he was setting out for Pavia to seek me, he +was again taken ill. His unfeeling master caused him to be removed to the +poor-house, and there he died the following morning from the violence of +the distemper, from agony of mind, and from the cold he had suffered. +Indeed I was so heavily stricken by mischance that meseemed I had lost +another son."</p> + +<p>It was partly as a consolation in his own grief, and partly as a monument +to the ill-fated youth, that Cardan wrote the <i>Dialogus de Morte</i>, a work +which contains little of interest beyond the record of Cardan's +impressions of Englishmen already quoted. But it was beyond hope that he +should find adequate solace for the gnawing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> grief and remorse which +oppressed him in this, or any other literary work. He was ill looked upon +at Milan, but his position at Pavia seems to have been still more irksome. +He grew nervous as to his standing as a physician, for, with the powerful +prejudice which had been raised against him both as to his public and his +private affairs, he felt that a single slip in his treatment of any +particular case would be fatal to him. In Milan he did meet with a certain +amount of gratitude from the wealthier citizens for the services he had +wrought them; but in Pavia, his birthplace, the public mind was strongly +set against him; indeed in 1562 he was subjected to so much petty +persecution at the hands of the authorities and of his colleagues, that he +determined to give up his Professorship at all cost. He describes at great +length one of the most notable intrigues against him. "Now in dealing with +the deadly snares woven against my life, I will tell you of something +strange which befell me. During my Professorship at Pavia I was in the +habit of reading in my own house. I had in my household at that time a +woman to do occasional work, the youth Ercole Visconti, two boys, and +another servant. Of the two boys, one was my amanuensis and well skilled +in music, and the other was a lackey. It was in 1562 that I made up my +mind to resign my office of teaching and quit Pavia, a resolution which +the Senate took in ill part, and dealt with me as with a man transported +with rage. But there were two doctors of the city who strove with all +their might to drive me away: one a crafty fellow who had formerly been a +pupil of mine; the other was the teacher extraordinary in Medicine, a +simple-minded man, and, as I take it, not evil by nature; but covetous and +ambitious men will stop at nothing, especially when the prize to be won is +an office held in high esteem. Thus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> when they despaired of getting rid +of me through the action of the Senate—what though I was petitioning to +be relieved of my duties—they laid a plot to kill me, not by the dagger +for fear of the Senate and of possible scandal, but by malignant craft. My +opponent perceived that he could not be promoted to the post of principal +teacher unless I should leave the place, and for this reason he and his +allies spread their nets from a distance. In the first place, they caused +to be written to me, in the name of my son-in-law<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> and of my daughter +as well, a most vile and filthy letter telling how they were ashamed of +their kinship with me; that they were ashamed likewise for the sake of the +Senate, and of the College; and that the authorities ought to take +cognizance of the matter and pronounce me unworthy of the office of +teacher and cause me to be removed therefrom forthwith. Confounded at +receiving such an impudent and audacious reproof at the hands of my own +kindred, I knew not what to do or say, or what reply I should make; nor +could I divine for what reason this unseemly and grievous affront had been +put upon me. It afterwards came to light that the letter was written in +order to serve as an occasion for fresh attacks; for, before many days had +passed, another letter came to me bearing the name of one Fioravanti, +written in the following strain. This man was likewise shocked for the +sake of the city, the college, and the body of professors, seeing that a +report had been spread abroad that I was guilty of abominable offences +which cannot be named. He would call upon a number of his friends to take +steps to compel me to consider the public scandal I was causing, and would +see that the houses where these offences were committed should be pointed +out. When I read this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> letter I was as one stupefied, nor could I believe +it was the work of Fioravanti, whom I had hitherto regarded as a man of +seemly carriage and a friend. But this letter and its purport remained +fixed in my mind and prompted me to reply to my son-in-law; for I believed +no longer that he had aught to do with the letter which professed to come +from him; indeed I ought never to have harboured such a suspicion, seeing +that both then and now he has always had the most kindly care for me; nor +has he ever judged ill of me.</p> + +<p>"I called for my cloak at once and went to Fioravanti, whom I questioned +about the letter. He admitted that he wrote it, whereupon I was more than +ever astonished, for I was loth to suspect him of crooked dealing, much +more of any premeditated treachery. I began to reason with him, and to +inquire where all these wonderful plans had been concocted, and then he +began to waver, and failed to find an answer. He could only put forward +common report, and the utterances of the Rector of the Gymnasium, as the +source of them."<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p> + +<p>Cardan goes on to connect the foregoing incident, by reasoning which is +not very clear, with what he maintained to have been a veritable attempt +against his life. "The first act of the tragedy having come to an end, the +second began, and this threw certain light upon the first. My foes made it +their special care that I, whom they held up as a disgrace to my country, +to my family, to the Senate, to the Colleges of Milan and Pavia, to the +Council of Professors, and to the students, should become a member of the +Accademia degli Affidati, a society in which were enrolled divers +illustrious theologians, two Cardinals, and two princes, the Duke of +Mantua, and the Marquis Pescara. When they perceived how loth I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> was to +take this step they began to threaten. What was I to do, broken down by +the cruel fate of my son, and suffering every possible evil? Finally I +agreed, induced by the promise they made me, that, in the course of a few +days, I should be relieved of my duties as Professor; but I did not then +perceive the snare, or consider how it was that they should now court the +fellowship of one whom, less than fifteen days ago, all ranks of the +College had declared to be a monster not to be tolerated. Alas for faith +in heaven, for the barbarity of men, for the hatred of false friends, for +that shamelessness and cruelty more fell than serpent's bite! What more is +there to tell? The first time I entered the room of the Affidati I saw +that a heavy beam had been poised above in such fashion that it might +easily fall and kill whatsoever person might be passing underneath. +Whether this had been done by accident or design I cannot say. But +hereafter I attended as rarely as possible, making excuses for my absence; +and, when I did go, I went when no one looked for me, and out of season, +taking good heed of this trap the while. Wherefore no evil befell me +thereby, either because my foes deemed it unwise to work such wickedness +in public, or because they had not finally agreed to put their scheme in +operation, or because they were plotting some fresh evil against me. +Another attempt was made a few days later, when I was called to the ailing +son of one Piero Trono, a surgeon; they placed high over the door a leaden +weight which might easily be made to fall, pretending that it had been put +there to hold up the curtain. This weight did fall; and, had it struck me, +it would certainly have killed me: how near I was to death, God knows. +Wherefore I began to be suspicious of something I could not define, so +greatly was my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> mind upset. Then a third attempt was made, which was +evident enough. A few days later, when they were about to sing a new Mass, +the same rascally crew came to me, asking me whether I would lend them the +services of my two singing boys, for my enemies knew well enough that +these boys acted as my cup-bearers, and over and beyond this they made an +agreement with my hired woman that she should give me poison. They first +went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he, +suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his +fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one +of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on +getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for +we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one +of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' Then +Ercole said somewhat vaguely that he would ask his master. He came to me, +having fathomed and laid bare the whole intention of the plot, so that, if +I had not been stark mad and stupid, I might easily have seen through +their design. Fifteen days or so had passed when the same men once more +sought me out and begged me to let them have the two boys to help them in +the performance of a comedy. Then Ercole came to me and said, 'Now in +sooth the riddle is plain to read; they are planning to get all your +people away from your table, so that they may kill you with poison; nor +are they satisfied with plotting your death merely by tricks of this sort; +they are determined to kill you by any chance which may offer."<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p> + +<p>How far these plots were real, and how far they sprang from monomania it +is impossible to say. Cardan's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> relations with his brother physicians had +never been of the happiest, and it is quite possible that a set may have +been made in the Pavian Academy to get rid of a colleague, difficult to +live with at the best, and now cankered still more in temper by +misfortune, and likewise, in a measure, disgraced by the same. Surrounded +by annoyances such as these, and tormented by the intolerable memories and +associations of the last few years, it is not wonderful that he should +seek a way out of his troubles by a change of scene and occupation.</p> + +<p>As early as 1536 Cardan had had professional relations with certain +members of the Borromeo family, which was one of the most illustrious in +Milan, and in 1560 Carlo Borromeo was appointed Archbishop of Milan. There +is no record of the date when Cardan first made acquaintance with this +generous patron, who was the nephew of the reigning Pope, Pius IV., +himself a Milanese, but it is certain that Cardan had at an earlier date +successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> wherefore it +is legitimate to assume that the physician was <i>persona grata</i> to the +whole family. As soon as Cardan had determined to withdraw from Pavia he +applied to the Cardinal, who had just made a magnificent benefaction to +Bologna in the form of the University buildings. He espoused Cardan's +interests at once, and most opportunely, for the protection of a powerful +personage was almost as needful at Bologna, as the sequel shows, as it +would have been at Pavia. It was evident that Cardan had foes elsewhere +than in Pavia; indeed the early stages of the negotiation, which went on +in reference to his transfer to Bologna, suggest a doubt whether the +change would bring him any advantage other than the substitution of one +set of enemies for another. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> writes: "When I was about to be summoned +to teach at Bologna, some persons of that place who were envious of my +reputation sent a certain officer (a getter-up of petitions) to Pavia. Now +this fellow, who never once entered the class-room, nor had a word with +any one of my pupils, wrote, on what authority I know not, a report in +these words: 'Concerning Girolamo Cardano, I am told that he taught in +this place, but got no pupils, always lecturing to empty benches: that he +is a man of evil life, ill regarded by all, and little less than a fool, +repulsive in his manners, and entirely unskilled in medicine. After he had +promulgated certain of his opinions he found no one in the city who would +employ him, nor did he practise his art.'</p> + +<p>"These words were read to the Senate by the messenger on his return in the +presence of the illustrious Borromeo, the Pope's Legate to the city. The +Senate were upon the point of breaking off all further negotiations, but +while the man was reading his report, some one present heard the words in +which he declared that I did not practise medicine. 'Hui!' he cried, 'I +know that is not true, for I myself have seen divers men of the highest +consideration going to him for help, and I—though I am not to be ranked +with them—have often consulted him myself.' Then the Legate took up the +parole and said, 'I too bear witness that he cured my own mother when she +was given up by every one else.' Then the first speaker suggested that +probably the rest of the tale was just as worthy of belief as this one +statement, the Legate agreeing thereto; whereupon the messenger aforesaid +held his tongue and blushed for shame. Ultimately the Senate determined to +appoint me Professor for one year, 'for,' they said, 'if he should prove +to be the sort of man the officer describes, or if his teaching should +profit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> us nothing, we can let him go; but if it be otherwise, the +contract may be ratified.' With regard to the salary, over which a dispute +had already arisen, the Legate gave his consent, and the business came to +an end.</p> + +<p>"But, disregarding this settlement, my opponents urged one of their number +to wait upon me as a delegate from the Senate, and this man would fain +have added to the terms already sanctioned by the Senate, others which I +could not possibly accept. He offered me a smaller stipend, no teaching +room was assigned to me, and no allowance for travelling expenses. I +refused to treat with him, whereupon he was forced to depart, and to +return to me later on with the terms of my engagement duly set +forth."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p> + +<p>It was in June 1562 that Cardan finally resigned his position at Pavia, +but it was not until some months after this date that the final agreement +with the Bolognese Senate, lately referred to, was concluded, and in the +interim he was forced to suffer no slight annoyance and persecution at the +hands of his adversaries in Pavia, in Bologna, and in Milan as well. Just +before he resigned his Professorship he was warned by the portentous +kindling of a fire, seemingly dead,<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> that fresh mischief was afoot, +and he at once determined in his mind that his foes had planned +destruction against him afresh. So impressed was he at this manifestation +that he swore he would not leave home on the day following. "But early in +the morning there came to my house four or five of my pupils bidding me to +a feast, where all the chief Professors of the Gymnasium and the Academy +proposed to be present. I replied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> that I could not come, whereupon they, +knowing that it was not my wont to dine in the middle of the day, and +deeming that it was on this score that I refused to join them, said, 'Then +for your sake we will make the feast a supper.' I answered that I could +not on any account make one of their party, and then they demanded to know +the cause of my refusal. I replied it was because of a strange event which +had befallen me, and of a vow I had made thereanent. At this they were +greatly astonished, and two of them exchanged significant glances, and +they urged me again and again that I should not be so firmly set upon +marring so illustrious a gathering by my absence, but I gave back the same +answer as before."<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> They came a second time, but Cardan was not to be +moved. He records, however, that he did break his vow after all by going +out after dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill.</p> + +<p>It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in what seems, by +contemporary daylight, to have been a complimentary invitation to dinner; +but to the old man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this +episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault against his life. He +finds some compensation, however, in once more recording the fact that all +these disturbers of his peace—like the men who were concerned in Gian +Battista's condemnation—came to a bad end. His rival, who had taken his +place as Professor, had not taught in the schools more than three or four +times before he was seized with disease and died after three months' +suffering. "Upon him there lay only the suspicion of the charge, but I +heard afterwards that a friend of his was certainly privy to the deed of +murder which they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> of +poisoned wine at the supper. In the same year died Delfino, and a little +while after Fioravanti."<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p> + +<p>In July Cardan withdrew to Milan, where, to add to his other troubles, he +was seized with an attack of fever. He was now thoroughly alarmed at the +look of his affairs. Many of his fears may have been imaginary, but the +burden of real trouble which he had to carry was one which might easily +bring him to the ground, and, when once a man is down, the crowd has +little pity or scruple in trampling him to death. He set about to review +his position, and to spy out all possible sources of danger. He writes: "I +called to mind all the books I had written, and, seeing that in them there +were many obscure passages upon which an unfavourable meaning might be put +by the malice of my enemies, I wrote to the Council, submitting all my +writings to its judgment and will and pleasure. By this action I saved +myself from grave danger and disgrace in the future."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> The Council to +which Cardan here refers was probably the Congregation of the Index +appointed by the Council at Trent for the authoritative examination of all +books before allowing them to be read by the faithful. Before the close of +the Council (1563) these duties had been handed over to the Pope (Pius +IV.), who published the revised and definite Roman Index in 1564.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxvii. p. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> "Quin etiam dominus ac Princeps alioquin generosus et +humanus, cum ipsum ob invidiam meam et accusatorum multitudinem +deseruisset, et ipse multis modis conflictatus est gravibus morbis, cæde +propriæ neptis à conjuge suo, litibus gravibus: tum etiam subsecuta +calamitas publica, Zotophagite insula amissa, classe regia +dissipata."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 153. The island alluded to +must have been <i>Lotophagites insula</i>, an island near the Syrtes Minor on +the African coast, and the loss of the same probably refers to some +disaster during the Imperialist wars against the Moors.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xliii. p. 160.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Cardan rates it as his best work on an ethical +subject.—<i>Opera</i>, tom i. p. 146. And on p. 115 he writes: "Utinam +contigisset absolvere ante errorem filii; neque enim ille errasset, nec +errandi causam aliquam habuisset: nec, etiamsi errasset, periisset." He +also quotes a letter full of sound and loving counsels which he had sent +to Gian Battista six months before he fell into the snare.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 129.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Bartolomeo Sacco was evidently living at Pavia at this +date.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xvii. p. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xvii. p. 54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> ch. xxx. p. 88. There is also a long account of +this occurrence in <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 459.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 90.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 460.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">While</span> Cardan was lying sick at Milan, a messenger came from Pavia, begging +him to hasten thither to see his infant grandson, who had been ailing when +he left Pavia, and was now much worse. The journey under the burning sun +of the hottest summer known for many years aggravated his malady, but he +brought the child out of danger. He caught erysipelas in the face, and to +this ailment succeeded severe trouble with the teeth. If it had not been +for the fact that the time of the new moon had been near, he says that he +must have submitted to blood-letting; but after the new moon his health +mended, and thus he escaped the two-fold danger—that of the disease, and +that of the lancet. He tells of an attempt made against his life by a +servant for the sake of robbery, an attempt which came very near success; +and of a severe attack of gout in the knee. After a month's confinement to +his house he began to practise Medicine; and, finding patients in plenty, +he nourished a hope that Fortune had done her worst, and that he might be +allowed to repair his shattered fortunes by the exercise of his calling, +but the activity of his adversaries—which may or may not have been +provoked solely by malignity—was unsleeping. He hints at further attempts +against his good name and his life, and gives at length some painful +details of another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> charge made against him of an infamous character. It +is almost certain that his way was made all the harder for him from the +complaints which he had put in print about the indifference of the Duca di +Sessa to his interests at the time of Gian Battista's trial. The Milanese +doctors had no love for him, and every petulant word he might let fall +would almost surely be brought to the Governor's ears. By Cardan's own +admission it appears that utterances of this sort were both frequent and +acrid. There was a certain physician of the city who wished to place his +son gratis in Cardan's household. Cardan, however, refused, whereupon the +physician in question called attention to a certain book in which Cardan +had made some remarks to the effect that the friendship of the Duca di +Sessa had been a fatal one to him, inasmuch as, having trusted too +entirely to this friendship for his support, he had let go other interests +which might have served him better. The physician aforesaid made a second +application to Cardan to receive his son, offering this time to intercede +with the Governor on his behalf. This proposition roused the old man's +anger, and he exclaimed that he had no need of such friendship or +protection; that in fact the interruption of their good understanding had +come about more by his own act than the Governor's, who had been either +unable or unwilling to save Gian Battista's life. The doctor replied, in +the presence of divers persons, that Gian Battista had perished through +his own foolishness: if he had not confessed he would never have been +condemned; that the Senate had condemned him and not the Duca di Sessa, +and that Cardan was now slandering this prince most unjustly. A lot of +busy-bodies had by this time been attracted by the wrangle, and these +heard the doctor's accusations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> in full, but gathered a very imperfect +notion of Cardan's reply. He indignantly denied this charge, and in his +own account of the scene he affirms that he won the approbation of all who +listened, by the moderation of his bearing and speech.</p> + +<p>Four days after this occurrence he again met this physician, who declared +he knew for certain that a kinsman of the Duca di Sessa, a hot-tempered +man, had just read some slanders written by Cardan about the Duke, and had +declared he would cut the writer in half and throw his remains into the +jakes; the physician went on to say that he had appeased this gentleman's +resentment, and that Cardan had now no cause for fear. Cardan at once saw +through the dishonesty of the fellow, who was not content with bringing +forward an unjust accusation, but must likewise subject him to these +calumnies and the consequent dangers. After a bout of wrangling, in which +the physician sought vainly to win from him an acknowledgment of the +service he had wrought, the malicious fellow shouted out to the crowd +which had gathered around them that Cardan persisted in his infamous +slanders against the Governor. Wanton as the charge was, Cardan felt that +with his present unpopularity it might easily grow into a fatal danger. +Might was right in Milan as far as he was concerned, but he determined +that he must make a stand against this pestilent fellow. By good luck he +met some friends, to whom he told the adventure; and while he was +speaking, the gentleman who was said to have threatened him, and the +slanderous physician as well, joined the gathering; whereupon one of +Cardan's friends repeated the whole story to the gentleman; who, as he was +quite unversed in letters, was hugely diverted at hearing himself set down +as a student, and told the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> physician that he was a fool, thereby +delivering Cardan at least from this annoyance.</p> + +<p>He had refused the terms which the party opposed to him in the Senate at +Bologna had sent for his acceptance, and was still waiting to hear whether +they would carry out their original propositions. It was during this time +of suspense that he was subjected to strange and inexplicable treatment at +the hands of the Milanese Senate, treatment which, viewed by the light of +his own report—the only one extant—seems very harsh and unjust. He +writes: "At the time when I was greatly angered by the action of the +Bolognese agent, four of the Senators persuaded me to seek practice once +more in Milan, wherefore I, having altered my plans, began to try to earn +an honest living, for I reckoned that the Senate of Milan knew that I had +rejected the offers from Bologna, since these offers were unjust in +themselves, and put before me in unjust fashion. But afterwards, although +the same iniquitous terms were offered to me, I accepted them, not indeed +because I was satisfied therewith, but because of my necessity, and so +that I might be free from those dangers which, as I have before stated, +pressed upon me in those days. The reason why I took this step was that +the Senate, by most unexpected action, removed my name from the lists of +those licensed to teach; nor was this all. They warned me by a message +that they had recently given hearing to a double charge against me of very +grave offences, and that nothing but my position, and the interests of the +College, kept them back from laying me in hold. Nevertheless, influenced +by these considerations, they had been moved to reduce my punishment to +that of exile. But neither my good fortune nor God deserted me; for on the +same day certain things came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> to pass by means of which I was able, with a +single word, to free myself from all suspicion upon either charge, and to +prove my innocence. Moreover, I forced them to admit that no mention of +this affair had ever been made before the Senate, although two graduates +had informed me that it had been discussed."<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> + +<p>The Senate, however, was reluctant to stultify its late action, and +refused to restore Cardan's name to the list of teachers. But he was put +right in the sight of the world by the sharp censure pronounced by the +Senate upon those busy-bodies who had ventured to speak in its name. +Cardan's last days in Milan were cheered with a brief gleam of good +fortune. His foes seem to have overshot the mark, and to have aroused +sympathy for the old man, who, whatever his faults, was alike an honour to +his country and the victim of fortune singularly cruel. The city took him +under its protection, assured of his innocence as to the widespread +charges against him, and pitying his misfortunes. His friend Borromeo had +probably been forwarding his interests at the Papal Court, for he records +that, just at this time, certain Cardinals and men of weight wrote to him +from Rome in kindly and flattering terms. On November 16, 1562, the +messenger from the Senate of Bologna arrived at Milan, bearing an offer of +slightly more liberal terms. They were not so favourable as Cardan wished +for; but, even had they been worse, he would probably have closed with +them. In spite of the benevolent attitude of his well-wishers in Milan, it +irked him to be there; the faces in the streets, the town gossip, all +tended to recall to him the death of his son, so he departed at once to +take up his duties.</p> + +<p>At Bologna Cardan went first to live in a hired house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> in the Via Gombru. +Aldo was nominally a member of his household; but his presence must have +been a plague rather than a comfort to his father, and he took with him +likewise his orphan grandson, the son of Gian Battista and Brandonia, whom +he destined to make his heir on account of Aldo's ill conduct.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> This +young man seems to have been a hopeless scoundrel from the first. The +ratio in which fathers apportion their affection amongst their offspring +is a very capricious one, and Cardan may have been fully as wide of the +mark in chiding his younger as he was in lauding the talents and virtues +of his elder son. But it is certain that on several occasions the +authorities shared Cardan's view of Aldo's ill behaviour. More than once +he alludes to the young reprobate's shameful conduct, and the intolerable +annoyance caused by the same. Many of the ancient rights of parents over +their children, which might to-day be deemed excessive, were still +operative in the cities of Italy, and Cardan readily invoked the help of +them in trying to work reformation of a sort upon Aldo, whom he caused to +be imprisoned more than once, and finally to be banished.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> The +numerous hitches which delayed his final call to Bologna were probably due +to the fact that a certain party amongst the teachers there were opposed +to his appointment, and things did not run too smoothly after he had taken +up his residence in his new home. It was not in Cardan's nature, however +much he may have been cowed and broken down by misfortune, to mix with men +inimical to himself without letting them have a taste of his quality. He +records one skirmish which he had with Fracantiano,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> the Professor of the +Practice of Medicine, a skirmish which, in its details, resembles so +closely his encounter with Branda Porro, at Pavia, some time before, that +it suggests a doubt whether it ever had a separate existence, and was not +simply a variant of the Branda legend. "It happened that he (Fracantiano) +was giving an account of the passage of the gall into the stomach, and was +speaking in Greek before the whole Academy (he was making the while an +anatomical dissection), when I cried out, 'There is an "<ins class="greek" title="ou">ου</ins>" +wanting in that sentence.' And as he delayed making any correction of his +error, and I kept on repeating my remark in a low voice, the students +cried out, 'Let the <i>Codex</i> be sent for.' Fracantiano sent for it gladly. +It was brought at once, and when he came to read the passage, he found +that what I had affirmed was true to a hair. He spake not another word, +being overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment. Moreover the students, +who had almost compelled me to come to the lecture, were even more +impressed by what had happened. But from that day forth my opponent +avoided all meeting with me; nay, he even gave orders to his servants that +they should warn him whenever they might see me approaching, and thus he +contrived that we should never foregather. One day when he was teaching +Anatomy, the students brought me, by a trick, into the room, whereupon he +straightway fled, and having entangled his feet in his robe, he fell down +headlong. This accident caused no little confusion, and shortly afterwards +he left the place, being then a man well advanced in years."<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p> + +<p>He had not lived long in Bologna before he was fated to experience another +repetition of one of the untoward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> episodes of his past life, to wit the +fall of a house. It was not his own house this time, but it was +sufficiently near to induce him to change his abode without delay. Next +door to the house he had hired in the Via Gombru stood a palace belonging +to a certain Gramigna. "The entire house fell, and was ruined in a single +night, and together with the house perished the owner thereof." It was +believed that this man had divers powerful enemies, and, in order that he +might secure his position, he contrived to bring certain of his foes into +his house, having first made a mine of gunpowder under the portico, and +set a match thereto. But for some reason or other the plot miscarried the +night when he destined to carry it out. Gramigna went to see what was +amiss, and at that very moment the mine exploded and brought the house to +the ground. After this explosion Cardan moved to a house in the Galera +quarter, belonging to the family of Ranucci; but he did not find this +dwelling perfect, as he was forced to vacate the rooms which were most to +his taste on account of the bad state of the ceilings, the plaster of +which, more than once, fell down upon his head.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Paralipomena</i>, "the last fruit off an old tree," which he put +together about this time, there are numerous stories of prodigies and +portents; of doors which would not close, and doors which opened of their +own accord; of rappings on the walls, and of mysterious thunderings and +noises during the night. He tells, at length, the story, already referred +to, of the strange thing which happened to him, on the eve of his +departure from Pavia in 1562, while he was awaiting tidings from Rome as +to his appointment at Bologna. "I wore on the index finger of my right +hand a selenite stone set in a ring, and on my left a jacinth, which I +never took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> off my finger, this stone being large and hexagonal in shape. +I took the selenite from my finger and put it beneath my pillow, for I +fancied it kept off sleep, wearing still the jacinth because it appeared +to have the opposite effect. I slept until midnight, when I awoke and +missed the ring from my left hand. I called Jacopo Antonio, a boy of +fifteen years of age who acted as my servant and slept in a truckle bed, +and bade him look for my rings. He found the selenite at once where I had +placed it; but though we both of us sought closely for the jacinth we +could not find it. I was sorrowful to death on account of this omen, and +despair seized upon my soul when I remembered the dire consequences of +similar signs, all of which I had duly noted in my writings. I could +scarcely believe this to be a thing happening in the order of nature. +After a short delay I collected my thoughts, and told the servant to bring +a light from the hearth. He replied that he would rather not do this, that +he was afraid of the darkness, and that the fire was always extinguished +in the evening. I bade him light a candle with the flint, when he told me +that we had neither matches nor tinder nor sulphur. I persisted, and +determined that a light should be got by one means or another, for I knew +that, if I should go to sleep under so dire an omen, I must needs perish. +So I ordered him to get a light as best he could. He went away and raked +up the ashes, and found a bit of coal about the bigness of a cherry all +alight, and caught hold of it with the tongs. At the same time I had +little hope of getting a light, but he applied it to the wick of a lamp +and blew thereon. The wick was lighted without any flame issuing from the +live coal, which thing seemed to me a further marvel."</p> + +<p>After a search with the candle the ring was found on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the floor under the +middle of the bed, but the marvel was not yet worked out: the ring could +not possibly have got into such a place unless it had been put there by +hand. It could not have rolled there, on account of its shape, nor could +it have fallen from the bed, because the pillow was closely joined to the +head of the bed, round which ran a raised edge with no rift therein. +Cardan concludes: "I know that much may be said over this matter, but +nothing, forsooth, which will convince a man, ever so little inclined to +superstition, that there was no boding sign manifested thereby, +foretelling the ruin of my position and good name. Then, having soothed my +mind, albeit I was well-nigh hopeless, I consoled myself with the belief +that God still protected me." After pondering long and anxiously over the +possible significance of this sign he took a more sanguine view of the +future. He next put the jacinth ring on his finger and bade the boy try to +pull it off, but he tried in vain, so well and closely did the ring fit +the finger. From this time forth Cardan laid aside this ring, after having +worn it for many years as a safeguard against lightning, plague, +wakefulness, and palpitation of the heart.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a></p> + +<p>Many other instances of a like character might be given from the +<i>Paralipomena</i>; but the foregoing will suffice to show that the natural +inclination of Cardan's temper towards the marvellous had been aggravated +by his recent troubles. Also the belief that all men's hands were against +him never slumbered, but for this disposition there may well have been +some justification. Scarcely had he settled in Bologna before an intrigue +was set in motion against him. "After the events aforesaid, and after I +had gone to teach in Bologna, my adversaries,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> by a trick, managed to +deprive me of the use of a class-room, that is to say they allotted to me +an hour just about the time of dinner, or they gave the class-room at the +very same hour, or a little earlier, to another teacher. When I perceived +that the authorities were unwilling to accede to three distinct +propositions which I made to them, namely, that this other teacher should +begin his lecture sooner and leave off sooner: or that he should teach +alternately with me: I so far got my own way at the next election that the +other lecturer had to do his teaching elsewhere."<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p> + +<p>It would appear that the intrigues, of which Cardan gives so many +instances, must have been the work of certain individuals, jealous of his +fame and perhaps smarting under some caustic speech or downright insult, +rather than of the authorities; the Senate of Bologna showed no hostility +to him, but on the other hand procured for him the privileges of +citizenship. While the negotiations were going on at Bologna for the +further regulation of his position as a teacher, he tells a strange story +how, on three or four different occasions, certain men came to him by +night, in the name of the Senate and of the Judicial officers, and tried +to induce him to recommend that a certain woman, who had been condemned +for blasphemy, and for poisoning or witchcraft as well, should be +pardoned, both by the temporal and spiritual authorities, bringing forward +specially the argument that, in the sight of philosophers, such things as +demons and spirits did not exist. They likewise urged him to procure the +release from prison of another woman, who had not yet been condemned, +because a certain sick man had died under the hands of some other doctors. +They brought also a lot of nativities for him to read, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> if he had been +a soothsayer, and not a teacher of medicine, but he would have nothing to +say to them.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> + +<p>It is somewhat strange that Cardan should have detected no trace of the +snare of the enemy in this manœuvre. Bearing in mind the character of the +request made, and the fact that Cardan was by no means a <i>persona grata</i> +to the petitioners, it seems highly probable that they might have been +more anxious to draw from Cardan a profession of his disbelief in +witchcraft, than to procure the enlargement of the accused persons whose +cause they had nominally espoused. At this period it was indeed dangerous +to be a wizard, but it was perhaps still more dangerous to pose as an +avowed sceptic of witchcraft. At the end of the fifteenth century the +frequency of executions for sorcery in the north of Italy had provoked a +strong outburst of popular feeling against this wanton bloodshed; but +Spina, writing in the interest of orthodox religion, deplores that +disbelief in the powers of Evil and their manifestations, always +recognized by the Church, should have led men on to profess by their +action any doubt as to the truth of witchcraft. But in spite of the +fulminations of men of this sort, from this time onwards the more +enlightened scholars of Europe began to modify their opinions on the +subject of demoniac possession, and of witchcraft in general. The first +book in which the new views were enunciated was the treatise <i>De +Præstigiis Dæmonum</i>, by Johann Wier, a physician of Cleves, published in +1563. The step in advance taken by this reformer was not a revolutionary +one. He simply denied that witches were willing and conscious instruments +of the malefic powers, asserting that what evil they wrought came about by +reason of the delusions with which the evil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> spirits infected the persons +said to be possessed. The devil afflicted his victims directly, and then +threw the suspicion of the evil deed upon some old woman. Wier's book was +condemned and denounced by the clergy—he himself was a Protestant—but +the most serious counterblast against it came from the pen of Jean Bodin, +the illustrious French philosopher and jurist. He held up Wier to +execration as an impious blasphemer, and asserted that the welfare of +Christendom must needs suffer great injury through the dissemination of +doctrines so detestable as those set forth in his book.<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p> + +<p>Seeing that such a spirit was dominant in the minds of men like Bodin, it +will be evident that a charge of impiety or atheism might well follow a +profession of disbelief, or even scepticism, as to the powers of witches +or of evil spirits. A maxim familiar as an utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, +"Ubi tres medici duo athei," was, no doubt, in common use in Cardan's +time; and he, as a doctor, would consequently be ill-looked upon by the +champions of orthodoxy, who would certainly not be conciliated by the fact +that he was the friend of Cardinal Morone. This learned and enlightened +prelate had been imprisoned by the savage and fanatical Paul IV., on a +charge of favouring opinions analogous to Protestantism, but Pius IV., the +easy-going Milanese jurisconsult, turned ecclesiastic, enlarged him by one +of the first acts of his Papacy, and restored him to the charge of the +diocese of Modena.</p> + +<p>Besides enjoying at Bologna the patronage of princes of the Church like +Borromeo and Morone, Cardan found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> there an old friend in Ludovico +Ferrari, who was at this time lecturing on mathematics. He also received +into his house a new pupil, a Bolognese youth named Rodolfo Sylvestro, who +was destined hereafter to bring as great credit to his teacher's name in +Medicine as Ferrari had already brought thereto in Mathematics. Rodolfo +proved to be one of the most faithful and devoted of friends; he remained +at Bologna as long as Cardan continued to live there, sharing his master's +ill-fortune, and ultimately accompanied him to Rome in 1571. He gives the +names of two other Bolognese students, Giulio Pozzo and Camillo Zanolino, +but of all his surviving pupils he rates Sylvestro as the most gifted.</p> + +<p>The records of Cardan's life at this period are scant and fragmentary, few +events being chronicled except dreams and portents. In giving an account +of one of these manifestations, which happened in September 1563, he +incidentally lets light upon certain changes and vicissitudes in his own +affairs. He was at this time living in an apartment in the house of the +Ranucci, next door to a half-ruined palace of the Ghislieri. One night he +awoke from sleep, and found that the neck-band of his shirt had become +entangled with the cord by which he kept his precious emerald and a +written charm suspended round his neck. He tried to disentangle the knot, +but in vain, so he left the complication as it was, purposing to unravel +it by daylight. He did not fall asleep; but, after lying quiet for a +little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot, +when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit. +"This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty +difficulties, and at the same time proved, as I have often said elsewhere, +that there must have been present something else unperceived<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> by me. For +my affairs were in this condition: my son-in-law at Milan had the +administration of the scant remains of my property, and I received no +rents therefrom for a whole year. My literary work was lying at the +printer's, but it was not printed. Here, at Bologna, I was forced to +lecture without having a fixed hour assigned to me. A crowd of enemies +were intriguing against me. My son Aldo was in prison, and of little +profit to me. But immediately after this portent I learned that my two +chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the +lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to +live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next +describe what came to pass with regard to the others.</p> + +<p>"During the next July (1564), through the help of Francesco Alciati,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> +the secretary of Pope Pius IV., a man to whom I am indebted for almost +every benefit I have received since 1561, I began to enjoy my own again. +On August 26 I received from the printer my books all printed with the +greatest care, and by reason of the dispatch of this business my income +was greatly increased. The next day my chief opponent resigned his office, +and left vacant a salary of seven hundred gold crowns. The only +manifestation of adverse fortune left to trouble me was the conspiracy of +the doctors against me, but there were already signs that this would +disappear before long, and in sooth it came to an end after the lapse of +another year."<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p> + +<p>During this portion of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived +comparatively alone, and to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> spent his weary leisure in brooding over +his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the <i>De Libris +Propriis</i>, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over +Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily +come as a friend to those whose lives are wretched, he begins to speculate +whether, after all, he ought not to rejoice rather than mourn over his +son's death. "Certes he is rid of this miserable life of danger and +difficulty, vain, sorrowful, brief, and inconstant; these times in which +the major part of the good things of the world fall to the trickster's +share, and all may be enjoyed by those who are backed up by wealth or +power or favour. Power is good when it is in the hands of those who use it +well, but it is a great evil when murderers and poisoners are allowed to +wield it. To the ill-starred, to the ungodly, and to the foolish, death is +a boon, freeing them from numberless dangers, from heavy griefs, from +fatal troubles, and from infamy; wherefore in such cases it ought not to +be spoken of as something merely good or indifferent, but rated as the +best of fortune. Shall I not declare to God (for He willed the deed), to +myself, and to my surviving family, that my son's death was a thing to be +desired, for God does all justly, wisely, and lovingly? He lets me stand +as an example to show others that a good and upright man cannot be +altogether wretched. I am poor, infirm, and old; bereaved by a cruel wrong +of my best-loved son, a youth of the fairest promise, and left only with +the faintest hope of any ray of future good fortune, or of seeing my race +perpetuated after my death, for my daughter, who has been nine years +married, is barren.</p> + +<p>"At one time I was prosperous in every relation of life: in my +friendships, in my children, and in my health. In my youth I seemed to be +one raised up to realize the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> highest hopes. I was accustomed to all the +good things—nay, to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched, +despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable, +I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I +neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work +as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for +this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs +better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book which I +have lately published with those which I wrote some time ago, he will not +fail to perceive how vastly my intellect has gained in richness, in +vivacity, and in purity."</p> + +<p>Though the note of sorrow or even of despair is perceptible in these +sentences, there is no sign that the virile and elastic spirit of the +writer is broken. But there are manifest signs of an increasing tendency +towards mental detachment from the world which had used him so ill. With +the happiest of men the almost certain prospect of extinction at the end +of a dozen years usually tends to foster the growth of a conviction that +the world after all is a poor affair, and that to quit it is no great +evil. How strongly therefore must reflections of a kindred nature have +worked upon a man so cruelly tried as Cardan!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> "Sed filius minor natu adeò malè se gessit, ut malim +transire in nepotem ex primo filio."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvi. p. +112.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxvii. p. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xii. p. 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 459.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xvii. p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxiii. p. 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> This opinion prevailed with men of learning far into the +next century. Sir Thomas Browne writes: "They that doubt of these, do not +only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sect +not of infidels, but atheists."—<i>Religio Medici, Works</i>, vol. ii. p. 89.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> This was the Cardinal, the nephew of Andrea the great +jurist, who was also a good friend of Cardan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 463.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the beginning of the year 1565 Cardan had a narrow escape from death by +burning, for his bed from some unknown cause caught fire twice in the same +night while he was asleep. The servant was disturbed by the smoke, and +having aroused his master, told him what was amiss, whereupon Cardan flew +into a violent rage, for he deemed that the youth must be drunk. But he +soon perceived the danger, and then they both set to work to extinguish +the flames. His own description of the occurrence is highly +characteristic. "Having put out the fire, I settled myself again to sleep, +and, while I was dreaming of alarms, and that I was flying from some +danger, it happened that either these terrifying dreams, or the fire and +smoke again aroused me, and, looking around, I found that the bed was once +more alight, and the greater part of it consumed. The vari-coloured +coverlet, the leather hangings, and all the covering of the bed was +unhurt. Thus this great alarm and danger and serious disturbance caused +only a trifling loss; less than half of the bed-linen was burnt, but the +blankets were entirely consumed. On the first alarm the flames burnt out +twice or thrice with little smoke, and caused scarcely any damage. The +second time the fire and the mishap forced me to rise just before dawn, +the fire lasting altogether about seven hours."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was naturally a warning sign to be found in this accident.<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> The +smoke, Cardan said, denoted disgrace; the fire, peril and fear; the flame, +a grave and pressing danger to his life. The smouldering fire signified +secret plots which were to be put into execution against him by his +servants while he lay in bed. And the fact that he set fire to the bed +himself, denoted that he would be able to meet any coming danger alone and +without assistance. The indictment against him was foreshadowed by the +fire and the flames and the smoke. Poison and assault were not to be +feared. Men might indeed ask questions as to what kind of danger it could +be which only arose from those about him, and fell short of poison and +violence. The fire, he goes on to say, signifies the Magistrate. More than +once it seemed to be extinct, but it always revived. Danger seemed to +threaten him less from open hostility than from the cunning flattery of +foes, and from over-confidence on his own part. His books, which he had +lately caused to be printed, appeared to be in grave peril, but a graver +one overhung his life. He deemed that he would quit the tribunal condemned +by the empty scandal of the crowd, suffering no slight loss, and worsted +chiefly through putting faith in false friends, and through his own +instability. On the whole, the loss would prove inconsiderable; the danger +moderate, but the vexation exceedingly heavy. These results might have +sprung from causes other than natural ones; but, on the other hand, such +things often come about through chance. They might prove to be a warning +to him to keep clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> of hostile prejudice, and to make friends of those +in authority, care being taken not to let himself become involved in their +private affairs, and not to seek too close an acquaintance.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p> + +<p>Up to this date, Cardan, when he visited his patients, had either walked +or ridden a mule. In 1562 he began to use a carriage, but this change of +habit brought ill luck with it, for, in this same year, his horses ran +away; he was thrown out of the vehicle, and sustained an injury to one of +the fingers of his right hand, and to the right arm as well.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> The +finger soon healed, but the damage to the right arm shifted itself over to +the left side, leaving the right arm sound. The foregoing details, taken +chiefly from the <i>Paralipomena</i> (Book III. ch. xii.), are somewhat +significant in respect to the serious trouble which came upon him soon +afterwards.</p> + +<p>Though he had now secured a class-room for himself, the malice of his +enemies was not yet abated. Just before the end of his term, certain of +them went to Cardinal Morone and told him that it would be inexpedient to +allow Cardan to retain his Professorship any longer, seeing that scarcely +any pupils went to listen to him. The terms Cardan used in describing this +hostile movement against him,<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> rouse a suspicion that there may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> have +been some ground for the assertion of his adversaries; but he declares +that, at any rate, he had a good many pupils from the beginning of the +session up to the time of Lent. He gives no clue whereby the date of this +intrigue may be exactly ascertained, but it probably happened near the end +of his sojourn at Bologna, because in his account of it he describes +likewise the cessation of his public teaching, and makes no mention of any +resumption of the same. He declares that he was at last overborne by the +multitude of his foes, and their cunning plots. Under the pretence that, +in seeking Cardan's removal, they were really acting for his benefit, they +succeeded in bringing Cardinal Morone round to their views. Cardan's final +words in dealing with this matter help to fix the date of this episode as +some time in 1570. Speaking of his enemies, he writes: "Nay indeed they +have given me greater leisure for the codification of my books, they have +lengthened my days, they have increased my fame, and, by procuring my +removal from the work which was too laborious for me, they secured for me +the pleasure I now enjoy in the discovery and investigation of divers of +the secrets of Nature. Therefore I constantly tell myself that I do not +hate these men, nor deem them blameworthy, because they wrought me an ill +turn, but because of the malignancy they had in their hearts."<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a></p> + +<p>It is almost certain that this removal of Cardan from his office of +teacher was part and parcel of a carefully-devised plot against him, and a +prelude to more serious trouble in the near future. Early in April 1570 he +had occasion to put into writing a certain medical opinion which was to be +sent to Cardinal Morone. He describes the episode: "It chanced that one of +the sheets of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> manuscript fell from the table down upon the floor, and +then flew by itself up to the cornice of the room, where it hung, fixed to +the woodwork. Greatly amazed, I called for Rodolfo, and pointed out to him +this marvel. He did not indeed see it fly up, and at that time I was +ignorant as to what it might foretell, for I had no foreboding of the many +ills which were about to molest me. But now I see that the meaning of this +portent must have been that, after the approaching shipwreck of my +fortunes, my bark would be sped along with a more favouring breeze. It was +during the month following, unless I am mistaken, that, when I was once +more writing a letter to Cardinal Morone, I looked for a certain +powder-box which had been missing for some long time, and, when I lifted +up a sheet of paper in order to powder it with dust gathered up from the +floor of the room, there was the powder-box, hidden beneath the sheet. How +could it have come there on the level writing-desk? This sign confirmed +the hope I had already conceived of the Cardinal's wisdom and humanity; +that he would plead with the Pope, the best of men, in such wise that I +should find a prosperous end to my toilsome life."<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p> + +<p>The blow thus foreshadowed fell on October 6, 1570, when he was suddenly +arrested and put under restraint. He speaks of a bond which he gave for +eighteen hundred gold crowns; and says that, while he was in hold, all his +estate was administered by the civil authorities. Rodolfo Sylvestro was +constantly with him during his incarceration, and on January 1, 1571, he +was released, just at nightfall, and allowed to return to his own house. +While he was in prison in the month of October some mysterious knockings +at the door supplied him with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> fulfilment and explanation of the +portents lately chronicled. The knockings appeared furthermore to warn him +of approaching death, and he began to bewail his misery; but, having +gathered courage, he heartened himself to face his doom, which could be +nothing worse than death. Young men, leaders of armies, courted death in +battle to win the favour of their sovereigns; wherefore he, a decrepit old +man, might surely await his end with calmness. He then wanders off into a +long disquisition on the philosophy of Polybius, and forgets entirely to +set down further details of his imprisonment, or to explain the cause +thereof.</p> + +<p>Pius IV. had died at the end of 1565, and had been succeeded by Michele +Ghislieri, the Cardinal of Alessandria, as Pius V. Like his predecessor, +the new Pope was a Milanese by birth, but in character and aims the two +Popes were entirely different. Pius. V. identified himself completely with +the work of the Holy Office, and straightway set in operation all its +powers for the extirpation of the heretical opinions which, on account of +the easy-going character of the late Pope, had made much progress in +Italy, and nowhere more than in Bologna. Von Ranke, in the <i>History of the +Popes</i>, gives an extract (vol. i. p. 97) from the compendium of the +Inquisitors, which sets forth that "Bologna was in a very perilous state, +because there the heretics were especially numerous; amongst them was a +certain Gian Battista Rotto, who enjoyed the friendship and support of +many persons of weight, such as Morone, Pole, and the Marchesa Pescara +(Vittoria Colonna). Rotto made himself very active in collecting money, +which he distributed amongst the poor folk of Bologna who were heretics."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p><p>It will be remembered that in 1562, while he was waiting in Milan for the +appointment as Professor at Bologna, Cardan submitted his books to the +Congregation of the Index for approval. He was known to be a +fellow-citizen and friend of the reigning Pope: the <i>corpus</i> of his work +had by that time reached a portentous size, wherefore it is quite possible +that the official readers may have been lenient, or cursory, over their +work; but when Pius V., the strenuous ascetic foe of heresy, stepped into +the place of the indolent Pius IV., jurist and politician rather than +Churchman, it is more than probable that certain amateur inquisitors at +Bologna, fully as anxious to work Cardan's ruin as to safeguard the faith, +may have busied themselves in hunting through his various works for +passages upon which to base a charge of unorthodoxy. Such passages were +not hard to find. There was the horoscope of Jesus Christ, which +subsequently affronted the piety of De Thou. There was the passage already +noticed in which he said such hard things of the Dominicans (<i>De Varietate +Rerum</i>, 1557, p. 572). He had indeed disclaimed it, but there it stood +unexpunged in the subsequent editions of the book; and, while considering +this detail, it may be remarked that Pius V. began his career as a member +of the Dominican Order, the practices of which Cardan had impugned. In the +first and second editions of the <i>De Subtilitate</i> was another passage in +which the tenets of Islam and the circumstances of the birth of Christ +were handled in a way which caused grave scandal and offence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> This +passage indeed was expunged in the edition of 1560. The <i>Paralipomena</i> +were not in print and available, but what can be read in them to-day +doubtless reflects with accuracy the attitude of Cardan's mind towards +religious matters in 1570. Though the <i>Paralipomena</i> were locked in his +desk, it is almost certain that the spirit with which they were inspired +would have infected Cardan's brain, and prompted him to repeat in words +the views on religion and a future state which he had already put on +paper, for he rarely let discretion interfere with the enunciation of any +opinion he favoured. In the <i>Paralipomena</i> are many passages written in +the spirit of universalism, and treating of the divine principle as +something which animates wise men alone, wise men and philosophers of +every age and every clime, Aristotle being the head and chief. Plato and +Socrates and the Seven Sages adorn this illustrious circle, which includes +likewise the philosophers of Chaldea and Egypt. Opinions like these were +no longer the passport to Papal favour or even toleration. The age of the +humanist Popes was past, and the Puritan movement, stimulated into life by +the active competition of the Reformers, was beginning to show its +strength, so that a man who spoke in terms of respect or reverence +concerning Averroes or Plato would put himself in no light peril. Thus for +those of Cardan's enemies who were minded to search and listen it must +have been an easy task to formulate against him a charge of heresy, +specious enough to carry conviction to such a burning zealot as Pius V. +This Pope, in his new regulations for the maintenance of Church +discipline, requisitioned the services of physicians in the detection of +laxity of religious practices, or of unsoundness. "We forbid," he says in +one of his bulls, "every physician, who may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> called to the bedside of a +patient, to visit for more than three days, unless he receives an +attestation that the sick man has made fresh confession of his sins."<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> +Cardan, with his irritable temper, may very likely have treated this +regulation as an unwarrantable interference with his profession, and have +paid no attention to it. Again, he evidently followed Hippocrates in +rejecting the supernatural origin of disease; a position greatly in +advance of that held by certain of the leading physiologists of the +time.<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> Thus in more ways than one he may have laid himself open to +some charge of disrespect shown to religion or to the spiritual powers. +The absence of any other specific accusation and the circumstances of his +incarceration, taken in conjunction with the foregoing considerations, +almost compel the conclusion that his arrest and imprisonment in 1570 were +brought about by a charge of impiety whispered by some envious tongue +which will never now be identified. The sanction given by the authorities +of the Church to his writings in 1562, operated without doubt to mitigate +the punishment which fell upon him, and suffered him, after due purgation +of his offences, to enjoy for the residue of his days a life comparatively +quiet and prosperous under the patronage of Pius V.</p> + +<p>Though he was let out of prison he was not yet a free man. For some twelve +weeks longer he remained a prisoner in his own house, the bond for +eighteen hundred gold crowns having doubtless been given on this account. +Almost his last reflection about his life at Bologna is one in which he +records his satisfaction that all the men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>who plotted against him there +met their death soon after their attempt, thus sharing the fate of his +enemies at Milan and Pavia. If he is to be believed in this matter, the +Fates, though they might not shield him from attack, proved themselves to +be diligent and remorseless avengers of his wrongs. At the end of +September he turned his back upon Bologna and the cold hospitality it had +given him, and set forth on his last journey. He travelled by easy stages, +and entered Rome on October 7, 1571, the day upon which Don John of +Austria annihilated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.</p> + +<p>There are evidences in his later writings beyond those already cited, that +Cardan's views on religion had undergone change during his sojourn at +Bologna. It was the custom, even with theologians of the time, to +illustrate freely from the classics, wherefore the spectacle of the names +of the great men of Greek and Roman letters, scattered thickly about the +pages of any book, would not prove or even suggest unorthodoxy. Cardan +quotes Plato or Aristotle or Plotinus twenty times for any saint in the +Calendar. He does not mention the Virgin more than once or twice in the +whole of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>; and, in discoursing on the immortality of +the soul, he cites the opinion of Avicenna, but makes no mention of either +saint or father.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> The world of classic thought was immeasurably nearer +and more real to Cardan than it can be to any modern dweller beyond the +Alps: to him there had been no solution of continuity between classic +times and his own. When he sat down to write in the <i>Theonoston</i> his +meditations on the death of his son, in the vain hope of reaping +consolation therefrom, he invoked the golden rule of Plotinus, which lays +down that the future is foreseen and arranged by the gods. Being thus +arranged, it must needs be just, for God is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> highest expression of +justice. Against a fate thus settled for us we have no right to complain, +lest we should seem to be setting ourselves into opposition to God's will. +Here, although he writes in the spirit of a Christian, the authority cited +is that of a heathen philosopher, and the form of his meditations is taken +rather from Seneca than from father or schoolman. The devotional bias of +Cardan's nature seems to have been strengthened temporarily by the +terrible experiences of Gian Battista's trial and death; but in the course +of his residence at Bologna a marked reaction set in, and the fervent +religious outburst, in which he sought consolation during his intolerable +sorrow, was succeeded by a calmer mood which regarded the necessary evils +of life as transitory accidents, and death as the one and certain end of +sorrow, and perhaps of consciousness as well. What he wrote during his +residence in Rome he kept in manuscript; his recent experience at Bologna +warned him that, living under the shadow of the Vatican with Pius V. as +the ruler thereof, it behoved him to walk as an obedient son of the +Church.</p> + +<p>Cardan went first to live in the Piazza di San Girolamo, not far from the +Porto del Popolo, but subsequently he lived in a house in the Via Giulia +near the church of Santa Maria di Monserrato, where probably he died. He +had not long been settled in Rome before he was able to add a fresh +supernatural experience to his already overburdened list. In the month of +August 1572 he was lying awake one night with a lamp burning, when +suddenly he heard a loud noise to the right of the chamber, as if a cart +laden with planks was being unloaded. He looked up, and, the door being +open at the time, he perceived a peasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> entering the room. Just as he +was on the threshold the intruder uttered the words, "<i>Te sin casa</i>," and +straightway vanished. This apparition puzzled him greatly, and he alludes +to it again in chapter xlvii. of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>. Ultimately he +dismisses it with the remark that the explanation of such phenomena is +rather the duty of theologians than of philosophers.</p> + +<p>With regard to matters of religious belief he seems to have taken as a +rule of conduct the remark above written, and left them to the care of +professional experts, for very few of his recorded opinions throw any +light upon his views of the dogmas and doctrines of the Church. Whatever +the tenor of these opinions may have been, he never proclaimed them +definitely. Probably they interested him little, for he was not the man to +keep silent over a subject which he had greatly at heart. He gave a +general assent to the teaching of the Church, taking up the mental +attitude of the vast majority of the learned men of his time, and expected +that the Church would do all that was necessary for him in its own +particular province. If he regarded Erasmus and Luther as disturbers of +the faith and heretics, he did not say so, nor did he censure their +activity. (Erasmus he praises highly in the opening words of the horoscope +which he drew for him.—<i>Gen. Ex.,</i> p. 496.) But he had certainly no +desire to emulate them or give them his support. The world of letters and +science was wide enough even for his active spirit; the world lying behind +the veil he left to the exploration of those inquirers who might have a +taste for such a venture. Still every page of his life's record shows how +strong was his bent towards the supernatural; but the phase of the +supernatural which he chose for study was one which Churchmen, as a rule,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +had let alone. Spirits wandering about this world were of greater moment +to him than spirits fixed in beatitude or bane in the next; and +accordingly, whenever he finds an opportunity, he discourses of +apparitions, lamiæ, incubi, succubi, malignant and beneficent genii, and +the methods of invoking them. Now that old age was pressing heavily upon +him and he began to yearn for support, he sought consolation not in the +ecstatic vision of the fervent Catholic, but in fostering the belief that +he was in sooth under the protection of some guardian spirit like that +which had attended his father and divers of the sages of old. Although he +had in his earlier days treated his father's belief with a certain degree +of respect and credence,<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> there is no evidence that he was possessed +with the notion that any such supernatural guardian attended his own +footsteps at the time when he put together the <i>De Varietate</i>; indeed it +would seem that his belief was exactly the opposite. He writes as follows: +"It is first of all necessary to know that there is one God, the Author of +all good, by whose power all things were made, and in whose name all good +things are brought to pass; also, that if a man shall err he need not be +guilty of sin. That there is no other to whom we owe anything or whom we +are bound to worship or serve. If we keep these sayings with a pure mind +we shall be kept pure ourselves and free from sin. What a demon may be I +know not, these beings I neither recognize nor love. I worship one God, +and Him alone I serve. And in truth these things ought not to be published +in the hearing of unlearned folk; for, if once this belief in spirits be +taken up, it may easily come to pass that they who apply themselves to +such arts will attribute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> God's work to the devil."<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> And in another +place: "I of a truth know of no spirit or genius which attends me; but +should one come to me, after being warned of the same in dreams, if it +should be given to me by God, I will still reverence God alone; to Him +alone will I give thanks, for any benefit which may befall me, as the +bountiful source and principle of all good. And, in sooth, the spirit may +rest untroubled if I repay my debt to our common Master. I know full well +that He has given to me, for my good genius, reason, patience in trouble, +a good disposition, a disregard of money and dignities, which gifts I use +to the full, and deem them better and greater possessions than the Demon +of Socrates."<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></p> + +<p>About the Demon of Socrates Cardan has much to say in the <i>De Varietate</i>. +He never even hints a doubt as to the veracity and sincerity of Socrates. +He is quite sure that Socrates was fully persuaded of the reality of his +attendant genius, and favours the view that this belief may have been well +founded. He takes an agnostic position,<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> confining his positive +statement to an assertion of his own inability to realize the presence of +any ghostly minister attendant upon himself. In the <i>De Subtilitate</i> he +tells an experience of his own by way of suggesting that some of the +demons spoken of by the retailers of marvels might be figments of the +brain. In 1550 Cardan was called in to see a certain woman who had long +been troubled with an obscure disease of the bladder. Every known remedy +was tried in vain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> when one day a certain Josephus Niger,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> a +distinguished Greek scholar, went to see the patient. Niger, according to +Cardan's account, was quite ignorant of medicine, but he was reputed to be +a skilled master of magic arts. The woman had a son, a boy about ten years +old, and Josephus having handed him a three-cornered crystal, which he had +with him, bade the youth secretly to look into it, and then declare, in +his mother's hearing, that he could see in the crystal three very terrible +demons going on foot. Then, after Josephus had whispered certain other +words in the boy's ear, the boy went on to say that he beheld another +demon, vastly bigger than the first, riding on horseback and bearing in +his hand a three-tined fork. This monster overthrew the other demons, and +led them away captive, bound with chains to his saddlebow. After listening +to these words the woman rapidly got well, and Cardan, in commenting on +the event, declares that she must have been cured either by the agency of +the demons or by the force of the imagination, inasmuch as it would be +difficult, if not impossible, to invent any other reason of her +recovery.<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> In another passage of the <i>De Subtilitate</i> he displays +judicious reserve in writing of Demons in general.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a></p> + +<p>During those terrible days, when his son had just died a felon's death, +and when he himself was haunted by the real dangers which beset him, and +almost maddened by the signs and tokens which seemed to tell of others to +come, the belief which Fazio his father had nourished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> easily found a +lodgment in his shaken and bewildered brain. In the <i>Dialogus de Humanis +Consiliis</i>, one of the speakers tells of a certain man who is clearly +meant to be Cardan himself. The speaker goes on to say that he is sure +this man is attended by a genius, which manifested itself to him somewhat +late in his life. "Aforetime, indeed, it had been wont to convey to him +warnings in dreams and by certain noises. What greater proof of his power +could there be than the cure of this man, without the use of drugs, of an +intestinal rupture on the right side? If indeed it had not fared with him +thus, after his son's death, he would at once have passed out of this +life, whereby many and great evils might have come to pass. He was freed +also from another troublesome ailment. In sooth, so many and so mighty are +the wonderful things which had befallen him, that I, who am very intimate +with him (and he himself thinks the same), am constrained to believe that +he is attended by a genius, great and powerful and rare, and that he is +not the master of his own actions. What he would have, he has not; and +what he has, he would not have chosen, or even wished for. This thing +causes him much trouble, but he submits when he reflects that all things +are God's handiwork." The speaker ends by saying that he never heard of +any others thus attended, save this man, and his father before him, and +Socrates.<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a></p> + +<p>But it is in chapter xlvii. of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, which must have been +written shortly before his death, that he lets the reader see most plainly +how strong was the hold which this belief in a guardian spirit of his own +had taken upon him. "It is an admitted truth," he writes, "that attendant +spirits have protected certain men, to wit, Socrates, Plotinus, Synesius, +Dion, Flavius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> Josephus, and myself. All of these have enjoyed prosperous +lives except Socrates and me, and I, as I have said before, was at one +time offered many and favourable opportunities for the achievement of +happiness. But C. Cæsar the dictator, Cicero, Antony, Brutus, and Cassius +were also attended by mighty spirits, albeit malignant. For a long time I +have been persuaded that I too had one, but by what method it gave me +intelligence as to events about to happen, I could not exactly ascertain +until I reached the seventy-fourth year of my age, the season when I began +to write this record of my life. I now perceive that when I was in Milan +in 1557, when my genius perceived what was hanging over me—how that my +son on that same evening had promised to marry Brandonia Seroni, and that +he would complete the nuptials the following day—it produced in me that +palpitation of the heart of which I have already made mention, a weakness +known to my genius alone, a manifestation which served to simulate a +trembling of the bed."</p> + +<p>Cardan writes at length to show that the mysterious knocking which he and +Rodolfo Sylvestro had heard during his imprisonment at Bologna, the +peasant who entered his bed-chamber saying "<i>Te sin casa</i>," and divers +other manifestations, going back as far as 1531—croaking of ravens, +barking of dogs, and the ignition of fire-wood—must all have been brought +about by the working of this powerful spirit. In 1570 there happened to +him one of his everyday experiences of the presence of supernatural +powers. In the middle of the night he was conscious of some presence +walking about the room. It sat down beside him, and at the same time a +loud noise arose from a chest which stood near. This phenomenon, he +admits, might well have been the figment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> of a brain overburdened with +thought; but suddenly his memory flies back to an experience of his +twentieth year, upon which he proceeds to build a story, wild and fanciful +even for his powers of imagination. "What man was it," he asks, "who sold +me that copy of Apuleius when I was in my twentieth year, and forthwith +went away? I indeed, at that time, had made only one essay in the literary +arena, and had no knowledge of the Latin tongue; but in spite of this, and +because the book had a gilded cover, I was imprudent enough to buy it. The +very next day I found myself just as well versed in Latin as I am now. +Moreover, almost at the same time I acquired knowledge of Greek and +Spanish and French, sufficient for reading books written in these +languages."</p> + +<p>Cardan was by this time completely possessed by the belief in his +attendant genius, and the flash of memory which recalled the purchase of +some book or other in his youth, suggested likewise the attribution of +certain mystic powers to this guardian genius, and conjured up some +fanciful explanation as to the way these powers had been exercised upon +himself; he, the person most closely concerned, being entirely unconscious +of their operation at the time when they first affected him. This recorded +belief in a gift of tongues is one of the most convincing bits of evidence +to be gleaned from Cardan's writings of the insanity which undoubtedly +afflicted him, at least periodically, at this crisis of his life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> He mentions this matter briefly in the <i>De Vita Propria</i>: +"Bis arsisset lectus, prædixi me non permansurum Bononiæ, et prima vice +restiti, secunda non potui."—ch. xli. p. 151. A fuller account of it is +in <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 464.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxx. p. 80. He seems to have had +many untoward experiences in driving. He tells of another mishap (<i>Opera</i>, +tom. i. p. 472) in June 1570; how a fellow, some tipstaff of the courts, +jumped into his carriage and frightened the mares Cardan was driving, +jeering at them likewise because they were rather bare of flesh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> "Demum sub conductionis fine, voces sparserunt, et maxime +apud Moronum Cardinalem, me exiguo auditorio profiteri, quod quanquam non +omnino verum esset, quinimo ab initio Academiæ multos, et usque ad dies +jejunii haberem auditores."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xvii. p. 56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xvii. p. 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xliii. p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> "Alii multis diebus abstinent cibo, alii igne uruntur, ac +ferro secantur, nullum doloris vestigium preferentes; multi sunt vocem e +pectore mittentes, qui olim engastrimuthi dicebantur; hoc autem maxime eis +contingit cum orgia quædam exercent, atque circumferuntur in orbem. Quæ +tria ut verissima sunt et naturali ratione mira tamen constant, cujus +superius mentionem fecimus, ita illud confictum nasci pueros e mulieribus +absque concubitu."—<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 353.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> Ranke, <i>History of the Popes</i>, vol. i. p. 246.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> Mr. Stephen Paget in his life of Ambroise Paré, the great +contemporary French surgeon, gives an interesting account of Paré's +beliefs on the divine cause of the plague, p. 269.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxii. p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> "Multa de dæmonibus narrabat, quæ quam vera essent +nescio."—<i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 348.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 351.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 658.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> In his counsel to his children, he writes: "Do not believe +that you hear demons speak to you, or that you behold the dead. Seek not +to learn the truth of these things, for they are amongst the things which +are hidden from us."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> Cardan alludes to Niger in <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 641: +"Referebat aliquando Josephus Niger harum rerum maximé peritus, dæmonem +pueris se sub forma Christi ostendisse, petiisseque ut adoraretur."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> <i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 530.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> "Nolim ego ad trutinam hæc sectari, velut Porphyrius, +Psellus, Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblicus, qui copiose de his quæ non videre, +velut historiam natæ rei scripserunt."—<i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 540.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. 672.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the accusation brought against him at Milan in 1562, Cardan had been +prohibited from teaching or lecturing in that city, and similar +disabilities had followed his recent imprisonment at Bologna. At Rome no +duties of this kind awaited him, so he had full time to follow his +physician's calling after taking up his residence there. He records the +cure of a noble matron, Clementina Massa, and of Cesare Buontempo, a +jurisconsult, both of whom had been suffering for nearly two years. The +circumstances of his retirement from Bologna would not affect his +reputation as a physician, and he seems to have had in Rome as many or +even more patients than he cared to treat; and in writing in general terms +concerning his successes as a healer, he says: "In all, I restored to +health more than a hundred patients, given up as incurable in Milan, in +Bologna, and in Rome." Of all the friends Cardan had in this closing +period of his life, none was more useful or benevolent than Cardinal +Alciati, who, although he had been secretary to Pius IV., contrived to +retain the favour of his successor. This piece of good fortune Alciati +owed to the protection of Carlo Borromeo, who had been his pupil at Pavia, +and had procured for him from Pius IV. a bishopric, a cardinal's hat, and +the secretaryship of Dataria. Another of Cardan's powerful friends was the +Prince of Matellica,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> of whom he speaks in terms of praise inflated enough +to be ridiculous, were it not for the accompanying note of pathos. After +celebrating the almost divine character of this nobleman, his munificence +and his superhuman abilities, he goes on: "What could there be in me to +win the kindly notice of such a patron? Certainly I had done him no +service, nor could he hope I should ever do him any in the future, I, an +old man, an outcast of fortune, and prostrated by calamity. In sooth, +there was naught about me to attract him; if indeed he found any merit in +me, it must have been my uprightness."</p> + +<p>Powerful friends are never superfluous, and Cardan seems to have needed +them in Rome as much as in Bologna. In 1573 he again hints at plots +against his life, but almost immediately after recording his suspicions he +goes on to suggest that his danger had arisen chiefly from his ignorance +of the streets of Rome, and from the uncouth manners of the populace. +"Many physicians, more cautious than myself, and better versed in the +customs of the place, have come by their death from similar cause." The +danger, whatever its nature, seems to have threatened him as a member of +the practising faculty at Rome rather than as the persecuted ex-teacher of +Pavia and Bologna. Rodolfo Sylvestro was not the only one of his former +associates near him in his old age, for he notes that Simone Sosia, who +had been his <i>famulus</i> at Pavia in 1562, was still in his service at Rome.</p> + +<p>In reviewing the machinations of his enemies to bring about his dismissal +from the Professorship at Bologna, Cardan indulges in the reflection that +these men unwillingly did him good service, that is, they procured him +leisure which he might use in the completion of his unfinished works, and +in the construction of fresh monuments<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> which he proposed to build up out +of the vast store of material accumulated in his industrious brain. The +literary record of his life in Rome shows that this was no vain saying. He +was at work on the later chapters of the <i>De Vita Propria</i> up to the last +weeks of his life; and, scattered about these, there are records of his +work of correction and revising. While telling of the books he has lately +been engaged with, he wanders off in the same sentence to talk of the +dream which urged him to write the <i>De Subtilitate</i>, and of the execution +of the <i>Commentarii in Ptolomæum</i>, during his voyage down the Loire. In +1573 he seems to have found the mass of undigested work more than he could +bear to behold; for, after making extracts of such matter as he deemed +worth keeping, he consigned to the flames no less than a hundred and +twenty of his manuscripts.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Before leaving Bologna he had put into +shape the <i>Proxenata</i>, a lengthy collection of hints, maxims, and +reflections as to everyday life; he had re-edited the <i>Liber Artis Magnæ</i>, +and had added thereto the treatise <i>De Proportionibus</i>, and the <i>Regula +Aliza</i>. He also took in hand two books on Geometry, and one on Music, and +this last he completed in 1574. On November 16, 1574, he records that he +is at that moment writing an explanation of the more abstruse works of +Hippocrates, but that he is yet far from the end of his task.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>In the <i>De Libris Propriis</i> he gives a list of all his published works, +and likewise a table of the same arranged in the order in which they ought +to be read. He apologizes for the imperfect state in which some of them +are left, and declares that the sight of his unfinished tasks never fails +to awaken in his breast a bitter sense of resentment over that loss which +he had never ceased to mourn. "At one time I hoped," he writes, "that +these works would be corrected by my son, but this favour you see has been +denied to me. The desire of my enemies was not to make an end of him, but +of me; not by gentle means, in sooth, but by cruel open murder; to let me +fall in the very blood of my son." It is somewhat remarkable that in this +matter Cardan was destined to suffer a disappointment similar to that +which he himself brought upon his own father by refusing to qualify +himself to become the commentator on Archbishop Peckham's <i>Perspectiva</i>. +He next gives the names of all those who had commended him in their works, +and finds a special cause for gratification in the fact that, out of the +long list set down, only four or five were known to him personally, and +these not intimately. There is, however, another short list of censors; +and of these he affirms that a certain Brodeus alone is worthy of respect. +Of Buteon, who criticized the treatise on <i>Arithmetic</i>, he says: "<i>Est +plane stultus et elleboro indiget.</i>" Tartaglia's name is there, and he, +according to Cardan, was forced to eat his words; "but he was ashamed to +do what he promised, and unwilling to blot out what he had written. He +went on in his wrong-headed course, living upon the labour of other men +like a greedy crow, a manifest robber of other men's wealth of study; so +impudent that he published as his own, in the Italian tongue, that +invention for the raising of sunken ships which I had made known four +years before. This he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> did, understanding the subject only imperfectly, +and making no mention of my name. But men of real learning also attacked +me: Rondeletius, and Julius Scaliger; and Fuchsius, in the proem of his +book, says that my work <i>Medicinæ Contradictiones</i> should be avoided like +deadly poison. Julius Scaliger has been fully answered in the <i>Apologia</i> +in the Books on Subtlety."<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a></p> + +<p>There is a passage from De Thou's <i>History of his Own Times</i>, affixed to +all editions of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>,<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> in which is given a +contemporary sketch of Cardan during his residence at Rome. "His whole +life," De Thou writes, "has been as strange as his present manners, and +he, in sooth, out of singleness of mind or frankness, has written about +himself certain statements, the like of which have never before been heard +of a man of letters, and these I do not feel bound to unfold to any one, +let him be ever so curious. I, myself, happening to be in Rome a few years +before his death, often spoke to him and observed him with astonishment as +he took his walks about the city clad in strange garb. When I considered +the many writings of this famous man, I could perceive in him nothing to +justify his great renown. Wherefore I am all the more inclined to turn to +that very acute criticism of Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who exercised his +extraordinary genius in making a special examination of the treatise <i>De +Subtilitate Rerum</i>. He, having carefully noted everywhere the unequal +powers of this writer, decided that he was one who, in certain subjects, +knew more than a man could know, while in others he seemed more simple +than a child. In the science of Arithmetic he worked hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> and made many +discoveries; but he was subject to strange and excessive aberration of +mind, and was guilty of the most impudent blasphemy, in that he was minded +to subject to the artificial laws of the stars the Ruler of the stars +Himself, for this thing he did in the horoscope of our Saviour which he +drew."</p> + +<p>Another witness of his life in Rome is François d'Amboise, a young French +nobleman, who was engaged on his book <i>De Symbolis Heroicis</i>. He says that +he saw Cardan, who was living in a spacious house, on the walls of which, +in place of elegant paintings or vari-coloured tapestries, were written +the words, "<i>Tempus mea possessio</i>."</p> + +<p>In his later writings there are farther indications that he was wont to +conjure up omens and portents chiefly at those times when he was in danger +and mental distress. In the case which is given below, the omen showed +itself in a season of trouble, but Cardan, in describing it later, treats +it as if he were a modern scientist. The distressing memories of the +imprisonment had faded, and writing in ease and security at Rome he begins +to rationalize. In the dialogue between himself and his father, written +shortly before his death, Fazio calls his son's attention to certain of +the omens and portents already noticed; and, after discussing these, +Jerome goes on to tell for the first time of another boding event which, +as he affirms, distressed him even more than the loss of his office and +the prohibition to publish his books. On the day of his incarceration, on +two different occasions, he met a cow being driven to the slaughter-house, +with much shouting and beating with sticks and barking of dogs. The +explanation of this event which he puts in Fazio's mouth is entirely +conceived in the spirit of rationalism. What was there to wonder at? There +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> a butcher's shop in the street, and animals going to slaughter would +naturally be met there. Why should a man fear to meet a cow? If it had +been a bull there might have been something in it. Then with regard to the +shaking of a window-casement; this might easily have been occasioned by +the flight of a bird.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> He was certainly less inclined to put faith in +the warnings of the stars and in the lines of his hand. His line of life +was very short and irregular, intersected and bifurcated, while the rest +of the lines were little thicker than hairs. In his horoscope was a +certain malefic influence which threatened that his life would be cut +short before his forty-fifth year. "But," he writes in the year before his +death, "here I am, living at the age of seventy-five."<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> The one +supernatural idea which seems to have deepened with old age and remained +undisturbed to the end was his belief in his attendant genius. In what he +wrote during his last years his mood was almost entirely introspective, +contemplative, and didactic, yet here and there he introduces a sentence +which lets in a little light from his way of life and personal affairs, +and helps to show how he occupied himself, and what his humour was. He +tells how one day, in 1576, he was writing about the fennel plant in his +treatise <i>De Tuenda Sanitate</i>, a plant which he praised highly because it +pleased his palate. But shortly afterwards, when he was walking one day in +the Roman vegetable market, an old man, shabbily dressed, met him and +dissuaded him from the use of the plant aforesaid, saying: "In Galen's +opinion you may as readily meet your death<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> thereby as by eating hemlock." +"I answered that I knew well enough the difference between hemlock and +fennel, but the old man said, 'Take care, I know what I am saying,' and +went on murmuring something about Galen. Whereupon I went home and found +in Galen a passage I had not hitherto noticed, and, having changed my +former views, I added many fresh excerpts to my treatise."</p> + +<p>Although his faith may have been shaken in the ability of the stars to +govern his own fortunes, he records a case in which he himself filled the +post of <i>vates</i>, and which came to a sudden and terrible issue. Cardan was +present at a supper-party, and in the course of conversation let fall the +remark, "I should like to say something, were I not afraid that my words +would disturb the company," to which one of the guests replied, "You mean +that you would prophesy death to one of us here present." Cardan replied, +"Yes, within the present year," and in the next sentence he tells how on +the first day of December in that same year a certain young man, named +Virgilius, who had been present at the gathering aforesaid, died, and he +sets down this event as a fulfilment of his prophecy.</p> + +<p>But in the same chapter he lets the reader into the secret of his system +of prophecy, and displays it as simply an affair of common-sense, one +recommended by Aristotle as the only trustworthy method of divining future +events. Cardan writes: "I used to inquire what might be the exact nature +of the business in hand, and began by making myself acquainted with the +character of the locality, the ways of the people, and the quality of the +chief actors. I unfolded a vast number of historical instances, leading +events and secret transactions as well, and then, when I had confirmed the +facts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> set forth by my method of art, I gave my judgment thereupon."<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a></p> + +<p>In his latter years Cardan must have been in easy circumstances. The +pension from the Pope—no mention is made of its amount—and the fees he +received from his patients allowed him to keep a carriage; and writing in +his seventy-fifth year, he says that no fees would tempt him to join any +consultation unless he should be well assured what sort of men he was +expected to meet.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p> + +<p>In the <i>Norma Vitæ Consarcinata</i><a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> he relates how in April 1576 there +were two inmates of the Xenodochium at Rome, Troilus and Dominicus. It +seemed that Troilus exercised some strange and malefic influence over his +companion, who was taken with fever. He got well of this, but only to fall +into a dropsy, which despatched him in a week. Shortly before his death, +at the seventh hour, he cried out to two Spaniards who were standing by +the bed that he had suffered such great torture from the working of +Troilus, and that he was dying therefrom. "Therefore," he cried, "in your +presence I summon him with my dying words to appear before God's tribunal, +that he may give an account of all the evil he has wrought against me." On +the following day there came a messenger from Corneto, a few miles from +Rome, saying that Troilus, who was sojourning there, had fallen sick. The +physician inquired at what hour, and the messenger said it was at seven +o'clock, a day or two ago. He lay ill some days, an unfavourable case, but +not a desperate one, and one night shortly afterwards at seven o'clock, +the top of the mosquito curtains fell, and he died at exactly the same +hour as Dominicus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>He tells another long story of an adventure which befell him in May 1576. +One day he was driving in his carriage in the Forum, when he remembered +that he wanted to see a certain jeweller who lived in a narrow alley close +by. Wherefore he told his coachman, a stupid fellow, to go to the Campo +Altoviti, and await him there. The coachman drove off apparently +understanding the order; but, instead of going to the place designated, +went somewhere else; so Cardan, when he set about to find his carriage, +sought in vain. He had a notion that the man had gone to a spot near the +citadel, so he walked thither, encumbered with the thick garments he had +put on as necessary for riding in the carriage. Just then he met a friend +of his, Vincenzio, a Bolognese musician, who remarked that Cardan was not +in his carriage as usual. The old man went on towards the citadel, but saw +nothing of the carriage; and now he began to be seriously troubled, for +there was naught else to be done but to go back over the bridge, and he +was wearied with long fasting and his heavy clothes. He might indeed have +asked for the loan of a carriage from the Governor of the castle; but he +was unwilling to do this, so having commended himself to God, he resolved +to use all his patience and prudence in finding his way back. He set out, +and when he had crossed the bridge, he entered the banking-house of the +Altoviti to inquire as to the alteration in the rate of exchange on +Naples, and there sat down to rest. While the banker was giving him this +information, the Governor entered the place, whereupon Cardan went out and +there he found his carriage, the driver having been informed by Vincenzio, +whom he had met, of the mistake he had made. Cardan got into the carriage, +and while he was wondering whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> or not he had better go home and break +his fast, he found three raisins in his pocket, and thus made a fortunate +ending of all his difficulties.</p> + +<p>All this reads like a commonplace chapter of accidents; but the events +recorded did not present themselves to Cardan in this guise. He sits down +to moralize over the succession of momentary events: his meeting with +Vincenzio; Vincenzio's meeting with the driver, and directions given to +the man to drive to the money-changers'; the presence of the Governor, his +exit from the bank, his consequent meeting with the carriage, and his +discovery of the raisins, seven occurrences in all, any one of which, if +it had happened a little sooner or a little later, would have brought +about great inconvenience, or even worse. He does not deny that other men +may not now and then encounter like experiences, but the experiences of +other men were not fraught with such momentous crises, nor did they +foreshadow so many or grave dangers.</p> + +<p>The chronicling of this episode and the fanciful coincidence of the deaths +of Dominicus and Troilus may be taken as evidence that his idiosyncrasies +were becoming aggravated by the decay of his faculties. Writing on October +1, 1576, he makes mention of the various testaments he had already made, +and goes on to say that he had resolved to make a new and final +disposition of his goods. He would fain have let his property descend to +his immediate offspring, but with a son like Aldo this was impossible, so +he left all to Gian Battista's son, who would now be a youth about +eighteen years of age, Aldo getting nothing. He desired, for reasons best +known to himself, that all his descendants should remain <i>in curatela</i> as +long as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>possible, and that all his property should be held on trust; if +the issue of his body should fail, then the succession should pass in +perpetuity to his kinsfolk on the father's side. He desired that his works +should be corrected and printed, and that, if heirs failed entirely, his +house at Bologna should pass to the University, and be styled, after his +family, <i>Collegium Cardanorum</i>.</p> + +<p>There is no authentic record of the exact date of Cardan's death. De Thou, +in writing the record of 1576, says that if Cardan's life had been +prolonged by three days he would have completed his seventy-fifth year. As +Cardan's birthday was September 24, 1501, this would fix his death on +September 21, 1576. The exact figures given by De Thou are: "eodem, quo +prædixerat, anno et die, videlicet XI. Kalend. VIII.," and he adds by way +of information that a belief was current at the time that Cardan, who had +foretold how he would die on this day and in this year, had abstained from +food for some days previous to his death in order to make the fatal day +square with the prophecy.</p> + +<p>But the details which Cardan himself has set down concerning the last few +weeks of his life are inconsistent with the facts chronicled by De Thou. +In the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, chapter xxxvi., Cardan records how on October 1, +1576, he set to work to make his last will and testament, wherefore if +credit is to be given to his version rather than to that of De Thou, he +was alive and active some days after the date of his death as fixed by the +chronicler. In cases where the record of an event of his early life given +in the <i>De Vita Propria</i> differs from an account of the same in some +contemporary writing, the testimony of the <i>De Vita Propria</i> may justly be +put aside; but in this instance he was writing of something which could +only have happened a few days past, and the balance of probability is that +he was right and De Thou wrong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> Bayle notices this discrepancy, and in +the same paragraph taxes De Thou with a mistake of which he is innocent. +He states that De Thou placed the date of Cardan's death in 1575, whereas +the excerpt cited above runs: "Thuanus ad annum MDLXXVI., p. 136, lib. +lxii. tom. 4. Romæ magni nominis sive Mathematicus, sive Medicus +Hieronymus Cardanus Mediol. natus hoc anno itidem obiit."</p> + +<p>No mention is made of the disease to which Cardan finally succumbed. Had +his frame not been of the strongest and most wiry, it must have gone to +pieces long before through the havoc wrought by the severe and continuous +series of ailments with which it was afflicted; so it seems permissible to +assume that he died of natural decay. His body was interred in the church +of Sant Andrea at Rome, and was subsequently transferred to Milan to be +deposited finally under the stone which covered the bones of his father in +the church of San Marco. This tomb, which Jerome had erected after Fazio's +death, bore the following inscription:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">FACIO CARDANO</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">1.C.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mors fuit id quod vixi: vitam mors dedit ipsa,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mens æterna manet, gloria tuta quies.</span><br /> +<br /> +Obiit anno MDXXIV. IV. Kalend. Sept. anno Ætatis LXXX.<br /> +Hieronymus Cardanus Medicus Parenti posterisque V.P.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> "Qua causa permotus sim ad scribendum, superius +intellexisse te existimo, quippe somnio monitus, inde bis, terque, ac +quater, ac pluries, ut alias testatus sum; sed et desiderio perpetuandi +nominis. Bis autem magnam copiam ac numerum eorum perdidi; primum circa +XXXVII annum, cum circiter IX. libros exussi, quod vanos ac nullius +utilitatis futuros esse intelligerem; anno autem MDLXXIII alios CXX +libros, cum jam calamitas illa cessasset cremavi."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. +xlv. pp. 174, 175.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 122.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, p. 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 639. In the <i>De Varietate</i> he says that +natural causes may in most cases be found for seeming marvels. "Ecce +auditur strepitus in domo, potest esse mus, felis, ericius, aut quod tigna +subsidant blatta."—p. 624.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xli. p. 152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, chapter xlii., <i>passim</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 66.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 339.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> Tomasinus, <i>Gymnasium Patavinum</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> estimates hitherto made concerning Cardan's character appear to have +been influenced too completely, one way or the other, by the judgment +pronounced upon him by Gabriel Naudé, and prefixed to all editions of the +<i>De Vita Propria</i>. Some writers have been disposed to treat Naudé as a +hide-bound pedant, insensible to the charm of genius, and the last man who +ought to be trusted as the valuator of a nature so richly gifted, +original, and erratic as was Cardan's. Such critics are content to regard +as black anything which Naudé calls white and <i>vice versâ</i>. Others accept +him as a witness entirely trustworthy, and adopt as a true description of +Cardan the paragraphs made up of uncomplimentary adjectives—applied by +Cardan to himself—which Naudé has transferred from the <i>De Vita Propria</i> +and the <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i> to his <i>Judicium de Cardano</i>.</p> + +<p>It may be conceded at once that the impression received from a perusal of +this criticism is in the main an unfavourable one of Cardan as a man, +although Naudé shows himself no niggard of praise when he deals with +Cardan's achievements in Medicine and Mathematics. But in appraising the +qualifications of Naudé to act as a judge in this case, it will be +necessary to bear in mind the fact that he was in his day a leading +exponent of liberal opinions, the author of a treatise exposing the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +mummeries and sham mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and of an "Apologie pour +les Grands Hommes soupçonnez de Magie," and a disbeliever in supernatural +manifestations of every kind. With a mind thus attuned it is no matter of +surprise that Naudé should have been led to speak somewhat severely when +called upon to give judgment on a man saturated as Cardan was with the +belief in sorcery, witches, and attendant demons.</p> + +<p>If Naudé indeed set to work with the intention of drawing a figure of +Cardan which should stand out a sinister apparition in the eyes of +posterity, his task was an easy one. All he had to do was to place Jerome +Cardan himself in the witness-box. Reference to the passages already +quoted will show that, in the whole <i>corpus</i> of autobiographic literature, +there does not exist a volume in which the work of self-dissection has +been so ruthlessly and completely undertaken and executed as in Cardan's +memoirs. It has all the vices of an old man's book; it is garrulous, +vain-glorious, and full of needless repetition; but, whatever portion of +his life may be under consideration, the author never shrinks from holding +up to the world's gaze the result of his searches in the deepest abysses +of his conscience. Autobiographers, as a rule, do not feel themselves +subject to a responsibility so deep as this. Memory turns back to the +contemplation of certain springs of action, certain achievements in the +past, making a judicious selection from these, and excerpting only such as +promise to furnish the possible reader with a pleasing impression of the +personality of the subject. With material of this sort at hand, the +autobiographer sets to work to construct a fair and gracious monument, +being easily persuaded that it would be a barbarous act to mar its +symmetry by the introduction of loathly and misshapen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> blocks like those +which Cardan, had he been the artist, would have chosen first of all.</p> + +<p>Naudé, after he has recorded the fact that, from his first essay in +letters, he had been a zealous and appreciative student of Cardan's works, +sets down Cardan's picture of himself, taken from his own Horoscope in the +<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, "nugacem, religionis contemptorem, injuriæ illatæ +memorem, invidum, tristem, insidiatorem, proditorem, magum, incantatorem, +frequentibus calamitatibus obnoxium, suorum osorē, turpi libidini deditum, +solitarium, inamœnum, austerum, spontè etiam divinantem, zelotypum, +lascivum, obscœnum, maledicum, obsequiosum, senum conversatione se +delectantem, varium, ancipitem, impurū, et dolis mulierum obnoxium, +calumniatorem, et omnino incognitum propter naturæ et morum repugnantiam, +etiam his cum quibus assidue versor." The critic at once goes on to state +that in his opinion this description, drawn by the person who ought to +know best, is, in the main, a correct one. What better account could you +expect, he asks, of a man who put faith in dreams and portents and +auguries; who believed fully in the utterances of crazy beldames, who saw +ghosts, and who believed he was attended by a familiar demon? Then follows +a catalogue of moral offences and defects of character, all taken from +Cardan's own confessions, and a pronunciation by Naudé that the man who +says he never lies, must be of all liars the greatest; the charge of +mendacity being driven home by references to Cardan's alleged miraculous +comprehension of the classic tongues in a single night, and his pretended +knowledge of a cure for phthisis. There is no need to follow Naudé farther +in his diatribe against the faults and imperfections, real and apparent, +of Cardan's character; these must be visible enough to the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> cursory +student. Passages like these arouse the suspicion that Naudé knew books +better than men, that at any rate he did not realize that men are to be +found, and not seldom, who take pleasure in magnifying their foibles into +gigantic follies, and their peccadilloes into atrocious crimes; while the +rarity is to come across one who will set down these details with the +circumstantiality used by Cardan. There is one defect in the <i>De Vita +Propria</i>—an artistic one—which Naudé does not notice, namely, that in +his narrative of his early days Cardan often over-reaches himself. His +show of extreme accuracy destroys the perspective of the story, and, in +his anxiety to be minute over the sequence of his childish ailments, the +most trivial details of his uneasy dreams, and the cuffs he got from his +father and his Aunt Margaret, he confuses the reader with multitudinous +particulars and ceases to be dramatic. But the hallucinations which he +nourished about himself were not all the outcome of senility. In the <i>De +Varietate</i>, the work upon which he spent the greatest care, and the +product moreover of his golden prime, he gives an account of four +marvellous properties with which he was gifted.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> The first of these +was the power to pass, whenever the whim seized him, from sense into a +kind of ecstasy. While he was in this state he could hear but faintly the +sound of voices, and could not distinguish spoken words. Whether he would +be sensitive to any great pain he could not say, but twitchings and the +sharpest attacks of gout affected him not. When he fell into this state he +felt a certain separation about the heart, as if his soul were departing +from that region and taking possession of his whole body, a door being +opened for the passage of the same. The sensation would begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> in the +cerebellum, and thence would be diffused along the spine. The one thing of +which he was fully conscious, was that he had passed out of himself. The +second property was that, when he would, he could conjure up any images he +liked before his eyes, real <ins class="greek" title="eidôla">είδωλα</ins>, and not at all to be compared +with the blurred processions of phantoms which he was wont to see when he +was a child. At the time when he wrote, perhaps by reason of his busy +life, he no longer saw them whensoever he would, nor so perfectly +expressed, nor for so long at a time. These images constantly gave place +one to another, and he would behold groves, and animals, and orbs, and +whatever he was fain to see. This property he attributed to the force of +his imaginative power, and his clearness of vision. The third property was +that he never failed to be warned in dreams of things about to happen to +him; and the fourth was that premonitory signs of coming events would +display themselves in the form of spots on his nails. The signs of evil +were black or livid, and appeared on the middle finger; white spots on the +same nail portending good fortune. Honours were indicated on the thumb, +riches on the fore-finger, matters relating to his studies and of grave +import on the third finger, and minor affairs on the little finger.</p> + +<p>In putting together the record of his life, Cardan eschewed the narrative +form and followed a method of his own. He collected the details of his +qualities, habits, and adventures in separate chapters; his birth and +lineage, his physical stature, his diet, his rule of life, his +imperfections, his poverty, the misfortunes of his sons, his masters and +pupils, his travels, his experiences of things beyond nature, his cures, +the persecutions of his foes, and divers other categories being grouped +together to make up the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, which, though it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> the most +interesting book he has left behind him, is certainly the most clumsy and +chaotic from a literary point of view. The chapters for the most part +begin with his early years, and end with some detail as to his life in +Rome, each one being a categorical survey of a certain side of his life; +but remarks as to his personal peculiarities are scattered about from +beginning to end. He tells how he could always see the moon in broad +daylight;<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> of his passion for wandering about the city by night +carrying arms forbidden by the law; of his practice of self-torture, +beating his legs with a switch, twisting his fingers, pinching his flesh, +and biting his left arm; and of going about within doors with naked legs; +how at one time he was possessed with the desire, <i>heroica passio</i>, of +suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts—kids, +lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks. The chapter in which he records all the +maladies which afflicted him, puts upon the reader's credulity a burden +almost as heavy as is the catalogue given by another philosopher of the +number of authors he mastered before his twelfth year. Two attacks of the +plague, agues, tertian and quotidian, malignant ulcers, hernia, +hæmorrhoids, varicose veins, palpitation of the heart, gout, indigestion, +the itch, and foulness of skin. Relief in the second attack of plague came +from a sweat so copious that it soaked the bed and ran in streams down to +the floor; and, in a case of continuous fever, from voiding a hundred and +twenty ounces of urine. As a boy he was a sleep-walker, and he never +became warm below the knees till he had been in bed six hours, a +circumstance which led his mother to predict that his time on earth would +be brief.</p> + +<p>Cardan lived an abstemious life. He broke his fast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> on bread-and-water and +a few grapes. He sometimes dined off bread, the yolk of an egg, and a +little wine, and would take for supper a mess of beetroot and rice and a +chicory salad. The catalogue of his favourite dishes seems to exhaust +every known edible, and it will suffice to remark that he was specially +inclined to sound and well-stewed wild boar, the wings of young cockerels +and the livers of pullets, oysters, mussels, fresh-water crayfish because +his mother ate greedily thereof when she was pregnant with him; but of all +dishes he rates the best a carp from three pounds weight to seven, taken +from a good feeding-ground. He praises all sweet fruit, oil, olives, and +finds in rue an antidote to poison. Ten o'clock was his hour for going to +bed, and he allowed himself eight hours' sleep. When wakeful he would walk +about the room and repeat the multiplication table. As a further remedy +for sleeplessness he would reduce his food by half, and would anoint his +thighs, the soles of his feet, the neck, the elbows, the carpal bones, the +temples, the jugulars, the region of the heart and of the liver, and the +upper lip with ointment of poplars, or the fat of bear, or the oil of +water-lilies.</p> + +<p>These few extracts will show that an intelligible narrative could scarcely +be produced by the methods Cardan used. The book is a collection of facts, +classified as a scientific writer would arrange the sections and +subsections of his subject. In gathering together and grouping the leading +points of his life, a method somewhat similar to his own will suffice, but +there will be no need to descend to a subdivision so minute as his own. A +task of this sort is never an easy one, and in this instance the +difficulties are increased by the diffuse and complicated nature of the +subject matter; and because,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> owing to Cardan's wayward mental habit, +there is no saying in what corner of the ten large folios which contain +his writings some pregnant and characteristic sentence, picturing +effectively some aspect of his nature or perhaps exhibiting the man at a +glance, may not be hidden away.</p> + +<p>It must not be inferred, because Cardan himself and his critics after him, +have laid such great stress upon his vices and imperfections, that he was +devoid of virtues. The most striking and remarkable of his merits was his +industry, but even in this particular instance, where his excellence is +most clearly manifest, he is constantly lamenting his waste of time and +idleness. Again and again he mourns over the precious hours he has spent +over chess and dice and games of chance. In his counsels to his children, +he compares a gambler to a sink of all the vices, and in writing of his +early life at Sacco he describes himself as an idle profligate, and tells +how he entirely neglected his profession. If indeed such monstrous cantles +were cut out of his time through idleness he must, though his life proved +a long one, have possessed extraordinary power of rapid production; for +the huge mass of his published work, without taking any account of the +many manuscripts he burned from time to time, would, in the case of most +men, represent the ceaseless labour of a long life. And the <i>corpus</i> is +not great by reason of haste or want of finish. He has recorded more than +once how it was ever his habit to let his work be polished to the utmost +before putting it in type. The citations with which his pages bristle +proclaim him to be a reader almost as voracious and catholic as Burton; +and Naudé, with the watchfulness of the hostile critic in his heart and +the bookworm's knowledge in his brain, would have been ready and able<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> to +convict him of quoting authors he had not read, if the least handle for +this charge should have been given, but no accusation of the kind is +preferred. The story of his life shows him to be full of rough candour and +honesty, and unlikely to descend to subterfuge, while his great love of +reading and his accurate retentive memory would make easy for him a task +which ordinary mortals might well regard as hopeless.</p> + +<p>Those critics who pass judgment on Cardan, taken solely as a Physician or +as a Mathematician, will give a presentment more fallacious than imperfect +generalizations usually furnish, for in Cardan's case the man, taken as a +whole, was incomparably greater than the sum of his parts. Naudé remarks +that a man who knows a little of everything, and that little imperfectly, +deserves small respect as a citizen of the republic of letters, but Cardan +did not belong to this category, as Julius Cæsar Scaliger found to his +cost. He was not like the bookmen of the revival of learning—Poliziano, +Valla, or Alberti may stand as examples—who after putting on the armour +of the learned language and saturating themselves with the <i>literæ +humaniores</i>, made excursions into some domain of science for the sake of +recreation. Cardan might rather be compared with Varro or Theophrastus in +classic, and with Erasmus, Pico, Grotius, or Casaubon in modern times. On +this point Naudé indulges in something approaching panegyric. He +writes—"Investigation will show us that many excelled him in the +humanities or in Theology, some even in Mathematics, some in Medicine and +in the knowledge of Philosophy, some in Oriental tongues and in either +side of Jurisprudence, but where shall we find any one who had mastered so +many sciences by himself, who had plumbed so deeply the abysses of +learning and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> had written such ample commentaries on the subjects he +studied? Assuredly in Philosophy, in Metaphysics, in History, in Politics, +in Morals, as well as in the more abstruse fields of learning, nothing +that was worth consideration escaped his notice."</p> + +<p>The foregoing eulogy from the pen of an adverse critic gives eloquent +testimony to Cardan's industry and the catholicity of his knowledge. As to +his industry, the record of his literary production, chronicled +incidentally in the course of the preceding pages, will be evidence +enough, seeing that, from the time when he "commenced author," scarcely a +year went by when he did not print a volume of some sort or other; to say +nothing of the production of those multitudinous unpublished MSS., of +which some went to build up the pile he burnt in his latter years in Rome, +while others, perhaps, are still mouldering in the presses of university +or city libraries of Italy. Frequent reference has been made to the more +noteworthy of his works. Books like the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, the <i>De Libris +Propriis</i>, the <i>De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda</i>, the <i>Geniturarum +Exempla</i>, the <i>Theonoston</i>, the <i>Consilia Medica</i>, the dialogues <i>Tetim</i> +and <i>De Morte</i>, have necessarily been drawn upon for biographical facts. +The <i>De Subtilitate</i> and the <i>De Varietate Rerum</i>; the <i>Liber Artis +Magnæ</i>, the <i>Practica Arithmeticæ</i>, have been noticed as the most enduring +portions of his legacy to posterity; wherefore, before saying the final +word as to his literary achievement, it may not be superfluous to give a +brief glance at those of his books which, although of minor importance to +those already cited, engaged considerable attention in the lifetime of the +writer.</p> + +<p>The work upon which Cardan founded his chief hope of immortality was his +<i>Commentary on Hippocrates</i>. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> bulk it ranks first easily, filling as it +does one of the large folios of the edition of 1663. Curiously enough, in +addition to a permanent place in the annals of medicine, Cardan +anticipated for this forgotten mass of type a general and immediate +popularity; wider than any which his technical works could possibly enjoy, +seeing that it dealt with the preservation of health, the greatest mortal +blessing, and must on this account be of interest to all men. It will be +enough to remark of these commentaries that no portion of Cardan's work +yields less information as to the author's life and personality; to dilate +upon them, ever so superficially, from a scientific point of view, would +be waste of time and paper. Another of his works, which he rated highly, +was his treatise on Music. It was begun during his tenure of office at +Pavia, <i>circa</i> 1547, and he was still at work upon it two years before his +death.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> It is not difficult to realize, even at this interval of time, +that this book at the date of its publication must have been welcomed by +all musical students as a valuable contribution to the literature of their +subject. It is strongly marked by Cardan's particular touch, that +formative faculty by which he almost always succeeded in stimulating fresh +interest in the reader, and exhibiting fresh aspects of whatever subject +he might be treating. This work begins by laying down at length the +general rules and principles of the art, and then goes on to treat of +ancient music in all its forms; of music as Cardan knew and enjoyed it; of +the system of counterpoint and composition, and of the construction of +musical instruments.</p> + +<p>The Commentary on <i>Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> the writing of which +beguiled the tedium of his voyage down the Loire on his journey to Paris +in 1552, is a book upon which he spent great care, and is certainly worthy +of notice. Cardan's gratitude to Archbishop Hamilton for the liberal +treatment and gracious reception he had recently encountered in Scotland, +prompted him to dedicate this volume to his late patient. He writes in the +preface how he had expected to find the Scots a pack of barbarians, but +their country, he affirms, is cultivated and humanized beyond +belief,—"and you yourself reflect such splendour upon your nation that +now, by the very lustre of your name, it must needs appear to the world +more noble and illustrious than at any time heretofore. What need is there +for me to speak of the school founded by you at St. Andrews, of sedition +quelled, of your country delivered, of the authority of your brother the +Regent vindicated? These are merely the indications of your power, and not +the source thereof." In the preface he also writes at length, concerning +the horoscope of Christ,<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> in a strain of apology, as if he scented +already the scandal which the publication of this injudicious performance +was destined to raise. In estimating the influence of comets he sets down +several instances which had evidently been brought to his notice during +his sojourn in Scotland: how in 1165, within fourteen days of the +appearance of a great comet, Malcolm IV., known on account of his +continence as the virgin king, fell sick and died. Again, in 1214 two +comets, one preceding and the other following the sun, appeared as +fore-runners of the death of King William after a reign of forty-nine +years. Perhaps the most interesting of his comments on Ptolemy's text are +those which estimate the power of the stellar influences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> on the human +frame, an aspect of the question which, by reason of his knowledge of +medicine and surgery, would naturally engage his more serious attention. +He tells of the birth of a monstrous child—a most loathsome +malformation—at Middleton Stoney, near Oxford, during his stay in +England,<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> and gives many other instances of the disastrous effects of +untoward conjunction of the planets upon infants born under the influence +of the same. He accuses monks and nuns of detestable vices in the plainest +words, words which were probably read by the emissaries of the spiritual +authority when the charge of impiety was being got up against him. In the +<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i> the horoscopes of Edward VI., Archbishop Hamilton, +and Cardan himself have been already noticed; that of Sir John Cheke comes +next in interest to these, and, it must be admitted, is no more +trustworthy. It declares that Cheke would attain the age of sixty-one +years, that he would be most fortunate in gathering wealth and friends +around him, that he would die finally of lingering disease, and involve +many in misfortune by his death—a faulty guess, indeed, as to the future +of a man who died at forty-three, borne down by the weight of his +misfortunes, neglected and forgotten by his former adherents, stripped of +his wealth and covered with shame, in that he had abjured his faith to +save a life which was so little worth preserving.</p> + +<p>Naudé does not neglect to censure Cardan for his maladroit attempts to +read the future. He writes:—"This matter, forsooth, gave a ready handle +to Cardan's rivals, and especially to those who were sworn foes of +astrology; so that they were able to jibe at him freely because, neither +in his own horoscope, nor in that of his son Giovanni Battista, nor in +that of Aymer Ranconet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> nor in that of Edward VI., king of England, nor +in any other of the schemes that he drew, did he rightly foresee any of +the events which followed. He did not divine that he himself was doomed to +imprisonment, his son to the halter, Ranconet to a violent death, and +Edward to a brief term of life, but predicted for each one of these some +future directly contrary."<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></p> + +<p>The treatise <i>De Consolatione</i>, probably the best known of Cardan's +ethical works, was first published at Venice in 1542 by Girolamo Scoto, +but it failed at first to please the public taste. It was not until 1544, +when it was re-issued bound up with the <i>De Sapientia</i> and the first +version of the <i>De Libris Propriis</i> from the press of Petreius at +Nuremberg, that it met with any success. Perhaps the sober tone and +didactic method of this treatise appealed more readily to the mood of the +German than of the Italian reader. From internal evidence it is obvious +that Cardan was urged to write it by the desire of making known to the +world the bitter experience of his early literary and professional +struggles. In the opening paragraph he lets it be seen that he intends to +follow a Ciceronian model, and records his regret that the lament of +Cicero over his daughter's death should have perished in the barbarian +wars. The original title of the book was <i>The Accuser</i>, to wit, something +which might censure the vain passions and erring tendencies of mankind, +"at post mutato nomine, et in tres libellos diviso, de Consolatione eum +inscripsimus, quod longe magis infelices consolatione, quam fortunati +reprehensione, indigere viderentur." The subsequent success of the book +was probably due to this change of name, though the author himself +preferred to have discovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> a special reason for its early failure.<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> +The plan of the treatise is the same as that of a dozen others of the same +nature: an effort to persuade men in evil case that they may find relief +by regarding the misfortunes they suffer as transitory accidents in no way +affecting the chief end of life, and by seeking happiness alone in +trafficking with the riches of the mind.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether any of the books written with this object have ever +served their purpose, save in the case of their originators. Cardan may +have found the burden of his failure and poverty grow lighter as he set +down his woes on paper, but the rest of the world must have read the book +for some other reason than the hope of consolation. Read to-day in +Bedingfield's quaint English, the book is full of charm and interest. It +is filled with apt illustration from Greek philosophy and from Holy Writ +as well, and lighted up by spaces of lively wit. It was accepted by the +public taste for reasons akin to those which would secure popularity for a +clever volume of essays at the present time, and was translated into more +than one foreign language, Bedingfield's translation being published some +thirty years after its first appearance.</p> + +<p>The <i>De Sapientia</i>, with which it is generally classed, is of far less +interest. It is a series of ethical discourses, lengthy and discursive, +which must have seemed dull enough to contemporary students: to read it +through now would be a task almost impossible. It is only remembered +because Cardan has inserted therein, somewhat incongruously, that account +of his asserted cures of phthisis which Cassanate quoted when he wrote to +Cardan about Archbishop Hamilton's asthma, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> which were afterwards +seized upon by hostile critics as evidence of his disregard of truth.</p> + +<p>Another of his minor works highly characteristic of the author is the +<i>Somniorum Synesiorum</i>, a collection of all the remarkable dreams he ever +dreamt, many of which have been already noticed. To judge from what +specimens of his epistles are extant, Cardan seems to have been a good +letter-writer. One of the most noteworthy is that which he addressed to +Gian Battista after his marriage. It shows Cardan to have been a loving +father and a master of sapient exhortation, while the son's fate gives +melancholy testimony of the futility of good counsel unaided by direction +and example. He tells of his grief at seeing the evil case into which his +son had fallen, vexed by poverty, disgrace, and loss of health, how he +would gladly even now receive the prodigal into his house (he says nothing +about the wife), did he not fear that such a step would lead to his own +ruin rather than to his son's restoration. After showing that any fresh +misfortune to himself must needs cut away the last hope for Gian Battista, +he sketches out a line of conduct for the ill-starred youth which he +declared, if rightly pursued, might re-establish his fortunes.</p> + +<p>He begins by advising his son to read and lay to heart the contents of the +<i>De Consolatione</i> and the <i>De Utilitate</i>, and then, somewhat more to the +purpose, promises him half his earnings of the present and the coming +year. Beyond this Gian Battista should have half the salary of any office +which his father might get for himself, and half of the piece of silk +which he had received from the Venetian Ambassador, supposing that the +young man should not be able to get a like piece for himself from the same +source.</p> + +<p>He next cites the <i>De Consolatione</i> to demonstrate the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> futility of +lamentation over misfortune past or present, or indeed over any decree of +fate. He bids Gian Battista reflect that he is human not a brute, a man +not a woman, a Christian not a Moslem or Jew, an Italian not a barbarian, +sprung from a worthy city and family, and from a father whose name by +itself will prove a title to fame. His only real troubles are a weak body +and infirm health—one a gift of heredity, the other aggravated by +dissolute habits. It may be a vain thing for men to congratulate +themselves over their happiness, but it is vainer for them to cry out for +solace over past calamity. Contempt of money is foolish, but contempt of +God is ten times worse. Cardan concludes this part of his letter by +reciting two maxims given him by his father—one, to have daily +remembrance of God and of His vast bounty, the other, to pursue with the +utmost diligence any task taken in hand.</p> + +<p>Cardan then treats the scapegrace to a string of maxims from the <i>De +Utilitate</i>, maxims which a model son might have read, but which Gian +Battista would certainly put aside unnoticed, and finishes with some +serviceable practical counsel: "Keep your mind calm, go early to bed, for +ours is a hot-blooded race and predisposed to suffer from stone. Take nine +hours' sleep, rise at six and visit your patients, being careful to use no +speech unconnected with the case before you. Avoid heating your body to +perspiration; go forth on horseback, come back on foot; and on your return +put on warm clothes. Drink little, break your fast on bread, dried fish, +and meat, and then give four hours to study, for studies bring pleasure, +relief from care, and mental riches; they are the foundations of renown, +and enable a man to do his duty with credit. See your patients again; and, +before you sup, take exercise in the woods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> and fields adjacent. Should +you become over-heated or wet with rain, cast off and dry your damp +clothes, and don dry ones. Sup heartily, and go to bed at eight; and when, +by the brevity of the night, this is not convenient, take a corresponding +rest during the day. Abstain from summer fruit, from black wine, from vain +overflow of talk, from falsehood and gaming, from trusting a woman or +over-indulging her, for she is a foolish animal and full of deceit. +Over-fondness towards a woman will surely bring evil upon you. Bleed and +purge yourself as little as possible; learn by experience of other men's +faults and misfortunes; live frugally; bear yourself suavely to all men; +and let study be your main end. All this and more have I set forth in the +books I have named. Trust neither promises nor hopes, for these may be +vain and delusive; and reckon your own only that which you hold in your +hand. Farewell."</p> + +<p>From the fact that Cardan took part in an unofficial medical conference in +Paris, that he afterwards superseded Cassanate as the Archbishop of St. +Andrews' physician, and did not find himself with a dozen or so quarrels +on his hands, it may be assumed that he was laudably free from the +jealousy attributed by tradition to his profession. This instance becomes +all the more noteworthy when his natural irascibility, and the character +of the learned controversy of the times comes to be considered. He does +not spare his censure in remarking on the too frequent quarrels of men of +letters,<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> albeit these quarrels must have lent no little gaiety to the +literary world. No one who reads the account of Gian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Battista's fate can +doubt the sincerity of Cardan's remorse for that neglect of the boy's +youthful training which helped to bring him to ruin, and the care which he +bestowed upon his grandson Fazio proved that his regret was not of that +sort which exhales itself in empty words. The zeal with which he threw +himself into the struggle for his son's life, and his readiness to strip +himself of his last coin as the fight went on, show that he was capable of +warm-hearted affection, and afraid of no sacrifice in the cause of duty.</p> + +<p>The brutal candour which Cardan used in probing the weaknesses of his own +nature and in displaying them to the world, he used likewise in his +dealings with others. If he detected Branda Porro or Camutio in a blunder +he would inform them they were blockheads without hesitation, and plume +himself afterwards on the score of his blunt honesty. Veracity was not a +common virtue in those days, but Cardan laid claim to it with a display of +insistence which was not, perhaps, in the best taste. Over and over again +he writes that he never told a lie;<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> a contention which seems to have +roused especially the bile of Naudé, and to have spurred him on to make +his somewhat clumsy assault on Cardan's veracity.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> His citation of the +case of the stranger who came with the volume of Apuleius for sale, and of +the miraculous gift of classic tongues, has already been referred to; but +these may surely be attributed to an exaggerated activity of that +particular side of Cardan's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> imagination which was specially prone to +seize upon some figment of the brain, and some imperfectly apprehended +sensation of the optic nerve, and fashion from these materials a tale of +marvel. Delusions of this sort were common in reputed witches, as Reginald +Scot writes—"They learne strange toongs with small industrie (as +Aristotle and others affirme)."<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> The other charge preferred by Naudé +as to the pretended cure of consumption, and the consequent quibbling and +tergiversation, is a more valid one. It has been noted how Cardan, +previous to his journey to Scotland, had posed as the discoverer of a cure +for this malady. In the list of his cures successfully treated he includes +several in which he restored patients suffering from blood-spitting, +fever, and extreme emaciation to sound health, the most noteworthy of +these being that of Girolamo Tiboldo, a sea-captain. When the sick man had +risen from his bed and had become fat and healthy, Cardan deemed that the +occasion justified a certain amount of self-gratulation, but the +physicians, out of envy, declared that Tiboldo had never suffered from +true phthisis. In his account of the case Cardan says that he, and the +physicians as well, were indeed untruthful over the matter, his own +falsehood having been the result of over-sanguine hope, and theirs the +outcome of spiteful envy. Tiboldo died after all of chest disease, but not +till five years later, and then from a chill caught through sitting in wet +garments.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> The term consumption has always been applied somewhat +loosely, and Cardan probably would have been allowed the benefit of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +usage if he had not, in an excess of candour, set down the workings of his +mind and conscience with regard to this matter. Writing of his treatment +of Archbishop Hamilton, he says: "And in truth I cured scarcely any +patients of phthisic disease, though I did find a remedy for many who were +suffering from similar maladies, wherefore that boast of mine, that +proclamation of merit to which I had no right, worked no small profit to +me, a man very little given to lying. For the people about the Archbishop, +urged on by these and other considerations, persuaded him that he had no +chance of regaining his health except by putting himself under my care, +and that he should fly to me as his last hope."<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> It has already been +noted that Cardan's claim to some past knowledge in the successful +treatment of chest diseases had weight with the Archbishop and Cassanate, +and the result of his visit surely proved that their confidence was not +ill-placed; his boasting may have been a trifle excessive, but it was +based on hope rather than achievement; and if proof can be adduced that it +was not prompted by any greed of illegitimate fame or profit, it may +justly be ranked as a weakness rather than as a serious offence. To these +two instances of falsehood Naudé adds a third, to wit, Cardan's claim to +the guidance of a familiar spirit. He refuses to let this rank as a +delusion; and, urged no doubt by righteous indignation against the ills +springing from kindred superstitions, he writes down as a liar rather than +a dupe the man who, after mastering the whole world of science, could +profess such folly.</p> + +<p>Considering the catholicity of Cardan's achievements, and the eager spirit +of inquiry he displayed in fields of learning remote from his own +particular one, it is worthy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> of notice that he did not allow this +discursive humour, which is not seldom a token of instability, to hold him +back from pursuing the supreme aim of his life, that is, eminence in the +art of Medicine. In his youth the threats and persuasions of his father +could not induce him to take up Jurisprudence with an assured income and +abandon Medicine. At Sacco, at Gallarate, and afterwards in Milan he was +forced by the necessity of bread-winning to use his pen in all sorts of +minor subjects that had no real fascination for him, but all his leisure +was devoted to the acquisition of Medical knowledge. Prudence as well as +inclination had a share in directing his energies into this channel, for a +report, for which no doubt there was some warrant, was spread abroad that +what skill he had lay entirely in the knowledge of Astrology; and, as this +rumour operated greatly to his prejudice,<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> he resolved to perfect +himself in Medicine and free his reputation from this aspersion. He had +quarrelled violently with the physicians over the case of Count Borromeo's +child which died, and with Borromeo himself, and, almost immediately after +this, he published his book, <i>De Astrorum Judiciis</i>, a step which tended +to identify him yet more closely with Astrology, and to raise a cry +against him in Milan, which he declares to be the most scandal-mongering +city in the Universe. But it is clear that in this instance scandal was +not far wrong, and that Cardan himself was right in purging himself of the +quasi science he ought never to have taken up.</p> + +<p>Medicine, when Cardan began his studies, was beginning to feel the effects +of the revival of Greek learning. With the restored knowledge of the +language of Greece there arose a desire to investigate the storehouses of +science, as well as those of literature, and the extravagant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> assumption +of the dogmatists, and the eccentricities of the Arabic school gave +additional cogency to the cry for more light. The sects which Galen had +endeavoured to unite sprang into new activity within a century after his +death. The Arabian physicians, acute and curious as they were, had +exercised but a very transient influence upon the real progress of the +art, the chief cause of their non-success being their adhesion to +arbitrary and empirical tradition. At the end of the fifteenth century, +Leonicinus, a professor at Ferrara, recalled the allegiance of his pupils +to the authority of Hippocrates by the ability and eloquence of his +teaching; and, by his translation of Galen's works into Latin, he helped +still farther to confirm the ascendency of the fathers of Medicine. The +Arabians, sprung from the East, the storehouse of drugs and simples, and +skilled in Chemistry, were the founders of the Pharmacopœia,<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> but with +this exception they did nothing to advance Medicine beyond the point where +the Greeks had left it. The treatises of Haly, Avicenna, and Maimonides +were little better than faint transcriptions of the writings of the great +forerunners. Their teaching was random and spasmodic, whereas the system +of Hippocrates was conceived in the spirit of Greek philosophy, moving on +by select experience, always observant and cautious, and ascending by slow +and certain steps to the generalities of Theory. Indeed the science of +Medicine in the hands of Hippocrates and his school seems, more than any +other, to have presented to the world a rudimentary essay, a faint +foreshadowing of the great fabric of inductive process, subsequently +formulated by the genius of Bacon. At various epochs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> Medicine had been +specially stimulated by the vivifying spirit of Greek science; in the +Roman school in the days of Celsus, and in the Arabian teaching likewise. +Fuller acknowledgment of the authority of Greek Medicine came with the +Renaissance,<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> but even this long step in advance did not immediately +liberate the art from bondage. A new generation of professors arose who +added fresh material to the storehouses, already overflowing, of pedantic +erudition, and showed the utmost contempt for any fruit of other men's +labour which might not square exactly with the utterances of the founders. +This attitude rendered these professors of Medicine the legitimate objects +of ridicule, as soon as the leaven of the revival began to work, and the +darts of satire still fly, now and then, at the same quarry. Paracelsus, +disfigured as his teaching was by mysticism, the arts of the charlatan, +and by his ignorant repudiation of the service of Anatomy, struck the +first damaging blows at this illegitimate ascendency, by the frequent +success of his empirical treatment, by the contempt he heaped upon the +scholastic authorities, and by the boldness with which he assailed every +thesis which they maintained. Men of more sober intellect and weighty +learning soon followed in his track. Fernelius, one of the physicians +Cardan met in Paris, boldly rejected what he could not approve by +experience in the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, and stood forth as +the advocate for free inquiry, and Joubert of Montpelier, Argentier of +Turin, and Botal of Asti subsequently took a similar course.</p> + +<p>When Cardan went to study at Pavia in 1519 this tradition was unshaken. It +was not until the advent of Vesalius that the doom of the ancient system +was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> sounded. Then, when Anatomy sprang to the front as the potent ally of +Medicine, the science of healing entered upon a fresh stage, but this new +force did not make itself felt soon enough to seduce Cardan from the +altars of the ancients to the worship of new gods. As long as he lived he +was a follower of the great masters, though at the same time his +admiration of the teaching of Vesalius was enthusiastic and profound. His +love of truth and sound learning forbade him to give unreflecting adhesion +to the precepts of any man, however eminent, and when he found that Galen +was a careless commentator on Hippocrates,<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> and failed to elucidate +the difficulties with which he professed to deal, he did not spare his +censure.<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> In the <i>De Subtilitate</i> he speaks of him as "Verbosus et +studio contradicendi tædulus ut alterum vix ferre queas, in reliquo gravis +jactura artium posita sit, quam nostræ ætatis viri restituere conati +sunt."<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> But as Galen's name is quoted as an authority on almost every +page of the <i>Consilia Medica</i>, it may be assumed that Cardan's faith in +his primary theories was unshaken. In his Commentaries on Hippocrates, +Galen professes a profound respect for his master, but the two great men +must be regarded as the leaders of rival schools; indeed it could hardly +be otherwise, seeing how vast was the mass of knowledge which Galen added +to the art during his lifetime.</p> + +<p>Hippocrates, by denying the supernatural origin of disease, by his method +of diagnosis, by the importance he attached to air and diet, by his +discriminating use of drugs, and by the simplicity of his system +generally,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> had placed Medicine on a rational basis. In the six hundred +years' space which elapsed before the appearance of Galen, Medicine was +broken up into many rival schools. The Dogmatici and the Empirici for many +years wrangled undisturbed, but shortly after the Christian era the +Methodici entered the field, to be followed later on by the Eclectici and +a troop of other sects, whose wranglings, and whose very names, are now +forgotten. In his <i>History of Medicine</i>, Dr. Bostock gives a sketch of the +attitude of Galen towards the rival schools. "In his general principles he +may be considered as belonging to the Dogmatic sect, for his method was to +reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the observation of facts, to +general theoretical principles. These principles he indeed professed to +deduce from experience and observation,<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> and we have abundant proofs +of his diligence in collecting experience and his accuracy in making +observations; but still, in a certain sense at least, he regards +individual facts and the details of experience as of little value, +unconnected with the principles which he laid down as the basis of all +medical reasoning. In this fundamental point, therefore, the method +pursued by Galen appears to have been directly the reverse of that which +we now consider as the correct method of scientific investigation; and +yet, such is the force of actual genius, that in most instances he +attained the ultimate object in view, although by an indirect path. He was +an admirer of Hippocrates, and always speaks of him with the most profound +respect, professing to act upon his principles, and to do little more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +than expound his doctrines and support them by new facts and observations. +Yet in reality we have few writers whose works, both as to substance and +manner, are more different from each other than those of Hippocrates and +Galen, the simplicity of the former being strongly contrasted with the +abstruseness and refinement of the latter."</p> + +<p>The antagonism between these two great men was not perhaps more marked +than might have been expected, considering that an interval of six hundred +years lay between them. However loyal he may have been to his master, +Galen, with his keen, catholic, and subtle intellect, was bound to fall +under the sway of Alexandrian influence while he studied in Alexandria as +the pupil of Heraclianus. The methods of the contemporary school of +philosophy fascinated him; and, in his endeavour to bring Medicine out of +the chaotic welter in which he found it, he attempted—unhappily for the +future of science—to use the hyper-idealistic Platonism then dominant in +Alexandria, rather than the gradual and orderly induction of Hippocrates, +as a bond of union between professional and scientific medicine; a false +step for which not even his great services to anatomy and physiology can +altogether atone. Yet most likely it was this same error, an error which +practically led to the enslavement of Medicine till the seventeenth +century, which caused Cardan to regard him, and not Hippocrates, as his +master. The vastness and catholicity of Galen's scheme of Medicine must +have been peculiarly attractive to a man of Cardan's temper; and that +Galen attempted to reconcile the incongruous in the teleological system +which he devised, would not have been rated as a fault by his Milanese +disciple.</p> + +<p>Galen taught as a cardinal truth the doctrine of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> Hippocratic +elements, heat, cold, moisture, and dryness, and a glance at the Consilium +which Cardan wrote out on Archbishop Hamilton's illness, will show how +completely he was under the sway of this same teaching. The genius of +Hippocrates was perhaps too sober and orderly to win his entire sympathy; +the encyclopædic knowledge, the literary grace, and the more daring +flights of Galen's intellect attracted him much more strongly. Hippocrates +scoffed at charms and amulets, while Galen commended them, and is said to +have invented the anodyne necklace which was long known and worn in +England. There is no need to specify which of the masters Cardan would +swear by in this matter. The choice which Cardan made, albeit it was +exactly what might have been anticipated, was in every respect an +unfortunate one. He put himself under a master whose teaching could have +no other effect than to accentuate the failings of the pupil, whereas had +he let his mind come under the more regular discipline of Hippocrates' +method, it is almost certain that the mass of his work, now shut in dusty +folios which stand undisturbed on the shelves for decade after decade, +would have been immeasurably more fruitful of good. With all his industry +in collecting, and his care in verifying, his medical work remains a heap +of material, and nothing more valuable. Learning and science would have +profited much had he put himself under the standard of the Father of +Medicine, and still more if fate had sent him into being at some period +after the world of letters had learned to realize the capabilities of the +inductive system of Philosophy.</p> + +<p>It may readily be conceded that Cardan during his career turned to good +account the medical knowledge which he had gathered from the best +attainable sources,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> and that he was on the whole the most skilful +physician of his age. He likewise foreshadowed the system of deaf mute +instruction. A certain Georgius Agricola, a physician of Heidelberg who +died in 1485, makes mention of a deaf mute who had learnt to read and +write, but this statement was received with incredulity. Cardan, taking a +more philosophic view, declared that people thus afflicted might easily be +taught to hear by reading, and to speak by writing; writing was associated +with speech, and speech with thought, but written characters and ideas +might be connected without the intervention of sounds.<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> This view, put +forward with all the authority of Cardan's name, would certainly rouse +fresh interest in the question, and, whether stimulated by his words or +not, an attempt to teach deaf mutes was made by Pedro de Ponce, a Spanish +Dominican, about 1560. But it would not be permissible to claim for Cardan +any share in the epoch-making discoveries in Medicine. Galen as an +experimental physiologist had brought diagnosis to a level unattained +before. His methods had been abandoned by his successors, and practice had +in consequence suffered deterioration, but Cardan, studying under the +revived Galenism, called into life by the teaching of Vesalius, went to +deal with his cures under conditions more favourable than those offered by +any previous period of the world's history. His cure of Archbishop +Hamilton's asthma, over which Cassanate and the other doctors had failed, +was due to a more careful diagnosis and a more judicious application of +existing rules, rather than to the working of any new discoveries of his +own. Viewed as a soldier in the service of Hygeia, how transient and +slender is the fame of Cardan compared with that of Linacre, Vesalius, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +Harvey! Were his claims to immortality to rest entirely on his +contribution to Medicine, his name would have gone down to oblivion along +with that of Cavenago, Camutio, Della Croce, and the multitude of jealous +rivals who, according to his account, were ever plotting his downfall. But +it was rescued from this fate by his excellence as a mathematician, by the +interest clinging to his personality, by the enormous range of his +learning, by his picturesque reputation as a dreamer of dreams, and a +searcher into the secrets of the hidden world. In an age when books were +few and ill-composed, his works became widely popular; because, although +he dealt with abstruse subjects, he wrote—as even Naudé admits—in a +passably good style, and handled his subject with a lightness of touch +which was then very rare. This was the reason why men went on reading him +long after his works had ceased to have any scientific value; which +induced writers like Burton and Sir Thomas Browne to embroider their pages +freely with quotations from his works, and thus make his name familiar to +many who have never handled a single one of his volumes.</p> + +<p>It is somewhat strange to find running through the complex web of Cardan's +character a well-defined thread of worldly wisdom and common-sense; to +find that a man, described by almost every one who has dealt with his +character as a credulous simpleton, one with disordered wits, or a +down-right madman, should, when occasion demanded, prove himself to be a +sharp man of business. When Fazio died he left his son with a number of +unsettled law-suits on hand, concerning which he writes: "From my father's +death until I was forty-six, that is to say for a space of twenty-three +years, I was almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>continually involved in law-suits. First with +Alessandro Castillione, surnamed Gatico, with respect to certain +plantations, and afterwards with his kinsfolk. Next with the Counts of +Barbiani, next with the college, next with the heirs of Dominico de +Tortis, who had held me in his arms when I was baptized. Out of all these +suits I came victorious. It was indeed a matter for surprise that I should +have got the better of Alessandro Castillione, seeing that his uncle sat +as judge. Moreover, he had already got a decision against me, a decision +which, as the jurisconsults declared, helped my case as the trial went on, +and I was able to force him to pay me all the money which was in dispute. +A like good fortune attended me while my claims were considered by the +heads of the Milanese College, and finally rejected by several votes. Then +afterwards, when they had decided to admit me, and when they tried to +subject me to certain rules which placed me on a footing inferior to their +own, I compelled them to grant me full membership. In the case of the +Barbiani, after long litigation and many angry words and much trouble, I +came to terms with them; and, having received the sum of money covenanted +by agreement, I was entirely freed from vexation of the law."<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> Writing +generally of his monetary dealings, Cardan says: "Whenever I may have +incurred a loss, I have never been content merely to retrieve the same, I +have always contrived to seize upon something extra."<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> Or again: "If +at any time I have lost twenty crowns, I have never rested until I have +succeeded in getting back these and twenty more in addition."<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p><p>Cardan left in his <i>Dicta Familiaria</i> and <i>Præceptorum ad filios +Libellus</i> a long list of aphorisms and counsels, many of which give +evidence of keen insight and busy observation of mankind, while some are +distinguished by a touch of humour rare in his other writings. He bids his +children to be careful how they offend princes, and, offence being given, +never to flatter themselves that it has been pardoned; to live joyfully as +long as they can, for men are for the most part worn out by care; never to +take a wife from a witless stock or one tainted with hereditary disease; +to refrain from deliberating when the mind is disturbed; to learn how to +be worsted and suffer loss; and to trust a school-master to teach +children, but not to feed them. One of the dicta is a gem of quaint +wisdom. "Before you begin to wash your face, see that you have a towel +handy to dry the same." If all the instances of prodigies, portents, +visions, and mysterious warnings which Cardan has left on record were set +down in order, a perusal of this catalogue would justify, if it did not +compel, the belief that he was little better than a credulous fool, and +raise doubts whether such a man could have written such orderly and +coherent works as the treatise on Arithmetic, or the book of the Great +Art. But Cardan was beyond all else a man of moods, and it would be unfair +to figure as his normal mental condition those periods of overwrought +nervousness and the hallucinations they brought with them. In his old age +the nearness of the inevitable stroke, and the severance of all earthly +ties, led him to discipline his mind into a calmer mood, but early and +late during his season of work his nature was singularly sensitive to the +wearing assaults of cares and calamities. In crises of this kind his mind +would be brought into so morbid a condition, that it would fall entirely +under the sway of any single<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> idea then dominant; such idea would master +him entirely, or even haunt him like one of those unclean spectres he +describes with such gusto in the <i>De Varietate</i>. What he may have uttered +when these moods were upon him must not be taken seriously; these are the +moments to which the major part of his experiences of things <i>supra +naturam</i> may be referred. But there are numerous instances in which he +describes marvellous phenomena with philosophic calm, and examines them in +the true spirit of scepticism. In his account of the trembling of the bed +on which he lay the night before he heard of Gian Battista's marriage, he +goes on to say that a few nights after the first manifestation, he was +once more conscious of a strange movement; and, having put his hand to his +breast, found that his heart was palpitating violently because he had been +lying on his left side. Then he remembered that a similar physical trouble +had accompanied the first trembling of the bed, and admits that this +manifestation may be referred to a natural cause, <i>i.e.</i> the palpitation. +He tells also how he found amongst his father's papers a record of a cure +of the gout by a prayer offered to the Virgin at eight in the morning on +the first of April, and how he duly put up the prayer and was cured of the +gout, but he adds: "Sed in hoc, auxiliis etiam artis usus sum."<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> Again +with regard to the episode of the ignition of his bed twice in the same +night, without visible cause, he says that this portent may have come +about by some supernatural working; but that, on the other hand, it may +have been the result of mere chance. He tells another story of an +experience which befell him when he was in Belgium.<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> He was aroused +early in the morning by the noise made outside his door by a dog catching +fleas. Having got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> out of bed to see to this, he heard the sound as of a +key being softly put into the lock. He told this fact to the servants, who +at once took up the tale, and persuaded themselves that they had heard +many noises of the same kind, and others vastly more wonderful; in short, +the whole house was swarming with apparitions. The next night the noise +was repeated, and a second observation laid bare the real cause thereof. +The scratching of the dog had caused the bolt to fall into the socket, and +this produced the noise which had disquieted him. He writes in conclusion: +"Thus many events which seem to defy all explanation have really come to +pass by accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such manifestations +as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the timorous, and the +over-hasty make for themselves miracles."<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> Again, after telling a +strange story of a boy who beheld the image of a thief in the neck of a +phial, and of some incantations of Josephus Niger, he concludes: +"Nevertheless I am of opinion that all these things were fables, and that +no one could have had any real knowledge thereof, seeing that they were +nothing else than vain triflings."<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p> + +<p>In a nature so complex and many-sided as Cardan's, strange resemblances +may be sought for and discovered, and it certainly is an unexpected +revelation to find a mental attitude common to Cardan, a man tied and +bound by authority and the traditions of antiquity, and such a daring +assailant of the schools and of Aristotle as Doctor Joseph Glanvil. The +conclusions of Cardan as to certain obscure phenomena recently cited show +that, in matters lying beyond sensual cognition, he kept an open mind. In +summing up the case of the woman said to have been cured by the +incantations of Josephus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> Niger, he says that she must have been cured +either by the power of the imagination, or by the agency of the demons. +Here he anticipates the arguments which Glanvil sets forth in <i>Sadducismus +Triumphatus</i>. Writing on the belief in witchcraft Glanvil says, "We have +the attestation of thousands of eye and ear witnesses, and these not of +the easily-deceivable vulgar only, but of wise and grave discerners; and +that when no interest could oblige them to agree together in a common Lye. +I say, we have the light of all these circumstances to confirm us in the +belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge, beyond +the reach of Art and ordinary Nature. Standing public Records have been +kept of these well-attested Relations, and Epochas made of those unwonted +events. Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile +practices; those amongst the Jews and our own are notorious; such cases +have often been determined near us by wise and reverend Judges, upon clear +and convictive Evidence; and thousands of our own Nation have suffered +death for their vile compacts with Apostate spirits. All these I might +largely prove in their particular instances, but that 'tis not needful +since these did deny the being of Witches, so it was not out of ignorance +of these heads of Argument, of which probably they have heard a thousand +times; but from an apprehension that such a belief is absurd, and the +things impossible. And upon these presumptions they condemn all +demonstrations of this nature, and are hardened against conviction. And I +think those that can believe all Histories and Romances; That all the +wiser would have agreed together to juggle mankind into a common belief of +ungrounded fables, that the sound senses of multitudes together may +deceive them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> and Laws are built upon Chimeras; That the greatest and +wisest Judges have been Murderers, and the sagest persons Fools, or +designing Impostors; I say those that can believe this heap of +absurdities, are either more credulous than those whose credulity they +reprehend; or else have some extraordinary evidence of their perswasion, +viz.: That it is absurd and impossible that there should be a Witch or +Apparition."<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> Cardan's argument in the case of the sick woman, that it +would be difficult if not impossible to invent cause for her cure, other +than the power of imagination or Demoniac agency, if less emphatic and +lengthy than Glanvil's, certainly runs upon parallel lines therewith, and +suggests, if it does not proclaim, the existence of such a thing as the +credulity of unbelief; in other words that those who were disposed to +brush aside the alternative causes of the cure as set down by him, and +search for others, and put faith in them, would be fully as credulous as +those who held the belief which he recorded as his own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 314.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 115.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> "Musicam, sed hanc anno post VI. scilicet MDLXXIV. correxi +et transcribi curavi."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xlv. p. 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> This is on p. 164.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> Page 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> <i>Judicium de Cardano</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Page 57.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> "Ita nostra ætate, lapsi sunt clarissimi alioqui viri in +hoc genere. Budæus adversus Erasmum, Fuchsius adversus Cornarium, Silvius +adversus Vesalium, Nizolius adversus Maioragium: non tam credo justis +contentionum causis, quam vanitate quadam et spe augendæ opinionis in +hominibus."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> He writes in this strain in <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xiv. p. +49, in <i>De Varietate Rerum</i>, p. 626, and in <i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, p. +431.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> On the subject of dissimulation Cardan writes: "Assuevi +vultum in contrarium semper efformare; ideo simulare possum, dissimulare +nescio."—<i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xiii. p. 42. Again in <i>Libellus +Præceptorum ad filios</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 481), "Nolite unquam mentiri, +sed circumvenire [circumvenite?]."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> <i>Discoverie of Witchcraft</i>, ch. xi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> Donato Lanza, the druggist, who had been his first +introducer to Sfondrato, was equally perverse. After Cardan had cured him +of phthisis, he jumped out of a window to avoid arrest, and fell into a +fish-pond, and died of the cold he took.—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 136.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. x. p. 32.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> The Materia Medica of Mesua, dating from the eleventh +century, was used by the London College of Physicians in framing their +Pharmacopœia in 1618.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> In 1443 a copy of Celsus was found at Milan; Paulus Ægineta +was discovered a little later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. ix. p. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> <i>De Immortalitate Animorum</i> (Lyons, 1545), p. 73. <i>De +Varietate</i>, p. 77. <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 135.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> <i>De Subtilitate</i>, p. 445.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> "Galen's great complaint against the Peripatetics or +Aristotelians, was that while they discoursed about Anatomy they could not +dissect. He met an argument with a dissection or an experiment. Come and +see for yourselves, was his constant cry."—<i>Harveian Oration</i>, Dr. J.F. +Payne, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. x. p. 462.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxviii. p. 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> ch. xxiii. p. 64.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, p. 309. He also writes at length in the +Proxenata on Domestic Economy.—Chapter xxxvii. <i>et seq. Opera</i>, tom. i. +p. 377.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxvii. p. 118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 589.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> <i>De Varietate</i>, p. 589.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 640.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> <i>Sadducismus Triumphatus</i> (Ed. 1682), p. 4.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> dealing with Cardan's sudden incarceration in 1570, in the chronicle +of his life, it was assumed that his offence must have been some spoken or +written words upon which a charge of impiety might have been fastened. +Leaving out of consideration the fiery zeal of the reigning Pope Pius V., +it is hard to determine what plea could have been found for a serious +charge of this nature. Cardan's work had indeed passed the ecclesiastical +censors in 1562; but in the estimation of Pius V. the smallest lapse from +the letter of orthodoxy would have seemed grave enough to send to prison, +and perhaps to death, a man as deeply penetrated with the spirit of +religion as Cardan assuredly was. One of his chief reasons for refusing +the King of Denmark's generous offer was the necessity involved of having +to live amongst a people hostile to the Catholic religion; and, in writing +of his visit to the English Court, he declares that he was unwilling to +recognize the title of King Edward VI., inasmuch as by so doing he might +seem to prejudice the rights of the Pope.<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> In spite of this positive +testimony, and the absence of any utterances of manifest heresy, divers +writers in the succeeding century classed him with the unbelievers. Dr. +Samuel Parker in his <i>Tractatus de Deo</i>, published in 1678,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> includes him +amongst the atheistical philosophers; but a perusal of the Doctor's +remarks leaves the reader unconvinced as to the justice of such a charge. +The term Atheism, however, was at this time used in the very loosest +sense, and was even applied to disbelievers in the apostolical +succession.<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> Dr. Parker writes, "Another cause which acted, together +with the natural disposition of Cardan, to produce that odd mixture of +folly and wisdom in him, was his habit of continual thinking by which the +bile was absorbed and burnt up; he suffered neither eating, pleasure, nor +pain to interrupt the course of his thoughts. He was well acquainted with +the writings of all the ancients—nor did he just skim over the heads and +contents of books as some do who ought not to be called learned men, but +skilful bookmongers. Every author that Cardan read (and he read nearly +all) he became intimately acquainted with, so that if any one disputing +with him, quoted the authority of the ancients, and made any the least +slip or mistake, he would instantly set them right." Dr. Parker is as +greatly amazed at the mass of work he produced, as at his powers of +accumulation, and maintains that Cardan believed he was endowed with a +faculty which he calls <i>repræsentatio</i>, through which he was able to +apprehend things without study, "by means of an interior light shining +within him. From which you may learn the fact that he had studied with +such enduring obstinacy that he began to persuade himself that the visions +which appeared before him in these fits and transports of the mind, were +the genuine inspirations of the Deity." This is evidently Dr. Parker's +explanation of the attendant demon, and he ends by declaring that Cardan +was rather fanatic than infidel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mention has been made of the list of his vices and imperfections which +Cardan wrote down with his own hand. Out of such a heap of self-accusation +it would have been an easy task for some meddlesome enemy to gather up a +plentiful selection of isolated facts which by artful combination might be +so arranged as to justify a formal charge of impiety. The most definite of +these charges were made by Martin del Rio,<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> who declares that Cardan +once wrote a book on the Mortality of the Soul which he was wont to +exhibit to his intimate friends. He did not think it prudent to print this +work, but wrote another, taking a more orthodox view, called <i>De +Immortalitate Animorum</i>. Another assailant, Theophile Raynaud, asserts +that certain passages in this book suggest, if they do not prove, that +Cardan did not set down his real opinions on the subject in hand. Raynaud +ends by forbidding the faithful to read any of Cardan's books, and +describes him as "Homo nullius religionis ac fidei, et inter clancularios +atheos secundi ordinis ævo suo facile princeps." Of all Cardan's books the +<i>De Immortalitate Animorum</i> is the one in which materials for a charge of +impiety might most easily be found. It was put together at a time when he +had had very little practice in the Greek tongue, and it is possible that +many of his conclusions may be drawn from premises only imperfectly +apprehended. Scaliger in his Exercitations seizes upon one passage<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> +which, according to his rendering,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> implied that Cardan reckoned the +intelligence of men and beasts to be the same in essence, the variety of +operation being produced by the fact that the apprehensive faculty was +inherent in the one, and only operative upon the other from without. But +all through this book it is very difficult to determine whether the +propositions advanced are Cardan's own, or those of the Greek and Arabian +writers he quotes so freely: and this charge of Scaliger, which is the +best supported of all, goes very little way to convict him of impiety. In +the <i>De Vita Propria</i> there are several passages<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> which suggest a +belief akin to that of the Anima Mundi; he had without doubt made up his +mind that this work should not see the light till he was beyond the reach +of Pope or Council. The origin of this charge of impiety may be referred +with the best show of probability to his attempt to cast the horoscope of +Jesus Christ.<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> This, together with a diagram, is given in the +Commentaries on Ptolemy, and soon after it appeared it was made the +occasion of a fierce attack by Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who declared that +such a scheme must be flat blasphemy, inasmuch as the author proved that +all the actions of Christ necessarily followed the position of the stars +at the time of His nativity. If Scaliger had taken the trouble to glance +at the Commentary he would have discovered that Cardan especially guarded +himself against any accusation of this sort, by setting down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> that no one +was to believe he had any intention of asserting that Christ's divinity, +or His miracles, or His holy life, or the promulgation of His laws were in +any way influenced by the stars.<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> Naudé, in recording the censures of +De Thou, "Verum extremæ amentiæ fuit, imo impiæ audaciæ, astrorum +commentitiis legibus verum astrorum dominum velle subjicere. Quod ille +tamen exarata Servatoris nostri genitura fecit," and of Joseph Scaliger, +"impiam dicam magis, an jocularem audaciam quæ et dominum stellarum +stellis subjecerit, et natum eo tempore putarit, quod adhuc in lite +positum est, ut vanitas cum impietate certaret,"<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> declares that it was +chiefly from the publication of this horoscope that Cardan incurred the +suspicion of blasphemy; but, with his free-thinking bias, abstains from +adding his own censure. He rates Scaliger for ignorance because he was +evidently under the impression that Cardan was the first to draw a +horoscope of Christ, and attacks Cardan chiefly on the score of plagiary. +He records how divers writers in past times had done the same thing. +Albumasar, one of the most learned of the Arabs, whose <i>thema natalium</i> is +quoted by Roger Bacon in one of his epistles to Clement V., Albertus +Magnus, Peter d'Ailly the Cardinal of Cambrai, and Tiberius Russilanus who +lived in the time of Leo X., all constructed nativities of Christ, but +Cardan makes no mention of these horoscopists, and, according to the view +of Naudé, poses as the inventor of this form of impiety, and is +consequently guilty of literary dishonesty, a worse sin, in his critics' +eyes, than the framing of the horoscope itself.</p> + +<p>That there was in Cardan's practice enough of curiosity and independence +to provoke suspicion of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> orthodoxy in the minds of the leaders of the +post-Tridentine revival, is abundantly possible; but there is nothing in +all his life and works to show that he was, according to the standard of +every age, anything else than a spiritually-minded man.<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> It would be +hard to find words more instinct with the true feeling of piety, than the +following taken from the fifty-third chapter of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>,—"I +love solitude, for I never seem to be so entirely with those who are +especially dear to me as when I am alone. I love God and the spirit of +good, and when I am by myself I let my thoughts dwell on these, their +immeasurable beneficence; the eternal wisdom, the source and origin of +clearest light, that true joy within us which never fears that God will +forsake us; that groundwork of truth; that willing love; and the Maker of +us all, who is blessed in Himself, and likewise the desire and safeguard +of all the blessed. Ah, what depth and what height of righteousness, +mindful of the dead and not forgetting the living. He is the Spirit who +protects me by His commands, my good and merciful counsellor, my helper +and consoler in misfortune."</p> + +<p>Two or three of Cardan's treatises are in the <i>materna lingua</i>, but he +wrote almost entirely in Latin, using a style which was emphatically +literary.<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> His Latin is probably above the average excellence of the +age, and if the classic writers held the first place in his estimation—as +naturally they would—he assuredly did not neglect the firstfruits of +modern literature. Pulci was his favourite poet. He evidently knew Dante +and Boccaccio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> well, and his literary insight was clear enough to perceive +that the future belonged to those who should write in the vulgar tongue of +the lands which produced them.<a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p> + +<p>Perhaps it was impossible that a man endowed with so catholic a spirit and +with such earnest desire for knowledge, should sink into the mere pedant +with whom later ages have been made acquainted through the farther +specialization of science. At all events Cardan is an instance that the +man of liberal education need not be killed by the man of science. For him +the path of learning was not an easy one to tread, and, as it not seldom +happens, opposition and coldness drove him on at a pace rarely attained by +those for whom the royal road to learning is smoothed and prepared. For a +long time his father refused to give him instruction in Latin, or to let +him be taught by any one else, and up to his twentieth year he seems to +have known next to nothing of this language which held the keys both of +letters and science. He began to learn Greek when he was about +thirty-five, but it was not till he had turned forty that he took up the +study of it in real earnest;<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> and, writing some years later, he gives +quotations from a Latin version of Aristotle.<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> In his commentaries on +Hippocrates he used a Latin text, presumably the translation of Calvus +printed in Rome in 1525, and quotes Epicurus in Latin in the <i>De +Subtilitate</i> (p. 347), but in works like the <i>De Sapientia</i> and the <i>De +Consolatione</i> he quotes Greek freely, supplying in nearly every case a +Latin version of the passages cited. These treatises<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> bristle with +quotations, Horace being his favourite author. "Vir in omni sapientiæ +genere admirandus."<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> As with many moderns his love for Horace did not +grow less as old age crept on, for the <i>De Vita Propria</i> is perhaps fuller +of Horatian tags than any other of his works. It would seem somewhat of a +paradox that a sombre and earnest nature like Cardan's should find so +great pleasure in reading the elegant <i>poco curante</i> triflings of the +Augustan singer, were it not a recognized fact that Horace has always been +a greater favourite with serious practical Englishmen than with the +descendants of those for whom he wrote his verses.</p> + +<p>It was a habit with Cardan to apologize in the prefaces of his scientific +works for the want of elegance in his Latin, explaining that the baldness +and simplicity of his periods arose from his determination to make his +meaning plain, and to trouble nothing about style for the time being; but +the following passage shows that he had a just and adequate conception of +the necessary laws of literary art. "That book is perfect which goes +straight to its point in one single line of argument, which neither leaves +out aught that is necessary, nor brings in aught that is superfluous: +which observes the rule of correct division; which explains what is +obscure; and shows plainly the groundwork upon which it is based."<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></p> + +<p>The <i>De Vita Propria</i> from which this extract comes is in point of style +one of his weakest books, but even in this volume passages may here and +there be found of considerable merit, and Cardan was evidently studious to +let his ideas be presented in intelligible form, for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>he records that in +1535 he read through the whole of Cicero, for the sake of improving his +Latin. His style, according to Naudé, held a middle place between the +high-flown and the pedestrian, and of all his books the <i>De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda</i>, which was begun in 1557, shows the nearest approach to +elegance, but even this is not free from diffuseness, the fault which +Naudé finds in all his writings. Long dissertations entirely alien from +the subject in hand are constantly interpolated. In the Practice of +Arithmetic he turns aside to treat of the marvellous properties of certain +numbers, of the motion of the planets, and of the Tower of Babel; and in +the treatise on Dialectic he gives an estimate of the historians and +letter-writers of the past. But here Cardan did not sin in ignorance; his +poverty and not his will consented to these literary outrages. He was paid +for his work by the sheet, and the thicker the volume the higher the +pay.<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p> + +<p>When he made a beginning of the <i>De Utilitate</i> Cardan was at the zenith of +his fortunes. He had lately returned from his journey to Scotland, having +made a triumphant progress through the cities of Western Europe. Thus, +with his mind well stored with experience of divers lands, his wits +sharpened by intercourse with the <i>élite</i> of the learned world, and his +hand nerved by the magnetic stimulant of success, he sat down to write as +the philosopher and man of the world, rather than as the man of science. +He was, in spite of his prosperity, inclined to deal with the more sombre +side of life. He seems to have been specially drawn to write of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> death, +disease, and of the peculiar physical misfortune which befell him in early +manhood. Like Cicero he goes on to treat of Old Age, but in a spirit so +widely different that a brief comparison of the conclusions of the two +philosophers will not be without interest. Old age, Cardan declares to be +the most cruel and irreparable evil with which man is cursed, and to talk +of old age is to talk of the crowning misfortune of humanity. Old men are +made wretched by avarice, by dejection, and by terror. He bids men not to +be deceived by the flowery words of Cicero,<a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> when he describes Cato as +an old man, like to a fair statue of Polycleitus, with faculties +unimpaired and memory fresh and green. He next goes on to catalogue the +numerous vices and deformities of old age, and instances from Aristotle +what he considers to be the worst of all its misfortunes, to wit that an +old man is well-nigh cut off from hope; and by way of comment grimly adds, +"If any man be plagued by the ills of old age he should blame no one but +himself, for it is by his own choice that his life has run on so long." He +vouchsafes a few words of counsel as to how this hateful season may be +robbed of some of its horror. Our bodies grow old first, then our senses, +then our minds. Therefore let us store our treasures in that part of us +which will hold out longest, as men in a beleaguered city are wont to +collect their resources in the citadel, which, albeit it must in the end +be taken, will nevertheless be the last to fall into the foeman's hands. +Old men should avoid society, seeing that they can bring nothing thereto +worth having: whether they speak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> or keep silent they are in the way, and +they are as irksome to themselves when they are silent, as they are to +others when they speak. The old man should take a lesson from the lower +animals, which are wont to defend themselves with the best arms given them +by nature: bulls with their horns, horses with their hoofs, and cats with +their claws; wherefore an old man should at least show himself to be as +wise as the brutes and maintain his position by his wisdom and knowledge, +seeing that all the grace and power of his manhood must needs have +fled.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a></p> + +<p>In another of his moral treatises he has formulated a long indictment +against old age, that hateful state with its savourless joys and sleepless +nights. Did not Zeno the philosopher strangle himself when he found that +time refused to do its work. The happiest are those who earliest lay down +the burden of existence, and the Law itself causes these offenders who are +least guilty to die first, letting the more nefarious and hardened +criminals stand by and witness the death of their fellows. There can be no +evil worse than the daily expectation of the blow that is inevitable, and +old age, when it comes, must make every man regret that he did not die in +infancy. "When I was a boy," he writes, "I remember one day to have heard +my mother, Chiara Micheria—herself a young woman—cry out that she wished +it had been God's will to let her die when she was a child. I asked her +why, and she answered: 'Because I know I must soon die, to the great peril +of my soul, and besides this, if we shall diligently weigh and examine all +our experiences of life, we shall not light upon a single one which will +not have brought us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> more sorrow than joy. For afflictions when they come +mar the recollection of our pleasures, and with just cause; for what is +there in life worthy the name of delight, the ever-present burden of +existence, the task of dressing and undressing every day, hunger, thirst, +evil dreams? What more profit and ease have we than the dead? We must +endure the heat of summer, the cold of winter, the confusion of the times, +the dread of war, the stern rule of parents, the anxious care of our +children, the weariness of domestic life, the ill carriage of servants, +lawsuits, and, what is worst of all, the state of the public mind which +holds probity as silliness; which practises deceit and calls it prudence. +Craftsmen are counted excellent, not by their skill in their art, but by +reason of their garish work and of the valueless approbation of the mob. +Wherefore one must needs either incur God's displeasure or live in misery, +despised and persecuted by men.'"<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> These words, though put into his +mother's mouth, are manifestly an expression of Cardan's own feelings.</p> + +<p>Cardan was the product of an age to which there had recently been revealed +the august sources from which knowledge, as we understand the term, has +flowed without haste or rest since the unsealing of the fountain. He +counts it rare fortune to have been born in such an age, and rhapsodizes +over the flowery meadow of knowledge in which his generation rejoices, and +over the vast Western world recently made known. Are not the artificial +thunderbolts of man far more destructive than those of heaven? What praise +is too high for the magnet which leads men safely over perilous seas, or +for the art of printing? Indeed it needs but little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> more to enable man to +scale the very heavens. With his mind thus set upon the exploration of +these new fields of knowledge; with the full realization how vast was the +treasure lying hid therein; it was only natural that a spirit so curious +and greedy of fresh mental food should have fretted at the piteous brevity +of the earthly term allowed to man, and have rated as a supreme evil that +old age which brought with it decay of the faculties and foreshadowed the +speedy and inevitable fall of the curtain. Cicero on the other hand had +been nurtured in a creed and philosophy alike outworn. The blight of +finality had fallen upon the moral world, and the physical universe still +guarded jealously her mighty secrets. To the eyes of Cicero the mirror of +nature was blank void and darkness, while Cardan, gazing into the same +glass, must have been embarrassed with the number and variety of the +subjects offered, and may well have felt that the longest life of man ten +times prolonged would rank but as a moment in that Titanic spell of work +necessary to bring to the birth the teeming burden with which the universe +lay in travail. Here is one and perhaps the strongest reason of his hatred +of old age; because through the shortness of his span of time he could +only deal with a grain or two of the sand lying upon the shores of +knowledge. Cicero, with his more limited vision, conscious that sixty +years or so of life would exhaust every physical delight, and blunt and +mar the intellectual; ignorant both of the world of new light lying beyond +the void, and of the rapture which the conquering investigator of the same +must feel in wringing forth its secrets, welcomed the gathering shades as +friendly visitants, a mood which has asserted itself in later times with +certain weary spirits, sated with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> knowledge as Vitellius was sated with +his banquets of nightingales' tongues.</p> + +<p>Cardan with all his curiosity and restless mental activity was hampered +and restrained in his explorations by the bonds which had been imposed +upon thought during the rule of authority. These bonds held him +back—acting imperceptibly—as they held back Abelard and many other +daring spirits trained in the methods of the schoolmen, and allowed him to +do little more than range at large over the fields of fresh knowledge +which were destined to be reaped by later workers trained in other schools +and under different masters. Learning was still subject to authority, +though in milder degree, than when Thomas of Aquino dominated the mental +outlook of Europe, and the great majority of the men who posed as +Freethinkers, and sincerely believed themselves to be Freethinkers, were +unconsciously swayed by the associations of the method of teaching they +professed to despise. Their progress for the most part resembled the +movement of a squirrel in a rotatory cage, but though their efforts to +conquer the new world of knowledge were vain, it cannot be questioned that +the restrictions placed around them, while nullifying the result of their +investigations, stimulated enormously the activity of the brain and gave +it a formal discipline which proved of the highest value when the real +literary work of Modern Europe began. The futilities of the problems upon +which the scholastic thinkers exercised themselves gave occasion for the +satiric onslaught both of Rabelais and Erasmus. "Quæstio subtilissima, +utrum Chimæra in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones; et +fuit debatuta per decem hebdomadas in Consilio <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>Constantiensi," and "Quid +consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi +pendebet in cruce?" are samples which will be generally familiar, but the +very absurdity of these exercitations serves to prove how strenuous must +have been the temper of the times which preferred to exhaust itself over +such banalities as are typified by the extracts above written, rather than +remain inactive. The dogmas in learning were fixed as definitely as in +religion, and the solution of every question was found and duly recorded. +The Philosopher was allowed to strike out a new track, but if he valued +his life or his ease, he would take care to arrive finally at the +conclusion favoured by authority.</p> + +<p>Cardan may with justice be classed both with men of science and men of +letters. In spite of the limitations just referred to it is certain that +as he surveyed the broadening horizon of the world of knowledge, he must +have felt the student's spasm of agony when he first realized the infinity +of research and the awful brevity of time. His reflections on old age give +proof enough of this. If he missed the labour in the full harvest-field, +the glimpse of the distant mountain tops, suffused for the first time by +the new light, he missed likewise the wearing labour which fell upon the +shoulders of those who were compelled by the new philosophy to use new +methods in presenting to the world the results of their midnight research. +Such work as Cardan undertook in the composition of his moral essays, and +in the Commentary on Hippocrates put no heavy tax on the brain or the +vital energies; the Commentary was of portentous length, but it was not +much more than a paraphrase with his own experiences added thereto. +Mathematics were his pastime, to judge by the ease and rapidity with which +he solved the problems sent to him by Francesco<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> Sambo of Ravenna and +others.<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> He worked hard no doubt, but as a rule mere labour inflicts +no heavier penalty than healthy fatigue. The destroyer of vital power and +spring is hard work, combined with that unsleeping diligence which must be +exercised when a man sets himself to undertake something more complex than +the mere accumulation of data, when he is forced to keep his mental powers +on the strain through long hours of selection and co-ordination, and to +fix and concentrate his energies upon the task of compelling into symmetry +the heap of materials lying under his hand. The <i>De Subtilitate</i> and the +<i>De Varietate</i> are standing proofs that Cardan did not overstrain his +powers by exertion of this kind.</p> + +<p>Leaving out of the reckoning his mathematical treatises, the vogue enjoyed +by Cardan's published works must have been a short one. They came to the +birth only to be buried in the yawning graves which lie open in every +library. At the time when Spon brought out his great edition in ten folio +volumes in 1663, the mists of oblivion must have been gathering around the +author's fame, and in a brief space his words ceased to have any weight in +the teaching of that Art he had cultivated with so great zeal and +affection. The mathematician who talked about "Cardan's rule" to his +pupils was most likely ignorant both of his century and his birthplace. +Had it not been for the references made by writers like Burton to his +dabblings in occult learning, his claims to read the stars, and to the +guidance of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> peculiar spirit, his name would have been now unknown, save +to a few algebraists; and his desire, expressed in one of the meditative +passages of the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, would have been amply fulfilled: "Non +tamen unquam concupivi gloriam aut honores: imo sprevi, cuperem notum esse +quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxix. p. 76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Dugald Stewart, <i>Dissertations</i>, p. 378.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> The writer, a Jesuit, says in <i>Disquisitionum Magicarum</i> +(Louvanii, 1599), tom. i.:—"In Cardani de Subtilitate et de Varietate +libris passim latet anguis in herba et indiget expurgatione Ecclesiasticæ +limæ." Del Rio was a violent assailant of Cornelius Agrippa.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> "Quoniam intellectus intrinsecus est homini, belluis +extrinsecus collucet: unus etiam satisfacere omnibus, quæ in una specie +sunt potest, hominibus plures sunt necessarii: tertia est quod hominis +anima tanquam speculum est levigata, splendida, solida, clara: belluarum +autem tenebrosa nec levis; atque ideo in nostra anima lux mentis refulget +multipliciter confracta, inde ipse Intellectus intelligit. Ceteris autem +potentiis, ut diximus, nullus limes prescriptus est: at belluarum internis +facultatibus tantum licet agnoscere, quantum per exteriores sensus +accesserit."—<i>De Imm. Anim.,</i> p. 283.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> "Deum debere dici immensum: omnia quæ partes habent +diversas ordinatas animam habere et vitam."—p. 167.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a> In the last edition of <i>De Libris Propriis</i> he calls it +"Christique nativitas admirabilis."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> <i>Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis</i>, p. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a> <i>Præfatio in Manilium</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> A proof of his liberal tone of mind is found in his +appreciation of the fine qualities of Edward VI. as a man, although he +resented his encroachments as a king upon the Pope's rights.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> In the <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxxiii. p. 106, he fixes into +his prose an entire line of Horace, "Canidia afflasset pejor serpentibus +Afris."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> "At Boccatii fabulæ nunc majus virent quam antea: et Dantis +Petrarchæque ac Virgilii totque aliorum poemata sunt in maxima +veneratione."—<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> <i>Ibid.,</i> tom. i. p. 59.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xii.-xiii. pp. 39, 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 505.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. xxvii. p. 72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a> "Eo tantum fine, quemadmodum alicubi fatetur, ut plura +folia Typographis mitteret, quibuscum antea de illorum pretio pepigerat; +atque hoc modo fami, non secus ac famæ scriberet."—Naudæus, <i>Judicium</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a> In <i>De Consolatione</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 604) he +writes:—"Quantum diligentiæ, quantum industriæ Cicero adjecit, quo conatu +nixus est ut persuaderet senectutem esse tolerandam."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> <i>De Utilitate</i>, book ii. ch. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> <i>De Consolatione</i> (<i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 605).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> <i>Opera</i>, tom. i. p. 113. On the same page he adds:—"Fui +autem tam felix in cito absoluendo, quam infelicissimus in sero inchoando. +Cœpi enim illum anno ætatis meæ quinquagesimo octavo, absolvi intra septem +dies; pene prodigio similis."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> <i>De Vita Propria</i>, ch. ix. p. 30.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p> +Adda, battle, <a href="#Page_7">7</a><br /> +<br /> +Alberio, Antonio, <a href="#Page_4">4</a><br /> +<br /> +Alciati, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Algebra, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Appearance of Cardan, <a href="#Page_19">19</a><br /> +<br /> +Apuleius, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br /> +<br /> +Archinto, Filippo, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Aristotle, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<br /> +Arithmetic, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +Astrology, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br /> +<br /> +Avicenna, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Bandarini, Altobello, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br /> +<br /> +Bandarini, Lucia (Cardan's wife), <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br /> +<br /> +Bayle, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br /> +<br /> +Bologna, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>-<a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +Borgo, Fra Luca da, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Borromeo, Carlo, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Borromeo, Count, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br /> +<br /> +Browne, Sir T., <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br /> +<br /> +Brissac, Marquis, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Camutio, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br /> +<br /> +Cantone, Otto, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br /> +<br /> +Cardano, Aldo, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +Cardano, Fazio, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br /> +<br /> +Cardano, Gasparo, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a><br /> +<br /> +Cardano, Gian Battista, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a><br /> +<br /> +Cardano, Niccolo, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br /> +<br /> +Cassanate, G., <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a><br /> +<br /> +Cavenago, Ambrogio, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a><br /> +<br /> +Cheke, Sir J., <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +Chiara (Cardan's daughter), <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br /> +<br /> +Chiromancy, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Cicero, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>-<a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a><br /> +<br /> +Colla, Giovanni, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Consolatione, De</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<br /> +Croce, Francesco della, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a><br /> +<br /> +Croce, Luca della, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +D'Avalos, Alfonso, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a><br /> +<br /> +Deaf mutes, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Demons, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a><br /> +<br /> +Denmark, King of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a><br /> +<br /> +Diet, Cardan's, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>: for the Archbishop of St. Andrews, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br /> +<br /> +Diseases, Cardan's, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a><br /> +<br /> +Doctorate of Padua, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br /> +<br /> +Dreams, Cardan's, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br /> +<br /> +Edward VI., <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a><br /> +<br /> +English, the, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br /> +<br /> +Erasmus, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Familiar spirit of Cardan, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +Familiar spirit of Fazio Cardano, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a><br /> +<br /> +Ferrari, Ludovico, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>-<a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a><br /> +<br /> +Ferreo, Scipio, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +Fioravanti, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br /> +<br /> +Fiore Antonio, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Gaddi, Franc., <a href="#Page_47">47</a><br /> +<br /> +Galen, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_273">273</a><br /> +<br /> +Gallarate, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>Gambling, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Geniturarum Exempla</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br /> +<br /> +Geometry, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br /> +<br /> +Glanvil, Jos., <a href="#Page_279">279</a>-<a href="#Page_281">281</a><br /> +<br /> +Greek, study of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hamilton, James, Earl of Arran, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br /> +<br /> +Hippocrates, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>-<a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br /> +<br /> +Horace, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Cardan, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Aldo Cardano, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Cheke, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Christ, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Edward VI., <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Gian Battista Cardano, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of Ranconet, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br /> +<br /> +Horoscope of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Immortalitate Animorum, De</i>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a><br /> +<br /> +Imprisonment of Cardan, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br /> +<br /> +Index, Congregation of the, <a href="#Page_197">197</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Juan Antonio, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_83">83</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Lanza, Donato, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a><br /> +<br /> +Latin, study of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a><br /> +<br /> +Lawsuits, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a><br /> +<br /> +Leonardo Pisano, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>-<a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Libris Propriis, De</i>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a><br /> +<br /> +Lyons, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Mahomet the Algebraist, <a href="#Page_74">74</a><br /> +<br /> +Mahomet Ben Musa, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a><br /> +<br /> +Margarita, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Medicine, state of, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br /> +<br /> +Micheria Chiara (Cardan's mother), <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br /> +<br /> +Milan, College of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br /> +<br /> +Moroni, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>-<a href="#Page_220">220</a><br /> +<br /> +Music, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Naudé, Gabriel, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>-<a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +Niger, Josephus, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a><br /> +<br /> +Northumberland, Duke of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Orontius, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br /> +<br /> +Osiander, A., <a href="#Page_72">72</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Paciolus, Luca, <a href="#Page_74">74</a><br /> +<br /> +Padua, University, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a><br /> +<br /> +Paracelsus, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /> +<br /> +Paris, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br /> +<br /> +Parker, Dr. S., <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a><br /> +<br /> +Pavia, University, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /> +<br /> +Paul III., Pope, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br /> +<br /> +Peckham, John, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br /> +<br /> +Petreius, <a href="#Page_65">65</a><br /> +<br /> +Petrus, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br /> +<br /> +Pharnelius [Fernel], <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Phthisis, cure of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br /> +<br /> +Pius IV., <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Pius V., <a href="#Page_220">220</a>-<a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a><br /> +<br /> +Plat Lectureship, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br /> +<br /> +Porro, Branda, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br /> +<br /> +Portents, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>-<a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br /> +<br /> +Precepts for Children, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis</i>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Ranconet, A., <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br /> +<br /> +Ranke, Von, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br /> +<br /> +Rectorship at Padua, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a><br /> +<br /> +Rigone, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br /> +<br /> +Rome, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br /> +<br /> +Rosso, Galeazzo, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Sacco, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br /> +<br /> +Sacco, Bartolomeo, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a><br /> +<br /> +Saint Andrews, Abp. of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Sapientia, De</i>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Scaliger, J.C., <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a> <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>-<a href="#Page_286">286</a><br /> +<br /> +Scot, Reginald, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a><br /> +<br /> +Scotland, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br /> +<br /> +Scoto, Ottaviano, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br /> +<br /> +Scotus, Duns, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a><br /> +<br /> +Seroni, Brandonia, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br /> +<br /> +Seroni, Evangelista, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br /> +<br /> +Sessa, Duca di, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br /> +<br /> +Sfondrato, Francesco, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a><br /> +<br /> +Shetlands, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /> +<br /> +Socrates, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Subtilitate, De</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a><br /> +<br /> +Suisset (Swineshead), <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br /> +<br /> +Sylvestro, Rodolfo, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>Sylvius, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br /> +<br /> +Tartaglia, Niccolo, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>-<a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br /> +<br /> +Thuanus [de Thou], <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a> <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br /> +<br /> +Tiboldo, G., <a href="#Page_265">265</a><br /> +<br /> +Troilus and Dominicus, story of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Utilitate, De</i>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Varietate, De</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Vesalius, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br /> +<br /> +Vicomercato, Antonio, <a href="#Page_62">62</a><br /> +<br /> +Visconti, Ercole, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br /> +<br /> +<i>Vita Propria, De</i>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Weir, Johann, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a><br /> +<br /> +William, the English boy, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br /> +</p> + +<div class="padding"> +<div class="bbox"> +<p>Transcriber's notes</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_299">299</a> Faizo corrected to Fazio<br /> +Typographical errors in equations corrected.</p></div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome Cardan, by William George Waters + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + +***** This file should be named 19600-h.htm or 19600-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/0/19600/ + +Produced 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Jerome Cardan + A Biographical Study + +Author: William George Waters + +Release Date: October 22, 2006 [EBook #19600] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + +_A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY_ + +BY + +W.G. WATERS + +"To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, +not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in +Cardan."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE. + +[Illustration] + +LAWRENCE & BULLEN, Limited, + +16 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, MDCCCXCVIII. + + + + + RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON & BUNGAY. + + + + +PREFACE + + +No attempt is made in the following pages to submit to historical +treatment the vast and varied mass of printed matter which Cardan left as +his contribution to letters and science, except in the case of those works +which are, in purpose or incidentally, autobiographical, or of those which +furnish in themselves effective contributions towards the framing of an +estimate of the genius and character of the writer. Neither has it seemed +worth while to offer to the public another biography constructed on the +lines of the one brought out by Professor Henry Morley in 1854, for the +reason that the circumstances of Cardan's life, the character of his work, +and of the times in which he lived, all appeared to be susceptible of more +succinct and homogeneous treatment than is possible in a chronicle of the +passing years, and of the work that each one saw accomplished. At certain +junctures the narrative form is inevitable, but an attempt has been made +to treat the more noteworthy episodes of Cardan's life and work, and the +contemporary aspect of the republic of letters, in relation to existing +tendencies and conditions, whenever such a course has seemed possible. + +Professor Morley's book, _The Life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, +physician_, has been for some time out of print. This industrious writer +gathered together a large quantity of material, dealing almost as fully +with the more famous of the contemporary men of mark, with whom Cardan +was brought into contact, as with Cardan himself. The translations and +analyses of some of Cardan's more popular works which Professor Morley +gives are admirable in their way, but the space they occupy in the +biography is somewhat excessive. Had sufficient leisure for revision and +condensation been allowed, Professor Morley's book would have taken a high +place in biographical literature. As it stands it is a noteworthy +performance; and, by reason of its wide and varied stores of information +and its excellent index, it must always prove a valuable magazine of +_memoires pour servir_ for any future students who may be moved to write +afresh, concerning the life and work of the great Milanese physician. + +An apology may be needed for the occurrence here and there of passages +translated from the _De Vita Propria_ and the _De Utilitate ex Adversis +capienda_, passages which some readers may find too frequent and too +lengthy, but contemporary opinion is strongly in favour of letting the +subject speak for himself as far as may be possible. The date and place of +Cardan's quoted works are given in the first citation therefrom; those of +his writings which have not been available in separate form have been +consulted in the collected edition of his works in ten volumes, edited by +Spon, and published at Lyons in 1663. + +The author desires to acknowledge with gratitude the valuable assistance +in the way of suggestion and emendation which he received from Mr. R.C. +Christie during the final revision of the proofs. + +_London, October 1898._ + + + + +JEROME CARDAN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +LIKE certain others of the illustrious personages who flourished in his +time, Girolamo Cardano, or, as he has become to us by the unwritten law of +nomenclature, Jerome Cardan, was fated to suffer the burden and obloquy of +bastardy.[1] He was born at Pavia from the illicit union of Fazio Cardano, +a Milanese jurisconsult and mathematician of considerable repute, and a +young widow, whose maiden name had been Chiara Micheria, his father being +fifty-six, and his mother thirty-seven years of age at his birth. The +family of Fazio was settled at Gallarate, a town in Milanese territory, +and was one which, according to Jerome's contention, could lay claim to +considerable antiquity and distinction. He prefers a claim of descent from +the house of Castillione, founding the same upon an inscription on the +apse of the principal church at Gallarate.[2] He asserts that as far back +as 1189 Milo Cardano was Governor of Milan for more than seven years, and +according to tradition Franco Cardano, the commander of the forces of +Matteo Visconti,[3] was a member of the family. If the claim of the +Castillione ancestry be allowed the archives of the race would be still +farther enriched by the name of Pope Celestine IV., Godfrey of Milan, who +was elected Pope in 1241, and died the same year. + +Cardan's immediate ancestors were long-lived. The sons of Fazio Cardano, +his great-grandfather, Joanni, Aldo, and Antonio, lived to be severally +ninety-four, eighty-eight, and eighty-six years of age. Of these Joanni +begat two sons: Antonio, who lived eighty-eight years, and Angelo, who +reached the age of eighty-six. To Aldo were born Jacopo, who died at +seventy-two; Gottardo, who died at eighty-four; and Fazio, the father of +Jerome, who died at eighty.[4] + +Fazio, albeit he came of such a long-lived stock, and lived himself to be +fourscore, suffered much physical trouble during his life. On account of a +wound which he had received when he was a youth, some of the bones of his +skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain +long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a +certain corrosive poison, which did not kill him, but left him toothless. +He was likewise round-shouldered, a stammerer, and subject to constant +palpitation of the heart; but in compensation for these defects he had +eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not spectacles even in +advanced age. + +Of Jerome's mother little is known. Her family seems to have been as +tenacious of life as that of Fazio, for her father Jacopo lived to be +seventy-five years of age. Of his maternal grandfather Jerome remarks that +he was a highly skilled mathematician, and that when he was about seventy +years of age, he was cast into prison for some offence against the law. He +speaks of his mother as choleric in temper, well dowered with memory and +mental parts, small in stature and fat, and of a pious disposition,[5] and +declares that she and his father were alike in one respect, to wit that +they were easily moved to anger and were wont to manifest but lukewarm and +intermittent affection for their child. Nevertheless they were in a way +indulgent to him. His father permitted him to remain in bed till the +second hour of the day had struck, or rather forbade him to rise before +this time--an indulgence which worked well for the preservation of his +health. He adds that in after times he always thought of his father as +possessing the kindlier nature of the two.[6] + +It would seem from the passage above written, as well as from certain +others subsequent, that Jerome had little affection for his mother; and +albeit he neither chides nor reproaches her, he never refers to her in +terms so appreciative and loving as those which he uses in lamenting the +death of his harsh and tyrannical father. In the _Geniturarum Exempla_[7] +he says that, seeing he is writing of a woman, he will confine his remarks +to saying that she was ingenious, of good parts, generous, upright, and +loving towards her children. Perhaps the fact that his father died early, +while his mother lived on for many years, and was afterwards a member of +his household--together with his wife--may account for the colder tone of +his remarks while writing about her. She was the widow of a certain +Antonio Alberio,[8] and during her marriage had borne him three children, +Tommaso, Catilina, and Joanni Ambrogio; but when Jerome was a year old all +three of these died of the plague within the space of a few weeks.[9] He +himself narrowly escaped death from the same cause, and this attack he +attributes to an inherited tendency from his mother, she having suffered +from the same disease during her girlhood. There seems to have been born +to Fazio and Chiara another son, who died at birth.[10] + +Jerome Cardan was born on September 24, 1501, between half-past six +o'clock and a quarter to seven in the evening. In the second chapter of +his autobiography he gives the year as 1500, and in _De Utilitate_, p. +347, he writes the date as September 23, but on all other occasions the +date first written is used. Before he saw the light malefic influences +were at work against him. His mother, urged on no doubt by the desire to +conceal her shame, and persuaded by evil counsellors, drank a potion of +abortive drugs in order to produce miscarriage,[11] but Nature on this +occasion was not to be baulked. In recording the circumstances of his +birth he writes at some length in the jargon of astrology to show how the +celestial bodies were leagued together so as to mar him both in body and +mind. "Wherefore I ought, according to every rule, to have been born a +monster, and, under the circumstances, it was no marvel that it was found +necessary to tear me from the womb in order to bring me into the world. +Thus was I born, or rather dragged from my mother's body. I was to all +outward seeming dead, with my head covered with black curly hair. I was +brought round by being plunged in a bath of heated wine, a remedy which +might well have proved hurtful to any other infant. My mother lay three +whole days in labour, but at last gave birth to me, a living child."[12] + +The sinister influences of the stars soon began to manifest their power. +Before Jerome had been many days in the world the woman into whose charge +he had been given was seized with the plague and died the same day, +whereupon his mother took him home with her. The first of his bodily +ailments,--the catalogue of the same which he subsequently gives is indeed +a portentous one,[13]--was an eruption of carbuncles on the face in the +form of a cross, one of the sores being set on the tip of the nose; and +when these disappeared, swellings came. Before the boy was two months old +his godfather, Isidore di Resta of Ticino, gave him into the care of +another nurse who lived at Moirago, a town about seven miles from Milan, +but here again ill fortune attended him. His body began to waste and his +stomach to swell because the nurse who gave him suck was herself +pregnant.[14] A third foster-mother was found for him, and he remained +with her till he was weaned in his third year. + +When he was four years of age he was taken to Milan to be under the care +of his mother, who, with her sister, Margarita, was living in Fazio's +house; but whether she was at this time legally married to him or not +there is no evidence to show. In recording this change he remarks that he +now came under a gentler discipline from the hands of his mother and his +aunt, but immediately afterwards proclaims his belief that the last-named +must have been born without a gall bladder, a remark somewhat difficult to +apply, seeing he frequently complains afterwards of her harshness. It must +be remembered, however, that these details are taken from a record of the +writer's fifth year set down when he was past seventy.[15] He quotes +certain lapses from kindly usage, as for instance when it happened that he +was beaten by his father or his mother without a cause. After much +chastisement he always fell sick, and lay some time in mortal danger. +"When I was seven years old my father and my mother were then living +apart--my kinsfolk determined, for some reason or other, to give over +beating me, though perchance a touch of the whip might then have done me +no harm. But ill-fortune was ever hovering around me; she let my +tribulation take a different shape, but she did not remove it. My father, +having hired a house, took me and my mother and my aunt to live with him, +and made me always accompany him in his rounds about the city. On this +account I, being taken at this tender age with my weak body from a life of +absolute rest and put to hard and constant work, was seized at the +beginning of my eighth year with dysentery and fever, an ailment which was +at that time epidemic in our city. Moreover I had eaten by stealth a vast +quantity of sour grapes. But after I had been visited by the physicians, +Bernabo della Croce and Angelo Gyra, there seemed to be some hope of my +recovery, albeit both my parents, and my aunt as well, had already bewept +me as one dead. + +"At this season my father, who was at heart a man of piety, was minded to +invoke the divine assistance of San Girolamo (commending me to the care of +the Saint in his prayers) rather than trust to the working of that +familiar spirit which, as he was wont to declare openly, was constantly in +attendance upon him. The reason of this change in his treatment of me I +never cared to inquire. It was during the time of my recovery from this +sickness, that the French celebrated their triumph after defeating the +Venetians on the banks of the Adda, which spectacle I was allowed to +witness from my window.[16] After this my father freed me of the task of +going with him on his rounds. But the anger of Juno was not yet exhausted; +for, before I had fully recovered my health, I fell down-stairs (we were +then living in the Via dei Maini), with a hammer in my hand, and by this +accident I hurt the left side of my forehead, injuring the bone and +causing a scar which remains to this day. Before I had recovered from this +mishap I was sitting on the threshold of the house when a stone, about as +long and as broad as a nut, fell down from the top of a high house next +door and wounded my head just where my hair grew very thickly on the left +side. + +"At the beginning of my tenth year my father changed this house, which had +proved a very unlucky one for me, for another in the same street, and +there I abode for three whole years. But my ill luck still followed me, +for my father once more caused me to go about with him as his _famulus_, +and would never allow me on any pretext to escape this task. I should +hesitate to say that he did this through cruelty; for, taking into +consideration what ensued, you may perchance be brought to see that this +action of his came to pass rather through the will of Heaven than through +any failing of his own. I must add too that my mother and my aunt were +fully in agreement with him in his treatment of me. In after times, +however, he dealt with me in much milder fashion, for he took to live with +him two of his nephews, wherefore my own labour was lessened by the amount +of service he exacted from these. Either I did not go out at all, or if we +all went out together the task was less irksome. + +"When I had completed my sixteenth year--up to which time I served my +father constantly--we once more changed our house, and dwelt with +Alessandro Cardano next door to the bakery of the Bossi. My father had two +other nephews, sons of a sister of his, one named Evangelista, a member of +the Franciscan Order, and nearly seventy years of age, and the other Otto +Cantone, a farmer of the taxes, and very rich. The last-named, before he +died, wished to leave me his sole heir; but this my father forbad, saying +that Otto's wealth had been ill gotten; wherefore the estate was +distributed according to the directions of the surviving brother."[17] + +This, told as nearly as may be in his own words, is the story of Cardan's +birth and childhood and early discipline, a discipline ill calculated to +let him grow up to useful and worthy manhood. It must have been a wretched +spring of life. Many times he refers to the hard slavery he underwent in +the days when he was forced to carry his father's bag about the town, and +tells how he had to listen to words of insult cast at his mother's +name.[18] Like most boys who lead solitary lives, unrelieved by the +companionship of other children, he was driven in upon himself, and grew +up into a fanciful imaginative youth, a lover of books rather than of +games, with an old head upon his young shoulders. After such a training it +was only natural that he should be transformed from a nervous hysterical +child into an embittered, cross-grained man, profligate and superstitious +at the same time. Abundant light is thrown upon every stage of his career, +for few men have left a clearer picture of themselves in their written +words, and nowhere is Cardan, from the opening to the closing scene, so +plainly exhibited as in the _De Vita Propria_, almost the last work which +came from his pen. It has been asserted that this book, written in the +twilight of senility by an old man with his heart cankered by misfortune +and ill-usage, and his brain upset by the dread of real or fancied +assaults of foes who lay in wait for him at every turn, is no trustworthy +guide, even when bare facts are in question, and undoubtedly it would be +undesirable to trust this record without seeking confirmation elsewhere. +This confirmation is nearly always at hand, for there is hardly a +noteworthy event in his career which he does not refer to constantly in +the more autobiographic of his works. The _De Vita Propria_ is indeed ill +arranged and full of inconsistencies, but in spite of its imperfections, +it presents its subject as clearly and effectively as Benvenuto Cellini is +displayed in his own work. The rough sketch of a great master often +performs its task more thoroughly than the finished painting, and Cardan's +autobiography is a fragment of this sort. It lets pass in order of +procession the moody neglected boy in Fazio's ill-ordered house, the +student at Pavia, the youthful Rector of the Paduan Gymnasium, plunging +when just across the threshold of life into criminal excess of +Sardanapalean luxury, the country doctor at Sacco and afterwards at +Gallarate, starving amongst his penniless patients, the University +professor, the famous physician for whose services the most illustrious +monarchs in Europe came as suppliants in vain, the father broken by family +disgrace and calamity, and the old man, disgraced and suspected and +harassed by persecutors who shot their arrows in the dark, but at the same +time tremblingly anxious to set down the record of his days before the +night should descend. + +Until he had completed his nineteenth year Jerome continued to dwell under +the roof which for the time being might give shelter to his parents. The +emoluments which Fazio drew from his profession were sufficient for the +family wants--he himself being a man of simple tastes; wherefore Jerome +was not forced, in addition to his other youthful troubles, to submit to +that _execrata paupertas_ and its concomitant miseries which vexed him in +later years. To judge from his conduct in the matter of Otto Cantone's +estate, Fazio seems to have been as great a despiser of wealth as his son +proved to be afterwards. His virtue, such as it was, must have been the +outcome of one of those hard cold natures, with wants few and trifling, +and none of those tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be +procured by money. The fact that he made his son run after him through the +streets of Milan in place of a servant is not a conclusive proof of +avarice; it may just as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and +callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his young son, and +indisposed to trouble himself about searching for a hireling to carry his +bag. The one indication we gather of his worldly wisdom is his +dissatisfaction that his son was firmly set to follow medicine rather than +jurisprudence, a step which would involve the loss of the stipend of one +hundred crowns a year which he drew for his lectureship, an income which +he had hoped might be continued to a son of his after his death.[19] + +Amidst the turmoil and discomfort of what must at the best have been a +most ill-regulated household, the boy's education was undertaken by his +father in such odds and ends of time as he might find to spare for the +task.[20] What with the hardness and irritability of the teacher, and the +peevishness inseparable from the pupil's physical feebleness and morbid +overwrought mental habit, these hours of lessons must have been irksome to +both, and of little benefit. "In the meantime my father taught me orally +the Latin tongue as well as the rudiments of Arithmetic, Geometry, and +Astrology. But he allowed me to sleep well into the day, and he himself +would always remain abed till nine o'clock. But one habit of his appeared +to me likely to lead to grave consequences, to wit the way he had of +lending to others anything which belonged to him. Part of these loans, +which were made to insolvents, he lost altogether; and the residue, lent +to divers persons in high places, could only be recovered with much +trouble and no little danger, and with loss of all interest on the same. I +know not whether he acted in this wise by the advice of that familiar +spirit[21] whose services he retained for eight-and-thirty years. What +afterwards came to pass showed that my father treated me, his son, rightly +in all things relating to education, seeing that I had a keen +intelligence. For with boys of this sort it is well to make use of the bit +as though you were dealing with mules. Beyond this he was witty and +diverting in his conversation, and given to the telling of stories and +strange occurrences well worth notice. He told me many things about +familiar spirits, but what part of these were true I know not; but +assuredly tales of this sort, wonderful in themselves and artfully put +together, delighted me marvellously. + +"But what chiefly deserved condemnation in my father was that he brought +up certain other youths with the intention of leaving to them his goods in +case I should die; which thing, in sooth, meant nothing less than the +exposure of myself to open danger through plots of the parents of the boys +aforesaid, on account of the prize offered. Over this affair my father and +my mother quarrelled grievously, and finally decided to live apart. +Whereupon my mother, stricken by this mental vexation, and troubled at +intervals with what I deem to have been an hysterical affection, fell one +day full on the back of her neck, and struck her head upon the floor, +which was composed of tiles. It was two or three hours before she came +round, and indeed her recovery was little short of miraculous, especially +as at the end of her seizure she foamed much at the mouth. + +"In the meantime I altered the whole drift of this tragedy by a pretended +adoption of the religious life, for I became for a time a member of the +mendicant Franciscan brotherhood. But at the beginning of my twenty-first +year[22] I went to the Gymnasium at Pavia, whereupon my father, feeling my +absence, was softened towards me, and a reconciliation between him and my +mother took place. + +"Before this time I had learnt music, my mother and even my father having +secretly given me money for the same; my father likewise paid for my +instruction in dialectics. I became so proficient in this art that I +taught it to certain other youths before I went to the University. Thus he +sent me there endowed with the means of winning an honest living; but he +never once spake a word to me concerning this matter, bearing himself +always towards me in considerate, kindly, and pious wise. + +"For the residue of his days (and he lived on well-nigh four more years) +his life was a sad one, as if he would fain let it be known to the world +how much he loved me.[23] Moreover, when by the working of fate I returned +home while he lay sick, he besought, he commanded, nay he even forced me, +all unwilling, to depart thence, what though he knew his last hour was +nigh, for the reason that the plague was in the city, and he was fain that +I should put myself beyond danger from the same. Even now my tears rise +when I think of his goodwill towards me. But, my father, I will do all the +justice I can to thy merit and to thy paternal care; and, as long as these +pages may be read, so long shall thy name and thy virtues be celebrated. +He was a man not to be corrupted by any offering whatsoever, and indeed a +saint. But I myself was left after his death involved in many lawsuits, +having nothing clearly secured except one small house."[24] + +Fazio contracted a close intimacy with a certain Galeazzo Rosso, a man +clever as a smith, and endowed with mechanical tastes which no doubt +helped to secure him Fazio's friendship. Galeazzo discovered the principle +of the water-screw of Archimedes before the description of the same, +written in the books of the inventor, had been published. He also made +swords which could be bent as if they were of lead, and sharp enough to +cut iron like wood. He performed a more wonderful feat in fashioning iron +breast-plates which would resist the impact of red-hot missiles. In the +_De Sapientia_, Cardan records that when Galeazzo perfected his +water-screw, he lost his wits for joy. + +Fazio took no trouble to teach his son Latin,[25] though the learned +language would have been just as necessary for the study of jurisprudence +as for any other liberal calling, and Jerome did not begin to study it +systematically till he was past nineteen years of age. Through some whim +or prejudice the old man refused for some time to allow the boy to go to +the University, and when at last he gave his consent he still fought hard +to compel Jerome to qualify himself in jurisprudence; but here he found +himself at issue with a will more stubborn than his own. Cardan writes: +"From my earliest youth I let every action of mine be regulated in view of +the after course of my life, and I deemed that as a career medicine would +serve my purpose far better than law, being more appropriate for the end I +had in view, of greater interest to the world at large, and likely to last +as long as time itself. At the same time I regarded it as a study which +embodied the nobler principles, and rested upon the ground of reason (that +is upon the eternal laws of Nature) rather than upon the sanction of human +opinion. On this account I took up medicine rather than jurisprudence, nay +I almost entirely cast aside, or even fled from the company of those +friends of mine who followed the law, rejecting at the same time wealth +and power and honour. My father, when he heard that I had abandoned the +study of law to follow philosophy, wept in my presence, and grieved amain +that I would not settle down to the study of his own subject. He deemed +it the more salutary discipline--proofs of which opinion he would often +bring forward out of Aristotle--that it was better adapted for the +acquisition of power and riches; and that it would help me more +efficiently in restoring the fortunes of our house. He perceived moreover +that the office of teaching in the schools of the city, together with its +accompanying salary of a hundred crowns which he had enjoyed for so many +years, would not be handed on to me, as he had hoped, and he saw that a +stranger would succeed to the same. Nor was that commentary of his +destined ever to see the light or to be illustrated by my notes. Earlier +in life he had nourished a hope that his name might become illustrious as +the emendator of the 'Commentaries of John, Archbishop of Canterbury on +Optics and Perspective.'[26] Indeed the following verses were printed +thereanent: + + 'Hoc Cardana viro gaudet domus: omnia novit + Unus: habent nullum saecula nostra parem.' + +"These words may be taken as a sort of augury referring rather to certain +other men about to set forth to do their work in the world, than to my +father, who, except in the department of jurisprudence (of which indeed +rumour says that he was a master), never let his mind take in aught that +was new. The rudiments of mathematics were all that he possessed, and he +gathered no fresh knowledge from the store-houses of Greek learning. This +disposition in him was probably produced by the vast multitude of subjects +to be mastered, and by his infirmity of purpose, rather than by any lack +of natural parts, or by idleness or by defect of judgment; vices to which +he was in no way addicted. But I, being firmly set upon the object of my +wishes, for the reasons given above, and because I perceived that my +father had achieved only moderate success--though he had encountered but +few hindrances--remained unconvinced by any of his exhortations."[27] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Bayle is unwilling to admit Cardan's illegitimate birth. In _De +Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 619 (Lyons, 1663), Cardan writes in +reference to the action of the Milanese College of Physicians: "Medicorum +collegium, suspitione oborta, quod (tam male a patre tractatus) spurius +essem, repellebat." Bayle apparently had not read the _De Consolatione_, +as he quotes the sentence as the work of a modern writer, and affirms that +the word "suspitio" would not have been used had the fact been notorious. +But in the _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 676, Cardan declares +that his father openly spoke of him as a bastard. + +[2] _De Utilitate ex adversis Capienda_ (Franeker, 1648), p. 357. + +[3] Matteo Visconti was born in 1250, and died in 1322. He was lord of +Novara Vercello Como and Monferrato, and was made Vicar Imperial by +Adolphus of Nassau. Though he was worsted in his conflict with John XXII. +he did much to lay the foundations of his family. + +[4] _De Vita Propria_ (Amsterdam, 1654), ch. i. p. 4. + +[5] Cardan makes a statement in _De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 605, +which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. "Matrem meam +Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum puer essem, meminique hanc +dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo placuisset, extincta forem in infantia." + +[6] _De Vita Propria_, ch. i. p. 4. + +[7] _Geniturarum Exempla_ (Basil, 1554), p. 436. + +[8] _De Rerum Varietate_ (Basil, 1557), p. 655. + +[9] _De Utilitate_, p. 347. There is a passage in _Geniturarum Exempla_, +p. 435, dealing with Fazio's horoscope, which may be taken to mean that +these children were his. "Alios habuisse filios qui obierint ipsa genitura +dem[o=]strat, me solo diu post eti[a=] illius mort[e=] superstite." + +[10] With regard to the union of his parents he writes: "Uxorem vix duxit +ob Lunam afflictam et eam in senectute."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 435. + +[11] "Igitur ut ab initio exordiar, in pestilentia conceptus, matrem, +nondum natus (ut puto) mearum calamitatum participem, profugam +habui."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 618. + +"Mater ut abortiret medicamentum abortivum dum in utero essem, alieno +mandato bibit."--_De Utilitate_, p. 347. + +[12] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ii. p. 6. + +[13] In one passage, _De Utilitate_, p. 348, he sums up his physical +misfortunes: "Hydrope, febribus, aliisque morbis conflictatus sum, donec +sub fine octavi anni ex dysenteria ac febre usque ad mortis limina +perveni, pulsavi ostium sed non aperuere qui intro erant." + +[14] "Inde lac praegnantis hausi per varias nutrices lactatus ac +jactatus."--_De Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[15] The _De Vita Propria_, the chief authority for these remarks, was +written by Cardan in Rome shortly before his death. + +[16] The illness would have occurred about October 1508, and the victory +of the Adda was on May 14, 1509. This fact fixes his birth in 1501, and +shows that his illness must have lasted six or seven months. + +[17] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. ii. + +[18] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 676. + +[19] "Quod munus profitendi institutiones in urbe ipsa cum honorario +centum coronatorum, quo jam tot annis gaudebat, non in me (ut speraverat) +transiturum intelligebat."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 35. + +[20] "Pater jam ante concesserat ut Geometriae et Dialecticae operam darem, +in quo (quanquam praeter paucas admonitiones, librosque, ac licentiam, +nullum aliud auxilium praebuerit) eas tamen ego (succicivis temporibus +studens) interim feliciter sum assecutus."--_De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. +i. p. 619. + +[21] "Facius Cardanus daemonem aetherium, ut ipse dicebat, diu familiarem +habuit; qui quamdiu conjuratione usus est, vera illi dabat responsa, cum +autem illam exussisset, veniebat quidem, sed responsa falsa dabat. Tenuit +igitur annis, ni fallor, vinginti octo cum conjuratione, solutum autem +circiter quinque."--_De Varietate_, p. 629. + +In the _Dialogus Tetim_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 672), Cardan writes: "Pater +honeste obiit et ex senio, sed multo antea eum Genius ille reliquerat." + +[22] There is a discrepancy between this date and the one given in _De +Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 11. "Anno exacto XIX contuli me in Ticinensem +Academiam." + +[23] "Inde (desiderium augente absentia) mortuus est, saeviente peste, cum +primum me diligere coepisset."--_De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 619. + +[24] _De Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[25] "Nimis satis fuit defuisse tot, memoriam, linguam Latinam per +adolescentiam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. li. p. 218. + +[26] John Peckham was a Franciscan friar, and was nominated to the see of +Canterbury by Nicholas III. in 1279. He had spent much time in the convent +of his Order at Oxford, and there is a legend connecting him with a +Johannes Juvenis or John of London, a youth who had attracted the +attention and benevolence of Roger Bacon. This Johannes became one of the +first mathematicians and opticians of the age, and was sent to Rome by +Bacon, who entrusted to him the works which he was sending to Pope Clement +IV. There is no reason for this view beyond the fact that both were called +John, and distinguished in the same branches of learning. The _Perspectiva +Communis_ was his principal work; it does not deal with perspective as now +understood, but with elementary propositions of optics. It was first +printed in Milan in or about 1482. + +[27] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 34. A remark in _De Sapientia_, Opera, +tom. i. p. 578, suggests that Fazio began life as a physician: "Pater meus +Facius Cardanus Medicus primo, inde Jurisconsultus factus est." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE University of Pavia to which Jerome now betook himself was by +tradition one of the learned foundations of Charlemagne.[28] It had +certainly enjoyed a high reputation all through the Middle Ages, and had +recently had the honour of numbering Laurentius Valla amongst its +professors. In 1362, Galeazzo Visconti had obtained a charter for it from +the Emperor Charles IV., and that it had become a place of consequence in +1400 is proved by the fact that, besides maintaining several professors in +the Canon Law, it supported thirteen in Civil Law, five in Medicine, three +in Philosophy, and one each in Astrology, Greek, and Eloquence. Like all +the other Universities of Northern Italy, it suffered occasional eclipse +or even extinction on account of the constant war and desolation which +vexed these parts almost without intermission during the years following +the formation of the League of Cambrai. Indeed, as recently as 1500, the +famous library collected by Petrarch, and presented by Gian Galeazzo +Visconti to the University, was carried off by the French.[29] + +To judge from the pictures which the Pavian student, writing in after +years, gives of his physical self, it may be inferred that he was +ill-endowed by the Graces. "I am of middle height. My chest is somewhat +narrow and my arms exceedingly thin: my right hand is the more grossly +fashioned of the two, so that a chiromantist might have set me down as +rude or doltish: indeed, should such an one examine my hand, he would be +ashamed to say what he thought. In it the line of life is short, and that +named after Saturn long and well marked. My left hand, however, is seemly, +with fingers long, tapering, and well-set, and shining nails. My neck is +longer and thinner than the rule, my chin is divided, my lower lip thick +and pendulous, my eyes are very small, and it is my wont to keep them +half-closed, peradventure lest I should discern things over clearly. My +forehead is wide and bare of hair where it meets the temples. My hair and +beard are both of them yellow in tint, and both as a rule kept close cut. +My chin, which as I have said already is marked by a division, is covered +in its lower part with a thick growth of long hair. My habit is to speak +in a highly-pitched voice, so that my friends sometimes rebuke me +thereanent; but, harsh and loud as is my voice, it cannot be heard at any +great distance while I am lecturing. I am wont to talk too much, and in +none too urbane a tone. The look of my eyes is fixed, like that of one in +deep thought. My front teeth are large, and my complexion red and white: +the form of my countenance being somewhat elongated, and my head is +finished off in narrow wise at the back, like to a small sphere. Indeed, +it was no rare thing for the painters, who came from distant countries to +paint my portrait, to affirm that they could find no special +characteristic which they could use for the rendering of my likeness, so +that I might be known by the same."[30] + +After giving this account of his person, Cardan writes down a catalogue of +the various diseases which vexed him from time to time, a chapter of +autobiography which looks like a transcript from a dictionary of Nosology. +More interesting is the sketch which he makes of his mental state during +these early years. Boys brought up in company of their elders often show a +tendency to introspection, and fall into a dreamy whimsical mood, and his +case is a striking example. "By the command of my father I used to lie +abed until nine o'clock,[31] and, if perchance I lay awake any time before +the wonted hour of rising, it was my habit to spend the same by conjuring +up to sight all sorts of pleasant visions, nor can I remember that I ever +summoned these in vain. I used to behold figures of divers kinds like airy +bodies. Meseemed they were made up of tiny rings, like those in coats of +chain-armour, though at this time I had seen nought of the kind. They +would rise at the bottom of the bed, from the right-hand corner; and, +moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. +Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, +of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all +sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, +but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things +I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily +forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests, and divers +other things which I now forget. In all this I took no small delight, and +with straining eyes I would gaze upon these marvels; wherefore my Aunt +Margaret asked me more than once whether I saw anything. I, though I was +then only a child, deliberated over this question of hers before I +replied, saying to myself: 'If I tell her the facts she will be wroth at +the thing--whatever it may be--which is the cause of these phantasms, and +will deprive me of this delight.' And then I seemed to see flowers of all +kinds, and four-footed beasts, and birds; but all these, though they were +fashioned most beautifully, were lacking in colour, for they were things +of air. Therefore I, who neither as a boy nor as an old man ever learned +to lie, stood silent for some time. Then my aunt said--'Boy, what makes +you stare thus and stand silent?' I know not what answer I made, but I +think I said nothing at all. In my dreams I frequently saw what seemed to +be a cock, which I feared might speak to me in a human voice. This in +sooth came to pass later on, and the words it spake were threatening ones, +but I cannot now recall what I may have heard on these occasions."[32] + +With a brain capable of such remarkable exercises as the above-written +vision, living his life in an atmosphere of books, and with all games and +relaxations dear to boys of his age denied to him, it was no marvel that +Jerome should make an early literary essay on his own account. The death +of a young kinsman, Niccolo Cardano,[33] suggested to him a theme which he +elaborated in a tract called _De immortalitate paranda_, a work which +perished unlamented by its author, and a little later he wrote a treatise +on the calculation of the distances between the various heavenly +bodies.[34] But he put his mathematical skill to other and more sinister +uses than this; for, having gained practical experience at the +gaming-tables, he combined this experience with his knowledge of the +properties of numbers, and wrote a tract on games of chance. Afterwards he +amplified this into his book, _Liber de Ludo Aleae_. + +With this equipment and discipline Jerome went to Pavia in 1520. He found +lodging in the house of Giovanni Ambrogio Targio, and until the end of his +twenty-first year he spent all his time between Pavia and Milan. By this +date he had made sufficiently good use of his time to let the world see of +what metal he was formed, for in the year following he had advanced far +enough in learning to dispute in public, to teach Euclid in the Gymnasium, +and to take occasional classes in Dialectics and Elementary Philosophy. At +the end of his twenty-second year the country was convulsed by the wars +between the Spaniards and the French under Lautrec, which ended in the +expulsion of the last-named and the establishment of the Imperial power in +Milan. Another result of the war, more germane to this history, was the +closing of the University of Pavia through lack of funds. In consequence +of this calamity Jerome remained some time in Milan, and during these +months he worked hard at mathematics; but he was not destined to return to +Pavia as a student. The schools there remained some long time in +confusion, so in 1524 he went with his father's consent to Padua. In the +autumn of that same year he was summoned back to Milan to find Fazio in +the grip of his dying illness. "Whereupon he, careful of my weal rather +than his own, bade me return to Padua at once, being well pleased to hear +that I had taken at the Venetian College the Baccalaureat of Arts.[35] +After my return to Padua, letters were brought to me which told me that he +had died on the ninth day after he had refused nourishment. He died on the +twenty-eighth of August, having last eaten on Sunday the twentieth of the +month. Towards the close of my twenty-fourth year I was chosen Rector of +the Academy at Padua,[36] and at the end of the next was made Doctor of +Medicine. For the first-named office I came out the victor by one vote, +the suffrages having to be cast a second time; and for the Doctorate of +Medicine my name had already twice come forth from the ballot with +forty-seven votes cast against me (a circumstance which forbade another +voting after the third), when, at the third trial, I came out the winner, +with only nine votes against me (previously only this same number had been +cast for me), and with forty-eight in my favour. + +"Though I know well enough that affairs like these must needs be of small +account, I have set them down in the order in which they came to pass for +no other reason than that I give pleasure to myself who write these words +by so doing: and I do not write for the gratification of others. At the +same time those people who read what I write--if indeed any one should +ever be so minded--may learn hereby that the beginnings and the outcomes +of great events may well be found difficult to trace, because in sooth it +is the way of such things to come to the notice of anybody rather than of +those who would rightly observe them."[37] + +Padua cannot claim for its University an antiquity as high as that which +may be conceded to Pavia, but in spite of its more recent origin, there is +no little obscurity surrounding its rise. The one fact which may be put +down as certain is that it sprang originally from the University of +Bologna. Early in the thirteenth century violent discords arose between +the citizens of Bologna and the students, and there is a tradition that +the general school of teaching was transferred to Padua in 1222. What +happened was probably a large migration of students, part of whom remained +behind when peace between town and gown in Bologna was restored. The +orthodox origin of the University is a charter granted by Frederic II. in +1238. Frederic at this time was certainly trying to injure Bologna, +actuated by a desire to help on his own University at Naples, and to crush +Bologna as a member of the Lombard League.[38] Padua, however, was also a +member of this league, so his benevolent action towards it is difficult to +understand. In 1228 the students had quarrelled with the Paduan citizens, +and there was a movement to migrate to Vercelli; but, whether this really +took place or not, the Paduan school did not suffer: its ruin and +extinction was deferred till the despotism of the Ezzelini. In 1260 it +was again revived by a second migration from Bologna, and this movement +was increased on account of the interdict laid by the Pope upon Bologna in +1306 after the expulsion of the Papal Legate by the citizens. + +In the early days Medicine and Arts were entirely subordinate to the +schools of canon and civil law; but by the end of the fourteenth century +these first-named Faculties had obtained a certain degree of independence, +and were allowed an equal share in appointing the Rector.[39] The first +College was founded in 1363, and after 1500 the number rapidly increased. +The dominion of the Dukes of Carrara after 1322 was favourable to the +growth of the University, which, however, did not attain its highest point +till it came under Venetian rule in 1404. The Venetian government raised +the stipends of the professors, and allowed four Paduan citizens to act as +_Tutores Studii_; the election of the professors being vested in the +students, which custom obtained until the end of the sixteenth +century.[40] The Rector was allowed to wear a robe of purple and gold; +and, when he retired, the degree of Doctor was granted to him, together +with the right to wear the golden collar of the order of Saint Mark. + +Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town +of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected +from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who possibly +were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal +power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of +which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which +the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most +dangerous foes. + +Such was the University of Padua at the height of its glory, and it will +be apparent at once that Padua must have fallen considerably in its +fortunes when it installed as its Rector an obscure student, only +twenty-four years of age, and of illegitimate birth, and conferred upon +him the right to go clad in purple and gold, and to claim, as his +retiring gift, the degree of Doctor and the cross of Saint Mark. In 1508 +the League of Cambrai had been formed, and Venice, not yet recovered +from the effects of its disastrous wars with Bajazet II., was forced to +meet the combined assault of the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of +France. Padua was besieged by the Imperial forces, a motley horde of +Germans, Swiss, and Spaniards, and the surrounding country was pillaged +and devastated by these savages with a cruelty which recalled the days +of Attila. It is not wonderful that the University closed its doors in +such a time. When the confederates began to fight amongst themselves the +class-rooms were reopened, intermittently at first, but after 1515 the +teaching seems to have been continuous. Still the prevalent turmoil and +poverty rendered it necessary to curtail all the mere honorary and +ornamental adjuncts of the schools, and for several years no Rector was +appointed, for the good and sufficient reason that no man of due +position and wealth and character could be found to undertake the +rectorial duties, with the Academy just emerging from complete +disorganization. These duties were many and important, albeit the Rector +could, if he willed, appoint a deputy, and the calls upon the purse of +the holder must have been very heavy. It would be hard to imagine any +one less fitted to fill such a post than Cardan, and assuredly no office +could befit him less than this pseudo-rectorship.[41] It must ever +remain a mystery why he was preferred, why he was elected, and why he +consented to serve: though, as to the last-named matter, he hints in a +passage lately cited from _De Utilitate_, that it was through the +persuasions of his mother that he took upon himself this disastrous +honour. Many pasages in his writings suggest that Chiara was an +indulgent parent. She let Fazio have no peace till he consented to allow +the boy to go to college; she paid secretly for music-lessons, so that +Jerome was enabled to enjoy the relaxation he loved better than anything +else in the world--except gambling; she paid all his charges during his +student life at Padua; and now, quite naturally, she would have shed her +heart's blood rather than let this son of hers--ugly duckling as he +was--miss what she deemed to be the crowning honour of the rectorship; +but after all the sacrifices Chiara made, after all the misfortunes +which attended Jerome's ill-directed ambition, there is a doubt as to +whether he ever was Rector in the full sense of the term. Many times and +in divers works he affirms that once upon a time he was Rector, and over +and beyond this he sets down in black and white the fact, more than +once, that he never told a lie; so it is only polite to accept this +legend for what it is worth. But it must likewise be noted that in the +extant records of the University there is no mention of his name in the +lists of Rectors.[42] + +Jerome has left very few details as to his life at Padua. Of those which +he notices the following are the most interesting: "In 1525, the year in +which I became Rector, I narrowly escaped drowning in the Lago di Garda. I +went on board the boat, unwillingly enough, which carried likewise some +hired horses; and, as we sailed on, the mast and the rudder, and one of +the two oars we had with us, were broken by the wind. The sails, even +those on the smaller mast, were split, and the night came on. We landed at +last safe and sound at Sirmio, but not before all my companions had given +up hope, and I myself was beginning to despair. Indeed, had we been a +minute later we must have perished, for the tempest was so violent that +the iron hinges of the inn windows were bent thereby. I, though I had been +sore afraid ever since the wind began to blow, fell to supper with a good +heart when the host set upon the board a mighty pike, but none of the +others had any stomach for food, except the one passenger who had advised +us to make trial of this perilous adventure, and who had proved to be an +able and courageous helper in our hour of distress. + +"Again, once when I was in Venice on the birthday of the Virgin, I lost +some money at dicing, and on the day following all that was left me went +the same way. This happened in the house of the man with whom I was +gambling, and in the course of play I noticed that the cards were marked, +whereupon I struck him in the face with my dagger, wounding him slightly. +Two of his servants were present at the time; some spears hung all ready +from the beams of the roof, and besides this the house door was fastened. +But when I had taken from him all the money he had about him--his own as +well as that which he had won from me by cheating, and my cloak and the +rings which I had lost to him the day before--I was satisfied that I had +got back all my possessions. The chattels I sent home by my servant at +once, but a portion of the money I tossed back to the fellow when I saw +that I had drawn blood of him. Then I attacked the servants who were +standing by; and, as they knew not how to use their weapons and besought +my mercy, I granted this on the condition that they should unlock the +door. Their master, taking account of the uproar and confusion, and +mistrusting his safety in case the affair should not be settled forthwith +(I suspect he was alarmed about the marked cards), commanded the servants +to open the door, whereupon I went my way. + +"That very same evening, while I was doing my best to escape the notice of +the officers of justice on account of the wound I had given to this +Senator, I lost my footing and fell into a canal, having arms under my +cloak the while. In my fall I did not lose my nerve, but flinging out my +right arm, I grasped the thwart of a passing boat and was rescued by those +on board. When I had been hauled into the boat I discovered--wonderful to +relate--that the man with whom I had lately played cards was likewise on +board, with his face bandaged by reason of the wounds I had given him. +Now of his own accord he brought out a suit of clothes, fitted for +seafaring, and, having clad myself in them, I journeyed with him as far as +Padua."[43] + +Cardan's life from rise to set cannot be estimated otherwise than an +unhappy one, and its least fortunate years were probably those lying +between his twenty-first and his thirty-first year of age. During this +period he was guilty of that crowning folly, the acceptance of the +Rectorship of the Gymnasium at Padua, he felt the sharpest stings of +poverty, and his life was overshadowed by dire physical misfortune. He +gives a rapid sketch of the year following his father's death. "Then, my +father having breathed his last and my term of office come to an end, I +went, at the beginning of my twenty-sixth year, to reside at Sacco, a town +distant ten miles from Padua and twenty-five from Venice. I fixed on this +place by the advice of Francesco Buonafidei, a physician of Padua, who, +albeit I brought no profit to him--not even being one of those who +attended his public teaching--helped me and took a liking for me, being +moved to this benevolence by his exceeding goodness of heart. In this +place I lived while our State was being vexed by every sort of calamity. +In 1524 by a raging pestilence and by a two-fold change of ruler. In 1526 +and 1527 by a destructive scarcity of the fruits of the earth. It was hard +to get corn in exchange for money of any kind, and over and beyond this +was the intolerable weight of taxation. In 1528 the land was visited by +divers diseases and by the plague as well, but these afflictions seemed +the easier to bear because all other parts were likewise suffering from +the same. In 1529 I ventured to return to Milan--these ill-starred +troubles being in some degree abated--but I was refused membership by the +College of Physicians there, I was unable to settle my lawsuit with the +Barbiani, and I found my mother in a very ill humour, so I went back to my +village home, having suffered greatly in health during my absence. For +what with cruel vexations, and struggles, and cares which I saw impending, +and a troublesome cough and pleurisy aggravated by a copious discharge of +humour, I was brought into a condition such as few men exchange for aught +else besides a coffin."[44] + +The closing words of his eulogy on his father tell how the son, on the +father's death, found that one small house was all he could call his own. +The explanation of this seems to be that the old man, being of a careless +disposition and litigious to boot, had left his affairs in piteous +disorder. In consequence of this neglect Jerome was involved in lawsuits +for many years, and the one afore-mentioned with the Barbiani was one of +them. This case was subsequently settled in Jerome's favour. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] Pavia, like certain modern universities, did not spend all its time +over study. "Aggressus sum Mediolani vacationibus quadragenariae, seu +Bacchanalium potius, anni MDLXI. Ita enim non obscurum est, nostra aetate +celebrari ante quadragenariam vacationes, in quibus ludunt, convivantur, +personati ac larvati incedunt, denique nullum luxus ac lascivae genus +omittunt: Sybaritae et Lydi Persaeque vincuntur." _Opera_, tom. i. p. 118. + +[29] These books were taken to Blois. They were subsequently removed by +Francis I. to Fontainebleau, and with the other collections formed the +nucleus of the Bibliotheque Nationale. + +[30] _De Vita Propria_, ch. v. p. 18. + +[31] The time covered by this experience was from his fourth to his +seventh year. + +[32] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 114; _De Rerum Subtilitate_ (Basil, +1554), p. 524. + +[33] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 61. + +[34] "Erat liber exiguus, rem tamen probe absolvebat: nam tunc forte in +manus meas inciderat, Gebri Hispani liber, cujus auxilio non parum adjutus +sum."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 56. + +[35] "Initio multi quidem paupertate aliave causa quum se nolunt subjicere +rigoroso examini Cl. Collegii in artibus Medicinae vel in Jure, +Baccalaureatus, vel Doctoratus gradum a Comitibus Palatinis aut +Lateranensibus sumebant. Postea vero, sublata hac consuetudine, Gymnasii +Rector, sive substitutus, convocatis duobus professoribus, bina puncta +dabantur, iisque recitatis et diligentis [_sic_] excussis, illis gradus +Baccalaureatus conferebatur."--_Gymnasium Patavinum_ (1654), p. 200. + +[36] He constantly bewails this step as the chief folly of his life: +"Stulte vero id egi, quod Rector Gymnasii Patavini effectus sum, tum, cum, +inops essem, et in patria maxime bella vigerent, et tributa intolerabilia. +Matris tamen solicitudine effectum est, ut pondus impensarum, quamvis +aegre, sustinuerim."--_De Utilitate_, p. 350. + +[37] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 11. + +[38] Muratori, _Chron. di Bologna_, xviii. 254. + +[39] The stipends paid to teachers of jurisprudence were much more liberal +than those paid to humanists. In the Diary of Sanudo it is recorded that a +jurist professor at Padua received a thousand ducats per annum. Lauro +Quirino, a professor of rhetoric, meantime received only forty ducats, and +Laurentius Valla at Pavia received fifty sequins.--Muratori, xxii. 990. + +[40] Tomasinus, _Gymnasium Patavinam_ (1654), p. 136. + +[41] Tomasinus writes that the Rector should be "Virum illustrem, +providum, eloquentem ac divitem, quique eo pollet rerum usu ut Gymnasi +decora ipsius gubernatione et splendore augeantur."--_Gymnasium +Patavinum_, p. 54. He likewise gives a portrait of the Rector in his robes +of office, and devotes several chapters to an account of his duties. + +[42] "Ab anno 1509 usque ad annum 1515 ob bellum Cameracense Gymn. +interrmissum fuit."--_Elenchus nominum Patavii_ (1706), p. 28. The first +names given after this interregnum are Dom. Jo. Maria de Zaffaris, Rector +in Arts, and Dom. Marinus de Ongaris, Rector in Jurisprudence in 1527. + +Papadapoli (_Historia Gymn. Patav._) gives the name of Ascanius Serra as +pro-Rector in 1526: no Rector being mentioned at all. + +[43] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 79. + +[44] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 13. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +DURING his life at Padua it would appear that Cardan, over and above the +allowance made to him by his mother, had no other source of income than +the gaming-table.[45] However futile and disastrous his sojourn at this +University may have been, he at least took away with him one possession of +value, to wit his doctorate of medicine, on the strength of which he began +to practise as a country physician at Sacco. The record of his life during +these years gives the impression that he must have been one of the most +wretched of living mortals. The country was vexed by every sort of +misfortune, by prolonged warfare, by raging pestilence, by famine, and by +intolerable taxation;[46] but while he paints this picture of misery and +desolation in one place, he goes on to declare in another that the time +which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.[47] No greater +instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I +gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving +scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my +respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented +their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no time could +have been more delightful than this which lasted for five years and a +half."[48] + +But for almost the whole of this period Cardan was labouring under a +physical misfortune concerning which he writes in another place in terms +of almost savage bitterness. During ten years of his life, from his +twenty-first to his thirty-first year, he suffered from the loss of virile +power, a calamity which he laments in the following words: "And I maintain +that this misfortune was to me the worst of evils. Compared with it +neither the harsh servitude under my father, nor unkindness, nor the +troubles of litigation, nor the wrongs done me by my fellow-townsmen, nor +the scorn of my fellow-physicians, nor the ill things falsely spoken +against me, nor all the measureless mass of possible evil, could have +brought me to such despair, and hatred of life, and distaste of all +pleasure, and lasting sorrow. I bitterly wept this misery, that I must +needs be a laughing-stock, that marriage must be denied me, and that I +must ever live in solitude. You ask for the cause of this misfortune, a +matter which I am quite unable to explain. Because of the reasons just +mentioned, and because I dreaded that men should know how grave was the +ill afflicting me, I shunned the society of women; and, on account of this +habit, the same miserable public scandal which I desired so earnestly to +avoid, arose concerning me, and brought upon me the suspicion of still +more nefarious practices: in sooth it seemed that there was no further +calamity left for me to endure."[49] After reading these words, it is hard +to believe that a man, afflicted with a misfortune which he characterizes +in these terms, could have been even moderately happy; much less in that +state of bliss which he sits down to describe forty years afterwards. + +But the end of his life at Sacco was fated to be happier than the +beginning, and it is possible that memories of the last months he spent +there may have helped to colour with rosy tint the picture of happiness +recently referred to. In the first place he was suddenly freed from his +physical infirmity, and shortly after his restoration he met and married +the woman who, as long as she lived with him, did all that was possible to +make him happy. Every momentous event of Cardan's life--and many a +trifling one as well--was heralded by some manifestation of the powers +lying beyond man's cognition. In writing about the signs and tokens which +served as premonitions of his courtship and marriage, he glides easily +into a description of the events themselves in terms which are worth +producing. "In times past I had my home in Sacco, and there I led a joyful +life, as if I were a man unvexed by misfortune (I recall this circumstance +somewhat out of season, but the dream I am about to tell of seems only too +appropriate to the occasion), or a mortal made free of the habitations of +the blest, or rather of some region of delight. Then, on a certain night, +I seemed to find myself in a pleasant garden, beautiful exceedingly, +decked with flowers and filled with fruits of divers sorts, and a soft air +breathed around. So lovely was it all that no painter nor our poet Pulci, +nor any imagination of man could have figured the like. I was standing in +the forecourt of this garden, the door whereof was open, and there was +another door on the opposite side, when lo! I beheld before me a damsel +clad in white. I embraced and kissed her; but before I could kiss her +again, the gardener closed the door. I straightway begged him earnestly +that he would open it again, but I begged in vain; wherefore, plunged in +grief and clinging to the damsel, I seemed to be shut out of the garden. + +"A little time after this there was a rumour in the town of a house on +fire, and I was roused from sleep to hurry to the spot. Then I learned +that the house belonged to one Altobello Bandarini,[50] a captain of the +Venetian levies in the district of Padua. I had no acquaintance with him, +in sooth I scarcely knew him by sight. Now it chanced that after the fire +he hired a house next door to my own, a step which displeased me somewhat, +for such a neighbour was not to my taste; but what was I to do? After the +lapse of a few days, when I was in the street, I perceived a young girl +who, as to her face and her raiment, was the exact image of her whom I had +beheld in my dream. But I said to myself, 'What is this girl to me? If I, +poor wretch that I am, take to wife a girl dowered with naught, except a +crowd of brothers and sisters, it will be all over with me; forasmuch as I +can hardly keep myself as it is. If I should attempt to carry her off, or +to have my will of her by stealth, there will of a surety be some +tale-bearers about; and her father, being a fellow-townsman and a soldier +to boot, would not sit down lightly under such an injury. In this case, or +in that, it is hard to say what course I should follow, for if this +affair should come to the issue I most desire, I must needs fly the +place.' From that same hour these thoughts and others akin to them +possessed my brain, which was only too ready to harbour them, and I felt +it would be better to die than to live on in such perplexity. Thenceforth +I was as one love-possessed, or even burnt up with passion, and I +understood what meaning I might gather from the reading of my dream. +Moreover I was by this time freed from the chain which had held me back +from marriage. Thus I, a willing bridegroom, took a willing bride, her +kinsfolk questioning us how this thing had been brought about, and +offering us any help which might be of service; which help indeed proved +of very substantial benefit. + +"But the interpretation of my dreams did not work itself out entirely in +the after life of my wife; it made itself felt likewise in the lives of my +children. My wife lived with me fifteen years, and alas! this ill-advised +marriage was the cause of all the misfortunes which subsequently happened +to me. These must have come about either by the working of the divine +will, or as the recompense due for some ill deeds wrought by myself or by +my forefathers."[51] + +The dream aforesaid was not the only portent having reference to his +marriage. After describing shakings and tremblings of his bed, for which +indeed a natural cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain +dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a persistent howling +for a long time; how some ravens perched on the house-top and began +croaking in an unusual manner; and how, when his servant was breaking up a +faggot, some sparks of fire flew out of the same; whereupon, "by an +unlooked-for step I married a wife, and from that time divers misfortunes +have attended me."[52] Lucia, the wife of his choice, was the eldest +daughter of Altobello Bandarini, who had, besides her, three daughters and +four sons. Jerome, as it has been already noted, was possessed with a fear +lest he should be burdened by his brothers- and sisters-in-law after his +marriage; but, considering that he was a young unknown physician, without +either money or patients, and that Bandarini was a man of position and +repute, with some wealth and more shrewdness, the chances were that the +burden would lie on the other side. Cardan seems to have inherited Fazio's +contempt for wealth, or at least to have made a profession thereof; for, +in chronicling the event of his marriage, he sets down, with a certain +degree of pomposity, that he took a wife without a dower on account of a +certain vow he had sworn.[53] If the bride was penniless the father-in-law +was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have proved a powerful +argument to induce Cardan to remain at Sacco, albeit he had little scope +for his calling. That he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence +of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination to sponge upon +his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, when this scheme was proposed to +him, vetoed it at once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and +possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, for Cardan has left +it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; he ended, +however, by consenting to the migration, which was not made without the +intervention of a warning portent. A short time before the young couple +departed, it happened that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's +bed-chamber; and, in the course of the night, exploded with a loud +report, and the fragments thereof were scattered around. This event +Bandarini regarded as an augury of evil, and indeed evil followed swiftly +after. Before a year had passed he was dead, some holding that his death +had been hastened by the ill conduct of his eldest son, and others +whispering suspicions of poison. + +Jerome and his young wife betook themselves to Milan, but this visit seems +to have been fully as unprofitable as the one he had paid in 1529. In that +year he had to face his first rejection by the College of Physicians, when +he made application for admission; and there is indirect evidence that he +now made a second application with no better result.[54] In any case his +affairs were in a very bad way. If he had money in his pocket he would not +keep long away from the gaming-table; and, with the weight of trouble ever +bearing him down more and more heavily, it is almost certain that his +spirits must have suffered, and that poor Lucia must have passed many an +unhappy hour on account of his nervous irritability. Then the gates of his +profession remained closed to him by the action of the College. The +pretext the authorities gave for their refusal to admit him was his +illegitimate birth; but it is not unlikely that they may have mistrusted +as a colleague the son of Fazio Cardano, and that stories of the +profligate life and the intractable temper of the candidate may have been +brought to them.[55] His health suffered from the bad air of the city +almost as severely as before, and Lucia, who was at this time pregnant, +miscarried at four months, and shortly afterwards had a second misfortune +of the same kind. His mother's temper was not of the sweetest, and it is +quite possible that between her and her daughter-in-law there may have +been strained relations. Cardan at any rate found that he must once more +beat a retreat from Milan, wherefore, at the end of April 1533, he made up +his mind to remove to Gallarate. + +This town has already been mentioned as chief place of the district, from +which the Cardan family took its origin. Before going thither Jerome had +evidently weighed the matter well, and he has set down at some length the +reasons which led him to make this choice. "Thus, acting under the reasons +aforesaid (the family associations), I resolved to go to Gallarate, in +order that I might have the enjoyment of four separate advantages which it +offered. Firstly, that in the most healthy air of the place I might shake +off entirely the distemper which I had contracted in Milan. Secondly, that +I might earn something by my profession, seeing that then I should be free +to practise. Thirdly, that there would be no need for me to pine away +while I beheld those physicians, by whom I reckoned I had been despoiled, +flourishing in wealth and in the high estimation of all men. Lastly, that +by following a more frugal way of life, I might make what I possessed last +the longer. For all things are cheaper in the country, since they have to +be carried from the country into the town, and many necessaries may be had +for the asking. Persuaded by these arguments, I went to this place, and I +was not altogether deceived, seeing that I recovered my health, and the +son--who was to be reft from me later on by the Senate--was born to +me."[56] + +Employment at Gallarate was, however, almost as scarce as it had been at +Sacco, wherefore Jerome found leisure in plenty for literary work. He +began a treatise on Fate; but, even had this been completed, it would +scarcely have filled the empty larder by the proceeds of its sale. More +profitable was some chance employment which was given to him by Filippo +Archinto,[57] a generous and accomplished young nobleman of Milan, who was +ambitious to figure as a writer on Astronomy, and, it may be remarked, +Archinto's benefactions were not confined to the payment for the hack work +which Jerome did for him at this period. Had it not been for his +subsequent patronage and support, it is quite possible that Cardan would +have gone under in the sea of adversity. + +In spite of the cheapness of provisions at Gallarate, and of occasional +meals taken gratis from the fields, complete destitution seemed to be only +a matter of days, and just at this crisis, to add to his +embarrassments--though he longed earnestly for the event--Lucia was +brought to bed with her first-born living child on May 14, 1534. The +child's birth was accompanied by divers omens, one of which the father +describes, finding therein some premonition of future disaster. "I had +great fear of his life until the fifteenth day of June, on which day, +being a Sunday, he was baptized. The sun shone brightly into the +bed-chamber: it was between the hours of eleven and twelve in the +forenoon; and, according to custom, we were all gathered round the +mother's bed except a young servant, the curtain was drawn away from the +window and fastened to the wall, when suddenly a large wasp flew into the +room, and circled round the infant. We were all greatly afeard for the +child, but the wasp did him no hurt. The next moment it came against the +curtain, making so great a noise that you would have said that a drum was +being beaten, and all ran towards the place, but found no trace of the +wasp. It could not have flown out of the room, because all eyes had been +fixed upon it. Then all of us who were then present felt some foreboding +of what subsequently came to pass, but did not deem that the end would be +so bitter as it proved to be."[58] + +The impulse which drives men in desperate straits to seek shelter in the +streets of a city was as strong in Cardan's time as it is to-day. At +Gallarate the last coin was now spent, and there was an extra mouth to +feed. There seemed to be no other course open but another retreat to +Milan. Archinto was rich in literary ambitions, which might perchance +stimulate him to find farther work for the starving scholar: and there was +Chiara also who would scarcely let her grandchild die of want. The +revelation which Cardan makes of himself and of his way of life at this +time is not one to enlist sympathy for him entirely; but it is not wanting +in a note of pathetic sincerity. "For a long time the College at Milan +refused to admit me, and during these days I was assuredly a spendthrift +and heedless. In body I was weakly, and in estate plundered by thieves on +all sides, yet I never grudged money for the buying of books. My residence +at Gallarate brought me no profit, for in the whole nineteen months I +lived there, I did not receive more than twenty-five crowns towards the +rent of the house I hired. I had such ill luck with the dice that I was +forced to pawn all my wife's jewels, and our very bed. If it is a wonder +that I found myself thus bereft of all my substance, it is still more +wonderful that I did not take to begging on account of my poverty, and a +wonder greater still that I harboured in my mind no unworthy thoughts +against my forefathers, or against right living, or against those honours +which I had won--honours which afterwards stood me in good stead--but bore +my misfortunes with mind undisturbed."[59] + +Cardan's worldly fortunes were now at their lowest ebb. Burdened with a +wife and child, he had found it necessary to return, after a second futile +attempt to gain a living by his calling in a country town, to Milan, his +"stony-hearted step-mother." If he had reckoned on his mother's bounty he +was doomed to disappointment, for Chiara was an irritable woman, and as +her son's temper was none of the sweetest, it is almost certain that they +must have quarrelled occasionally. It is hard to believe that they could +have been on good terms at this juncture, otherwise she would scarcely +have allowed him to take his wife and child to what was then the public +workhouse of the city;[60] but this place was his only refuge, and in +October 1534 he was glad to shelter himself beneath its roof. + +There was in Cardan's nature a strong vein of melancholy, and up to the +date now under consideration he had been the victim of a fortune +calculated to deepen rather than disperse his morbid tendencies. A proof +of his high courage and dauntless perseverance may be deduced from the +fact that neither poverty, nor the sense of repeated failure, nor the +flouts of the Milanese doctors, prevailed at any time to quench in his +heart the love of fame,[61] or to disabuse him of the conviction that he, +poverty-stricken wretch as he was, would before long bind Fortune to his +chariot-wheels, and would force the adverse world to acknowledge him as +one of its master minds. The dawn was now not far distant, but the last +hours of his night of misfortune were very dark. The worst of the +struggle, as far as the world was concerned, was over, and the sharpest +sorrows and the heaviest disgrace reserved for Cardan in the future were +to be those nourished in his own household. + +Writing of his way of life and of the vices and defects of his character, +he says: "If a man shall fail in his carriage before the world as he fails +in other things, who shall correct him? Thus I myself will do duty for +that one leper who alone out of the ten who were healed came back to our +Lord. By reasoning of this sort, Physicians and Astrologers trace back the +origin of our natural habits to our primal qualities, to the training of +our will, and to our occupations and conversation. In every man all these +are found in proper ratio to the time of life of each individual; +nevertheless it will be easy to discern marked variations in cases +otherwise similar. Therefore it behoves us to hold fast to some guiding +principle chosen out of these, and I on my part am inclined, as far as it +may be allowed, to say with respect to all of them, [Greek: gnothi +seauton]. + +"My own nature in sooth was never a mystery to myself. I was ever +hot-tempered, single-minded, and given to women. From these cardinal +tendencies there proceeded truculence of temper, wrangling, obstinacy, +rudeness of carriage, anger, and an inordinate desire, or rather a +headstrong passion, for revenge in respect to any wrong done to me; so +that this inclination, which is censured by many, became to me a delight. +To put it briefly, I held _At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa_. As a +general rule I went astray but seldom, though it is a common saying, +'_Natura nostra prona est ad malum_.' I am moreover truthful, mindful of +benefits wrought to me, a lover of justice and of my own people, a +despiser of money, a worshipper of that fame which defies death, prone to +thrust aside what is commonplace, and still more disposed to treat mere +trifles in the same way. Still, knowing well how great may be the power of +little things at any moment during the course of an undertaking, I never +make light of aught which may be useful. By nature I am prone to every +vice and ill-doing except ambition, and I, if no one else does, know my +own imperfections. But because of my veneration for God, and because I +recognize the vanity and emptiness of all things of this sort, it often +happens that, of my own free will, I forego certain opportunities for +taking revenge which may be offered to me. I am timid, with a cold heart +and a hot brain, given to reflection and the consideration of things many +and mighty, and even of things which can never come to pass. I can even +let my thoughts concern themselves with two distinct subjects at the same +time. Those who throw out charges of garrulity and extravagance by way of +contradicting any praise accorded to me, charge me with the faults of +others rather than my own. I attack no man, I only defend myself. + +"And what reason is there why I should spend myself in this cause since I +have so often borne witness of the emptiness of this life of ours? My +excuse must be that certain men have praised me, wherefore they cannot +deem me altogether wicked. I have always trained myself to let my face +contradict my thoughts. Thus while I can simulate what is not, I cannot +dissimulate what is. To accomplish this is no difficult task if a man +cultivates likewise the habit of hoping for nothing. By striving for +fifteen years to compass this end and by spending much trouble over the +same I at last succeeded. Urged on by this humour I sometimes go forth in +rags, sometimes finely dressed, sometimes silent, sometimes talkative, +sometimes joyful, sometimes sad; and on this account my two-fold mood +shows everything double. In my youth I rarely spent any care in keeping my +hair in order, because of my inclination for other pursuits more to my +taste. My gait is irregular. I move now quickly, now slowly. When I am at +home I go with my legs naked as far as the ankles. I am slack in duty and +reckless in speech, and specially prone to show irritation over anything +which may disgust or irk me." + +The above-written self-description does not display a personality +particularly attractive. Jerome Cardan was one of those men who experience +a morbid gratification in cataloguing all their sinister points of +character, and exaggerating them at the same time; and in this picture, as +in many others scattered about the _De Vita Propria_, the shadows may have +been put in too strongly. + +In the foregoing pages reference was made to certain acts of benevolence +done to Cardan by the family of Archinto. It is not impossible that the +promises and persuasions of his young patron Filippo may have had some +weight in inducing Jerome to shift his home once more. Whatever befell he +could hardly make his case worse; but whether Filippo had promised help or +not, he showed himself now a true and valuable friend. There was in Milan +a public lectureship in geometry and astronomy supported by a small +endowment left by a certain Tommaso Plat, and to this post, which happened +opportunely to be vacant, Cardan was appointed by the good offices of +Filippo Archinto. Yet even when he was literally a pauper he seems to have +felt some scruples about accepting this office, but fortunately in this +instance his poverty overcame his pride. The salary was indeed a very +small one,[62] and the lecturer was not suffered to handle the whole of +it, but it was at least liberal enough to banish the dread of starvation, +and his duties, which consisted solely in the preparation and delivery of +his lectures, did not debar him from literary work on his own account. +Wherefore in his leisure time he worked hard at his desk. + +Any differences which may have existed between him and his mother were now +removed, for he took her to live with him, the household being made up of +himself, his wife, his mother, a friend (a woman), a nurse, the little +boy, a man- and maidservant, and a mule.[63] Possibly Chiara brought her +own income with her, and thus allowed the establishment to be conducted on +a more liberal scale. The Plat lectureship would scarcely have maintained +three servants, and Jerome's gains from other sources must have been as +yet very slender. His life at this time was a busy one, but he always +contrived to portion out his days in such wise that certain hours were +left for recreation. At such times as he was called upon to teach, the +class-room, of course, had the first claims. After the lecture he would +walk in the shade outside the city walls, then return to his dinner, then +divert himself with music, and afterwards go fishing in the pools and +streams hard by the town. In the course of time he obtained other +employment, being appointed physician to the Augustinian friars. The Prior +of this Order, Francesco Gaddi, was indeed his first patient of note. He +tells how he cured this man of a biennial leprosy after treating him for +six months;[64] adding that his labour was in vain, inasmuch as Gaddi died +a violent death afterwards. The refusal of the College of Milan to admit +him to membership did not forbid him to prescribe for whatever patients +might like to consult him by virtue of his Paduan degree. He read +voraciously everything which came in his way, and it must have been during +these years that he stored his memory with that vast collection of facts +out of which he subsequently compounded the row of tomes which form his +legacy to posterity. Filippo Archinto was unfailing in his kindness, and +Jerome at this time was fortunate enough to attract the attention of +certain other Milanese citizens of repute who afterwards proved to be +valuable friends; Ludovico Madio, Girolamo Guerrini a jeweller, Francesco +Belloti, and Francesco della Croce. The last-named was a skilled +jurisconsult, whose help proved of great service in a subsequent +litigation between Jerome and the College of Physicians. + +All his life long Cardan was a dreamer of dreams, and he gives an account +of one of his visions in this year, 1534, which, whether regarded as an +allegory or as a portent, is somewhat remarkable. "In the year 1534, when +I was as it were groping in the dark, when I had settled naught as to my +future life, and when my case seemed to grow more desperate day by day, I +beheld in a dream the figure of myself running towards the base of a +mountain which stood upon my right hand, in company with a vast crowd of +people of every station and age and sex--women, men, old men, boys, +infants, poor men and rich men, clad in raiment of every sort. I inquired +whither we were all running, whereupon one of the multitude answered that +we were all hastening on to death. I was greatly terrified at these words, +when I perceived a mountain on my left hand. Then, having turned myself +round so that it stood on my right side, I grasped the vines (which, here +in the midst of the mountains and as far as the place wherein I stood, +were covered with dry leaves, and bare of grapes, as we commonly see them +in autumn) and began to ascend. At first I found this difficult, for the +reason that the mountain was very steep round the base, but having +surmounted this I made my way upward easily. When I had come to the summit +it seemed that I was like to pass beyond the dictates of my own will. +Steep naked rocks appeared on every side, and I narrowly escaped falling +down from a great height into a gloomy chasm. So dreadful is all this that +now, what though forty years have rolled away, the memory thereof still +saddens and terrifies me. Then, having turned towards the right where I +could see naught but a plain covered with heath, I took that path out of +fear, and, as I wended thither in reckless mood, I found that I had come +to the entrance of a rude hut, thatched with straw and reeds and rushes, +and that I held by my right hand a boy about twelve years of age and clad +in a grey garment. Then at this very moment I was aroused from sleep, and +my dream vanished. + +"In this vision was clearly displayed the deathless name which was to be +mine, my life of heavy and ceaseless work, my imprisonment, my seasons of +grievous terror and sadness, and my abiding-place foreshadowed as +inhospitable, by the sharp stones I beheld: barren, by the want of trees +and of all serviceable plants; but destined to be, nevertheless, in the +end happy, and righteous, and easy. This dream told also of my lasting +fame in the future, seeing that the vine yields a harvest every year. As +to the boy, if he were indeed my good spirit, the omen was lucky, for I +held him very close. If he were meant to foreshadow my grandson it would +be less fortunate. That cottage in the desert was my hope of rest. That +overwhelming horror and the sense of falling headlong may have had +reference to the ruin of my son.[65] + +"My second dream occurred a short time after. It seemed to me that my soul +was in the heaven of the moon, freed from the body and all alone, and when +I was bewailing my fate I heard the voice of my father, saying: 'God has +appointed me as a guardian to you. All this region is full of spirits, but +these you cannot see, and you must not speak either to me or to them. In +this part of heaven you will remain for seven thousand years, and for the +same time in certain other stars, until you come to the eighth. After +this you shall enter the kingdom of God.' I read this dream as follows. My +father's soul is my tutelary spirit. What could be dearer or more +delightful? The Moon signifies Grammar; Mercury Geometry and Arithmetic; +Venus Music, the Art of Divination, and Poetry; the Sun the Moral, and +Jupiter the Natural, World; Mars Medicine; Saturn Agriculture, the +knowledge of plants, and other minor arts. The eighth star stands for a +gleaning of all mundane things, natural science, and various other +studies. After dealing with these I shall at last find my rest with the +Prince of Heaven."[66] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] "Nec ullum mihi erat relictum auxilium nisi latrunculorum +Ludus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 619. + +[46] From the formation of the League of Cambrai in 1508 to the +establishment of the Imperial supremacy in Italy in 1530, the whole +country was desolated by the marching and counter-marching of the +contending forces. Milan, lying directly in the path of the French armies, +suffered most of all. + +[47] Compare _De Vita Propria_, chaps. iv. and xxxi. pp. 13 and 92. + +[48] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxi. p. 92. In taking the other view he +writes: "Vitam ducebam in Saccensi oppido, ut mihi videbar, +infelicissime."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 97. + +[49] _De Utilitate_, p. 235. + +[50] He gives a long and interesting sketch of his father-in-law in _De +Utilitate_, p. 370. + +[51] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvi. p. 68; _Opera_, tom. i. p. 97. + +[52] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 149. + +[53] _De Utilitate_, p. 350. + +[54] _De Utilitate_, p. 357: "Nam in urbe nec collegium recipere volebat +nec cum aliquo ex illis artem exercere licebat et sine illis difficillimum +erat." He writes thus while describing this particular visit to Milan. + +[55] Ill fortune seems to have pursued the whole family in their relations +with learned societies. "Nam et pater meus ut ab eo accepi, diu in +ingressu Collegii Jurisconsultorum laboravit, et ego, ut alias testatus +sum, bis a medicorum Patavino, toties filius meus natu major, a Ticinensi, +uterque a Mediolanensi rejecti sumus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 94. + +[56] _De Utilitate_, p. 358. + +[57] He became a priest, and died Archbishop of Milan in 1552. Cardan +dedicated to him his first published book, _De Malo Medendi_. + +[58] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 119. + +[59] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxv. p. 67. + +[60] The Xenodochium, which was originally a stranger's lodging-house. By +this time places of this sort had become little else than _succursales_ of +some religious house. The Governors of the Milanese Xenodochium were the +patrons of the Plat endowment which Cardan afterwards enjoyed. + +[61] "Hoc unum sat scio, ab ineunte aetate me inextinguibili nominis +immortalis cupiditate flagrasse."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 61. + +[62] "Minimo tamen honorario, et illud etiam minimum suasu cujusdam amici +egregii praefecti Xenodochii imminuerunt; ita cum hujus recordor in mentem +venit fabellae illius Apuleii de annonae Praefecto."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +64. + +[63] _De Utilitate_, p. 351. + +[64] The following gives a hint as to the treatment followed: "Referant +leprosos balneo ejus aquae in qua cadaver ablutum sit, sanari."--_De +Varietate_, p. 334. + +[65] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. This dream is also told in _De +Libris Propriis_, Opera, tom. i. p. 64. + +[66] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +JEROME CARDAN is now standing on the brink of authorship. The very title +of his first book, _De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum Medendi Usu_, gives +plain indication of the humour which possessed him, when he formulated his +subject and put it in writing. With his temper vexed by the persistent +neglect and insult cast upon him by the Milanese doctors he would +naturally sit down _con amore_ to compile a list of the errors perpetrated +by the ignorance and bungling of the men who affected to despise him, and +if his object was to sting the hides of these pundits and arouse them to +hostility yet more vehement, he succeeded marvellously well. He was +enabled to launch his book rather by the strength of private friendship +than by the hope of any commercial success. Whilst at Pavia he had become +intimate with Ottaviano Scoto, a fellow-student who came from Venice, and +in after times he found Ottaviano's purse very useful to his needs. Since +their college days Ottaviano's father had died and had left his son to +carry on his calling of printing. In 1536 Jerome bethought him of his +friend, and sent him the MS. of the treatise which was to let the world +learn with what little wisdom it was being doctored.[67] + +Ottaviano seems to have expected no profit from this venture, which was +manifestly undertaken out of a genuine desire to help his friend, and he +generously bore all the costs. Cardan deemed that, whatever the result of +the issue of the book might be, it would surely be to his benefit; he +hazarded nothing, and the very publication of his work would give him at +least notoriety. It would moreover give him the intense pleasure of +knowing that he was repaying in some measure the debt of vengeance owing +to his professional foes. The outcome was exactly the opposite of what +printer and author had feared and hoped. The success of the book was rapid +and great. + +Ottaviano must soon have recouped all the cost of publication; and, while +he was counting his money, the doctors everywhere were reading Jerome's +brochure, and preparing a ruthless attack upon the daring censor, who, +with the impetuosity of youth, had laid himself open to attack by the +careless fashion in which he had compiled his work. He took fifteen days +to write it, and he confesses in his preface to the revised edition that +he found therein over three hundred mistakes of one sort or another. The +attack was naturally led by the Milanese doctors. They demanded to be told +why this man, who was not good enough to practise by their sanction, was +good enough to lay down the laws for the residue of the medical world. +They heaped blunder upon blunder, and held him up to ridicule with all the +wealth of invective characteristic of the learned controversy of the age. +Cardan was deeply humbled and annoyed. "For my opponents, seizing the +opportunity, took occasion to assail me through the reasoning of this +book, and cried out: 'Who can doubt that this man is mad? and that he +would teach a method and a practice of medicine differing from our own, +since he has so many hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen +said, I must in truth have appeared crazy in my efforts to contradict this +multitude raging against me. For, as it was absolutely certain that either +I or they must be in the wrong, how could I hope to win? Who would take my +word against the word of this band of doctors of approved standing, +wealthy, for the most part full of years, well instructed, richly clad and +cultivated in their bearing, well versed in speaking, supported by crowds +of friends and kinsfolk, raised by popular approval to high position, and, +what was more powerful than all else, skilled in every art of cunning and +deceit?" + +Cardan had indeed prepared a bitter pill for his foes, but the draught +they compelled him to swallow was hardly more palatable. The publication +of the book naturally increased the difficulties of his position, and in +this respect tended to make his final triumph all the more noteworthy. + +It was in 1536 that Cardan made his first essay as an author.[68] The next +three years of his life at Milan were remarkable as years of preparation +and accumulation, rather than as years of achievement. He had struck his +first blow as a reformer, and, as is often the lot of reformers, his sword +had broken in his hand, and there now rested upon him the sense of failure +as a superadded torment. Yet now and again a gleam of consolation would +disperse the gloom, and advise him that the world was beginning to +recognize his existence, and in a way his merits. In this same year he +received an offer from Pavia of the Professorship of Medicine, but this he +refused because he did not see any prospect of being paid for his +services. His friend Filippo Archinto was loyal still, and zealous in +working for his success, and as he had been recently promoted to high +office in the Imperial service, his good word might be very valuable +indeed. He summoned his _protege_ to join him at Piacenza, whither he had +gone to meet Paul III., hoping to advance Cardan's interests with the +Pope; but though Marshal Brissac, the French king's representative,[69] +joined Archinto in advocating his cause, nothing was done, and Jerome +returned disappointed to Milan. + +In these months Cardan, disgusted by the failure of his late attack upon +the fortress of medical authority, turned his back, for a time, upon the +study of medicine, and gave his attention almost entirely to mathematics, +in which his reputation was high enough to attract pupils, and he always +had one or more of them in his house, the most noteworthy of whom was +Ludovico Ferrari of Bologna, who became afterwards a mathematician of +repute, and a teacher both at Milan and Bologna. While he was working at +the _De Malo Medendi_, he began a treatise upon Arithmetic, which he +dedicated to his friend Prior Gaddi; but this work was not published till +1539. In 1536 he first heard a report of a fresh and important discovery +in algebra, made by one Scipio Ferreo of Bologna; the prologue to one of +the most dramatic incidents in his career, an incident which it will be +necessary to treat at some length later on. + +Cardan was well aware that his excursions into astrology worked to his +prejudice in public esteem, but in spite of this he could not refrain +therefrom. It was during the plentiful leisure of this period that he +cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ, a feat which subsequently brought upon +him grave misfortune; a few patients came to him, moved no doubt by the +spirit which still prompts people suffering from obscure diseases to +consult professors of healing who are either in revolt or unqualified in +preference to going to the orthodox physician. In connection with this +irregular practice of his he gives a curious story about a certain Count +Borromeo. "In 1536, while I was attending professionally in the house of +the Borromei, it chanced that just about dawn I had a dream in which I +beheld a serpent of enormous bulk, and I was seized with fear lest I +should meet my death therefrom. Shortly afterwards there came a messenger +to summon me to see the son of Count Carlo Borromeo. I went to the boy, +who was about seven years old, and found him suffering from a slight +distemper, but on feeling his pulse I perceived that it failed at every +fourth beat. His mother, the Countess Corona, asked me how he fared, and I +answered that there was not much fever about him; but that, because his +pulse failed at every fourth beat, I was in fear of something, but what it +might be I knew not rightly (but I had not then by me Galen's books on the +indications of the pulse). Therefore, as the patient's state changed not, +I determined on the third day to give him in small doses the drug called +_Diarob: cum Turbit_: I had already written my prescription, and the +messenger was just starting with it to the pharmacy, when I remembered my +dream. 'How do I know,' said I to myself, 'that this boy may not be about +to die as prefigured by the portent above written? and in that case these +other physicians who hate me so bitterly, will maintain he died through +taking this drug.' I called to the messenger, and said there was wanting +in the prescription something which I desired to add. Then I privately +tore up what I had written, and wrote out another made of pearls, of the +horn of unicorn,[70] and certain gems. The powder was given, and was +followed by vomiting. The bystanders perceived that the boy was indeed +sick, whereupon they called in three of the chief physicians, one of whom +was in a way friendly to me. They saw the description of the medicine, and +demanded what I would do now. Now although two of these men hated me, it +was not God's will that I should be farther attacked, and they not only +praised the medicine, but ordered that it should be repeated. This was the +saving of me. When I went again in the evening I understood the case +completely. The following morning I was summoned at daybreak, and found +the boy battling with death, and his father lying in tears. 'Behold him,' +he cried, 'the boy whom you declared to ail nothing' (as if indeed I could +have said such a thing); 'at least you will remain with him as long as he +lives.' I promised that I would, and a little later the boy tried to rise, +crying out the while. They held him down, and cast all the blame upon me. +What more is there to say? If there had been found any trace of that drug +_Diarob: cum Turbit_: (which in sooth was not safe) it would have been all +over with me, since Borromeo all his life would either have launched +against me complaints grave enough to make all men shun me, or another +Canidia, more fatal than African serpents, would have breathed poison upon +me."[71] + +In this same year, 1536, Lucia brought forth another child, a daughter, +and it was about this time that Cardan first attracted the attention of +Alfonso d'Avalos, the Governor of Milan, and an intimacy began which, +albeit fruitless at first, was destined to be of no slight service to +Jerome at the crisis of his fortunes.[72] In the following year, in 1537, +he made a beginning of two of his books, which were subsequently found +worthy of being finished, and which may still be read with a certain +interest: the treatises _De Sapientia_ and _De Consolatione_. Of the +last-named, he remarks that it pleased no one, forasmuch as it appealed +not to those who were happy, and the wretched rejected it as entirely +inadequate to give them solace in their evil case. In this year he made +another attempt to gain admission to the College at Milan, and was again +rejected; the issue of the _De Malo Medendi_ was too recent, and it needed +other and more potent influences than those exercised by mere merit, to +appease the fury of his rivals and to procure him due status. But it would +appear that, in 1536 or 1537, he negotiated with the College to obtain a +quasi-recognition on conditions which he afterwards describes as +disgraceful to himself, and that this was granted to him.[73] + +Whatever his qualifications may have been, Cardan had no scruples in +treating the few patients who came to him. The first case he notes is that +of Donato Lanza,[74] a druggist, who had suffered for many years with +blood-spitting, which ailment he treated successfully. Success of this +sort was naturally helpful, but far more important than Lanza's cure was +the introduction given by the grateful patient to the physician, +commending him to Francesco Sfondrato, a noble Milanese, a senator, and a +member of the Emperor's privy council. The eldest son of this gentleman +had suffered many months from convulsions, and Cardan worked a cure in his +case without difficulty. Shortly afterwards another child, only ten months +old, was attacked by the same complaint, and was treated by Luca della +Croce, the procurator of the College of Physicians, of which Sfondrato was +a patron. As the attack threatened to be a serious one, Della Croce +recommended that another physician, Ambrogio Cavenago, should be called +in, but the father, remembering Cardan's cure of Lanza, wished for him as +well. The description of the meeting of the doctors round the sick child's +bed, of their quotations from Hippocrates, of the uncertainty and +helplessness of the orthodox practitioners, and of the ready resource of +the free-lance--who happens also to be the teller of the story--is a +richly typical one.[75] "We, the physicians and the father of the child, +met about seven in the morning, and Della Croce made a few general +observations on death, for he knew that Sfondrato was a sensible man, and +he himself was both honoured and learned. Cavenago kept silence at this +stage, because the last word had been granted to him. Then I said, 'Do you +not see that the child is suffering from Opisthotonos?' whereupon the +first physician stood as one dazed, as if I were trying to trouble his +wits by my hard words. But Della Croce at once swept aside all uncertainty +by saying, 'He means the backward contraction of the muscles.' I confirmed +his words, and added, 'I will show you what I mean.' Whereupon I raised +the boy's head, which the doctors and all the rest believed was hanging +down through weakness, and by its own weight, and bade them put it into +its former position. Then Sfondrato turned to me, and said, 'As you have +discovered what the disease is, tell us likewise what is the remedy +therefor.' Since no one else spoke, I turned towards him and--careful lest +I should do hurt to the credit I had gained already,--I said, 'You know +what Hippocrates lays down in a case like this--_febrem convulsioni_'--and +I recited the aphorism. Then I ordered a fomentation, and an application +of lint moistened with linseed-oil and oil of lilies, and gave directions +that the child should be gently handled until such time as the neck +should be restored; that the nurse should eat no meat, and that the child +should be nourished entirely by the milk of her breast, and not too much +of that; that it should be kept in its cradle in a warm place, and rocked +gently till it should fall asleep. After the other physicians had gone, I +remember that the father of the child said to me, 'I give you this child +for your own,' and that I answered, 'You are doing him an ill turn, in +that you are supplanting his rich father by a poor one.' He answered, 'I +am sure that you would care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught +that you might thereby give offence to these others' (meaning the +physicians). I said, 'It would please me well to work with them in +everything, and to win their support.' I thus blended my words, so that he +might understand I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was quite +confident thereanent. The cure came to a favourable end; for, after the +fourteenth day of the fever--the weather being very warm--the child got +well in four days' time. Now as I review the circumstances, I am of +opinion that it was not because I perceived what the disease really was, +for I might have done so much by reason of my special practice; nor +because I healed the child, for that might have been attributed to chance; +but because the child got well in four days, whereas his brother lay ill +for six months, and was then left half dead, that his father was so much +amazed at my skill, and afterwards preferred me to all others. That he +thought well of me is certain, because Della Croce himself, during the +time of his procuratorship, was full of spite and jealousy against me, and +declared in the presence of Cavenago and of Sfondrato, that he would not, +under compulsion, say a word in favour of a man like me, one whom the +College regarded with disfavour. Whereupon Sfondrato saw that the envy +and jealousy of the other physicians was what kept me out of the College, +and not the circumstances of my birth. He told the whole story to the +Senate, and brought such influence to bear upon the Governor of the +Province and other men of worship, that at last the entrance to the +College was opened to me." + +Up to the time of his admission to the College, Jerome had never felt that +he could depend entirely upon medicine for his livelihood. He now +determined to publish his _Practica Arithmeticae_, the book which he had +prepared _pari passu_ with the ill-starred _De Malo Medendi_. It seems to +have been thoroughly revised and corrected, and was finally published in +1539, in Milan; Cardan only received ten crowns for his work, but the +sudden fame he achieved as a mathematician ought to have set him on firm +ground. His friends were still working to secure for him benefits yet more +substantial. Alfonso d'Avalos, Francesco della Croce, the jurisconsult +whose name has already been mentioned, and the senator Sfondrato, were +doing their best to bring the physicians of the city into a more +reasonable temper, and they finally succeeded in 1539; when, after having +been denied admission for twelve years, Jerome Cardan became a member of +the College, and a sharer in all the privileges appertaining thereto. + +Though Cardan was now a fully qualified physician, he spent his time for +the next year or two rather with letters than with medicine. He worked +hard at Greek, and as the result of his studies published somewhat +prematurely a treatise, _De Immortalitate Animorum_, a collection of +extracts from Greek writers which Julius Caesar Scaliger with justice +calls a confused farrago of other men's learning.[76] He published also +about this period the treatise on Judicial Astrology, and the Essay _De +Consolatione_, the only one of his books which has been found worthy of an +English translation.[77] In 1541 he became Rector of the College of +Physicians, but there is no record of any increase in the number of his +patients by reason of this superadded dignity. A passage in the _De Vita +Propria_, written with even more than his usual brutal candour, gives a +graphic view of his manner of life at this period. "It was in the summer +of the year 1543, a time when it was my custom to go every day to the +house of Antonio Vicomercato, a gentleman of the city, and to play chess +with him from morning till night. As we were wont to play for one real, or +even three or four, on each game, I, seeing that I was generally the +winner, would as a rule carry away with me a gold piece after each day's +play, sometimes more and sometimes less. In the case of Vicomercato it was +a pleasure and nothing else to spend money in this wise; but in my own +there was an element of conflict as well; and in this manner I lost my +self-respect so completely that, for two years and more, I took no thought +of practising my art, nor considered that I was wasting all my +substance--save what I made by play--that my good name and my studies as +well would suffer shipwreck. But on a certain day towards the end of +August, a new humour seized Vicomercato (either advisedly on account of +the constant loss he suffered, or perhaps because he thought his decision +would be for my benefit), a determination from which he was to be moved +neither by arguments, nor adjurations, nor abuse. He forced me to swear +that I would never again visit his house for the sake of gaming, and I, on +my part, swore by all the gods as he wished. That day's play was our last, +and thenceforth I gave myself up entirely to my studies."[78] + +But these studies unfortunately were not of a nature to keep the wolf from +the door; and Jerome, albeit now a duly qualified physician, and known to +fame as a writer on Mathematics far beyond the bounds of Italy, was +well-nigh as poor as ever. His mother had died several years before, in +1537; but what little money she may have left would soon have been wasted +in gratifying his extravagant taste for costly things,[79] and at the +gaming-table. He found funds, however, for a journey to Florence, whither +he went to see d'Avalos, who was a generous, open-handed man, and always +ready to put his purse at the service of one whom he regarded as an honour +to his city and country. There can be little doubt that he helped Cardan +liberally at this juncture. The need for a loan was assuredly urgent +enough. The recent resumption of hostilities between the French and the +Imperialists had led to intolerable taxation throughout the Milanese +provinces, and in consequence of dearth of funds in 1543, the Academy at +Pavia was forced to close its class-rooms, and leave its teachers unpaid. +The greater part of the professors migrated to Pisa; and the Faculty of +Medicine, then vacant, was, _pro forma_, transferred to Milan. This chair +was now offered to Cardan. He was in desperate straits--a third child had +been born this year--and, though there must have been even less chance of +getting his salary paid than when he had refused it before, he accepted +the post, explaining that he took this step because there was now no need +for him to leave Milan, or danger that he would be rated as an itinerant +teacher. It is not improbable that he may have been led to accept the +office on account of the additional dignity it would give to him as a +practising physician. When, a little later on, the authorities began to +talk of returning to Pavia, he was in no mind to follow them, giving as a +reason that, were he to leave Milan, he would lose his stipend for the +Plat lectureship, and be put to great trouble in the transport of his +household, and perhaps suffer in reputation as well. The Senate was +evidently anxious to retain his services. They bade him consider the +matter, promising to send on a certain date to learn his decision; and, as +fate would have it, the question was conveniently decided for him by a +portent. + +"On the night before the day upon which my answer was to be sent to the +Senate to say what course I was going to take, the whole of the house fell +down into a heap of ruins, and no single thing was left unwrecked, save +the bed in which I and my wife and my children were sleeping. Thus the +step, which I should never have taken of my own free will or without some +sign, I was compelled to take by the course of events. This thing caused +great wonder to all those who heard of it."[80] + +This was in 1544. Jerome hesitated no longer, and went forthwith to Pavia +as Professor of Medicine at a salary of two hundred and forty gold crowns +per annum; but, for the first year at least, this salary was not paid; +and the new professor lectured for a time to empty benches; but, as he was +at this time engaged in the final stage of his great work on Algebra, the +leisure granted to him by the neglect of the students must have been most +acceptable. He published at this time a treatise called _Contradicentium +Medicorum_, and in 1545 his _Algebra_ or _Liber Artis Magnae_ was issued +from the press by Petreius of Nuremberg. The issue of this book, by which +alone the name of Cardan holds a place in contemporary learning, is +connected with an episode of his life important enough to demand special +and detailed consideration in a separate place. + +His practice in medicine was now a fairly lucrative one, but his +extravagant tastes and the many vices with which he charges himself would +have made short work of the largest income he could possibly have earned, +consequently poverty was never far removed from the household. Hitherto +his reputation as a man of letters and a mathematician had exceeded his +fame as a doctor; for, even after he had taken up his residence as +Professor of Medicine at Padua, many applications were made to him for his +services in other branches of learning. It was fortunate indeed that he +had let his reading take a somewhat eclectic course, for medicine at this +time seemed fated to play him false. At the end of 1544 no salary was +forthcoming at Pavia, so he abandoned his class-room, and returned to +Milan. + +During his residence there, in the summer of 1546, Cardinal Moroni, acting +on behalf of Pope Paul III., made an offer for his services as a teacher +of mathematics, accompanied by terms which, as he himself admits, were not +to be despised; but, as was his wont, he found some reason for demur, and +ultimately refused the offer. In his Harpocratic vein he argued, "This +pope is an old man, a tottering wall, as it were. Why should I abandon a +certainty for an uncertainty?"[81] The certainty he here alludes to must +have been the salary for the Plat lectureship; and, as this emolument was +a very small one, it would appear that he did not rate at a high figure +any profits which might come to him in the future from his acceptance of +the Pope's offer; but, as he admits subsequently, he did not then fully +realize the benevolence of the Cardinal who approached him on the subject, +or the magnificent patronage of the Farnesi.[82] It is quite possible that +this refusal of his may have been caused by a reluctance to quit Milan, +the city which had treated him in such cruel and inhospitable fashion, +just at the time when he had become a man of mark. In the arrogance of +success it was doubtless a keen pleasure to let his fellow-townsmen see +that the man upon whom they had heaped insult after insult for so many +years was one who could afford to let Popes and Cardinals pray for his +services in vain. But whatever may have been his humour, he resolved to +remain in Milan; and, as he had no other public duty to perform except the +delivery of the Plat lectures, he had abundant leisure to spend upon the +many and important works he had on hand at this season. + +Cardan had now achieved European fame, and was apparently on the high +road to fortune, but on the very threshold of his triumph a great sorrow +and misfortune befell him, the full effect of which he did not experience +all at once. In the closing days of 1546 he lost his wife. There is very +scant record of her life and character in any of her husband's +writings,[83] although he wrote at great length concerning her father; and +the few words that are to be found here and there favour the view that she +was a good wife and mother. That Jerome could have been an easy husband to +live with under any circumstances it is hard to believe. Lucia's life, had +it been prolonged, might have been more free of trouble as the wife of a +famous and wealthy physician; but it was her ill fortune to be the +companion of her husband only in those dreary, terrible days at Sacco and +Gallarate, and in the years of uncertainty which followed the final return +to Milan. In the last-named period there was at least the Plat lectureship +standing between them and starvation; but children increased the while in +the nursery, and manuscripts in the desk of the physician without +patients, and Lucia's short life was all consumed in this weary time of +waiting for fame and fortune which, albeit hovering near, seemed destined +to mock and delude the seeker to the end. Cardan was before all else a man +of books and of the study, and it is not rare to find that one of this +sort makes a harsh unsympathetic husband. The qualities which he +attributes to himself in his autobiography suggest that to live with a man +cursed with such a nature would have been difficult even in prosperity, +and intolerable in trouble and privation. But fretful and irascible as +Cardan shows himself to have been, there was a warm-hearted, affectionate +side to his nature. He was capable of steadfast devotion to all those to +whom his love had ever been given. His reverence for the memory of his +tyrannical and irascible father had been noted already, and a still more +remarkable instance of his fidelity and love will have to be considered +when the time comes to deal with the crowning tragedy of his life. If +Cardan had this tender side to his nature, if he could speak tolerant and +even laudatory words concerning such a father as Fazio Cardano, and show +evidences of a love strong as death in the fight he made for the life of +his ill-starred and unworthy son, it may be hoped--in spite of his almost +unnatural silence concerning her--that he gave Lucia some of that +tenderness and sympathy which her life of hard toil and heavy sacrifice so +richly deserved; and that even in the days when he sold her trinkets to +pay his gambling losses, she was not destined to weep the bitter tears of +a neglected wife. If her early married life had been full of care and +travail, if she died when a better day seemed to be dawning, she was at +least spared the supreme sorrow and disgrace which was destined to fall so +soon upon the household. Judging by what subsequently happened, it will +perhaps be held that fate, in cutting her thread of life, was kinder to +her than to her husband, when it gave him a longer term of years under the +sun. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] _De Libris Propriis_, Opera, tom. i. p. 102. + +[68] Besides the _De Malo Medendi Usu_, he published in 1536 a tract upon +judicial astrology. This, in an enlarged form, was reprinted by Petreius +at Nuremburg in 1542. + +[69] Cardan writes of Brissac: "Erat enim Brissacus Prorex singularis in +studiosis amoris et humanitatis."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 14. + +[70] "Mirumque in modum venenis cornu ejus adversari creditur."--_De +Subtilitate_, p. 315. Sir Thomas Browne (_Vulgar Errors_, Bk. iii. 23) +deals at length with the pretended virtues of the horn, and in the +Bestiary of Philip de Thaun (_Popular Treatises on Science during the +Middle Ages_) is given an account of the many wonderful qualities of the +beast. + +[71] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxiii. p. 105. He also alludes to this case +in _De Libris Propriis_ (Opera, tom. i. p. 65), affirming that the other +doctors concerned in the case raised a great prejudice against him on +account of his reputation as an astrologer. "Ita tot modis et insanus +paupertate, et Astrologus profitendo edendoque libros, et imperitus casu +illustris pueri, et modum alium medendi observans ex titulo libri nuper +edito, jam prope ab omnibus habebar. Atque haec omnia in Urbe omnium +nugacissima, et quae calumniis maxime patet." + +[72] The founder of this family was Indico d'Avalos, a Spanish gentleman, +who was chosen by Alfonso of Naples as a husband for Antonella, the +daughter and heiress of the great Marchese Pescara of Aquino. This +d'Avalos Marchese dal Guasto was the grandson of Indico. He commanded the +advanced guard at the battle of Pavia, and took part in almost every +battle between the French and Imperialists, and went with the Emperor to +Tunis in 1535. Though he was a brave soldier and a skilful tactician, he +was utterly defeated by d'Enghien at Cerisoles in 1544. He has been taxed +with treachery in the case of the attack upon the messengers Rincon and +Fregoso, who were carrying letters from Francis I. to the Sultan during a +truce, but he did little more than imitate the tactics used by the French +against himself; moreover, neither of the murdered men was a French +subject, or had the status of an ambassador. D'Avalos was a liberal patron +of letters and arts, and was very popular as Governor of Milan. He was a +noted gallant and a great dandy. Brantome writes of him--"qu'il etait si +dameret qu'il parfumait jusqu'aux selles de ses chevaux."--He died in +1546. + +[73] "Violentia quorundam Medicorum adactus sum anno MDXXXVI, seu XXXVII, +turpi conditione pacisci cum Collegio, sed ut dixi, postmodum dissoluta +est, anno MDXXXIX et restitutus sum integre."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. +xxxiii. p. 105. + +[74] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 133.--He gives a long list of cases of +his successful treatment in _Opera_, tom. i. p. 82. + +[75] There is a full account of this episode in _De Libris Propriis_, p. +128, and in _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 133. + +[76] Exotericarum exercitationum, p. 987. + +[77] _Cardanus Comforte, translated into Englishe_, 1573. It was the work +of Thomas Bedingfield, a gentleman pensioner of Queen Elizabeth. + +[78] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 116. + +[79] "Delectant me gladii parvi, seu styli scriptorii, in quos plus +viginti coronatis aureis impendi: multas etiam pecunias in varia pennarum +genera, audeo dicere apparatum ad scribendum ducentis coronatis non +potuisse emi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xviii. p. 57. + +[80] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[81] "At ego qui, ut dixi, Harpocraticus sum dicebam:--Summus Pont: +decrepitus est: murus ruinosus, certa pro incertis derelinquam?"--_De Vita +Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. It is quite possible that Paul III. may have +desired to have Cardan about him on account of his reputation as an +astrologer, the Pope being a firm believer in the influence of the +stars.--_Vide_ Ranke, _History of the Popes_ i. 166. + +[82] "Neque ego tum Moroni probitatem, nec Pharnesiorum splendorem +intelligebam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[83] In writing of his own horoscope (_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 461) he +records that she miscarried thrice, brought forth three living children, +and lived with him fifteen years. He dismisses his marriage as follows: +"Duxi uxorem inexpectato, a quo tempore multa adversa concomitata +sunt."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 149. But in _De Rerum Subtilitate_, +p. 375, he records his grief at her death:--"Itaque cum a luctu dolor et +vigilia invadere soleant, ut mihi anno vertente in morte uxoris Luciae +Bandarenae quanquam institutis philosophiae munitus essem, repugnante tamen +natura, memorque vinculi c[o=]jugalis, suspiriis ac lachrymis et inedia +quinque dierum, a periculo me vindicavi." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +AT this point it may not be inopportune to make a break in the record of +Cardan's life and work, and to treat in retrospect of that portion of his +time which he spent in the composition of his treatises on Arithmetic and +Algebra. Ever since 1535 he had been working intermittently at one or +other of these, but it would have been impossible to deal coherently and +effectively with the growth and completion of these two books--really the +most important of all he left behind him--while chronicling the goings and +comings of a life so adventurous as that of the author. + +The prime object of Cardan's ambition was eminence as a physician. But, +during the long years of waiting, while the action of the Milanese doctors +kept him outside the bounds of their College, and even after this had been +opened to him without inducing ailing mortals to call for his services, he +would now and again fall into a transport of rage against his persecutors, +and of contempt for the public which refused to recognize him as a master +of his art, and cast aside his medical books for months at a time, +devoting himself diligently to Mathematics, the field of learning which, +next to Medicine, attracted him most powerfully. His father Fazio was a +geometrician of repute and a student of applied mathematics, and, though +his first desire was to make his son a jurisconsult, he gave Jerome in +early youth a fairly good grounding in arithmetic and geometry, deeming +probably that such training would not prove a bad discipline for an +intellect destined to attack those formidable tomes within which lurked +the mysteries of the Canon and Civil Law. Mathematical learning has given +to Cardan his surest title to immortality, and at the outset of his career +he found in mathematics rather than in medicine the first support in the +arduous battle he had to wage with fortune. His appointment to the Plat +lectureship at Milan has already been noted. In the discharge of his new +duties he was bound, according to the terms of the endowment of the Plat +lecturer, to teach the sciences of geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy, +and he began his course upon the lines laid down by the founder. Few +listeners came, however, and at this juncture Cardan took a step which +serves to show how real was his devotion to the cause of true learning, +and how lightly he thought of an additional burden upon his own back, if +this cause could be helped forward thereby. Keenly as he enjoyed his +mathematical work, he laid a part of it aside when he perceived that the +benches before him were empty, and, by way of making his lectures more +attractive, he occasionally substituted geography for geometry, and +architecture for arithmetic. The necessary research and the preparation of +these lectures led naturally to the accumulation of a large mass of notes, +and as these increased under his hand Jerome began to consider whether it +might not be worth his while to use them in the composition of one or more +volumes. In 1535 he delivered as Plat lecturer his address, the _Encomium +Geometriae_, which he followed up shortly after by the publication of a +work, _Quindecim Libri Novae Geometriae_. But the most profitable labour of +these years was that which produced his first important book, _The +Practice of Arithmetic and Simple Mensuration_, which was published in +1539, a venture which brought to the author a reward of ten crowns.[84] It +was a well-planned and well-arranged manual, giving proof of the wide +erudition and sense of proportion possessed by the author. Besides dealing +with Arithmetic as understood by the modern school-boy, it discusses +certain astronomical operations, multiplication by memory, the mysteries +of the Roman and Ecclesiastical Calendars, and gives rules for the +solution of any problem arising from the terms of the same. It treats of +partnership in agriculture, the Mezzadria system still prevalent in +Tuscany and in other parts of Italy, of the value of money, of the strange +properties of certain numbers, and gives the first simple rules of Algebra +to serve as stepping-stones to the higher mathematics. It ends with +information as to house-rent, letters of credit and exchange, tables of +interest, games of chance, mensuration, and weights and measures. In an +appendix Cardan examines critically the work of Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo, +an earlier writer on the subject, and points out numerous errors in the +same. The book from beginning to end shows signs of careful study and +compilation, and the fame which it brought to its author was well +deserved. + +Cardan appended to the Arithmetic a printed notice which may be regarded +as an early essay in advertising. He was fully convinced that his works +were valuable and quite worth the sums of money he asked for them; the +world was blind, perhaps wilfully, to their merits, therefore he now +determined that it should no longer be able to quote ignorance of the +author as an excuse for not buying the book. This appendix was a +notification to the learned men of Europe that the writer of the _Practice +of Arithmetic_ had in his press at home thirty-four other works in MS. +which they might read with profit, and that of these only two had been +printed, to wit the _De Malo Medendi Usu_ and a tract on _Simples_. This +advertisement had something of the character of a legal document, for it +invoked the authority of the Emperor to protect the copyright of Cardan's +books within the Duchy of Milan for ten years, and to prevent the +introduction of them from abroad. + +The Arithmetic proved far superior to any other treatise extant, and +everywhere won the approval of the learned. It was from Nuremberg that its +appearance brought the most valuable fruits. Andreas Osiander,[85] a +learned humanist and a convert to Lutheranism, and Johannes Petreius, an +eminent printer, were evidently impressed by the terms of Cardan's +advertisement, for they wrote to him and offered in combination to edit +and print any of the books awaiting publication in his study at Milan. The +result of this offer was the reprinting of _De Malo Medendi_, and +subsequently of the tract on Judicial Astrology, and of the treatise _De +Consolatione_; the _Book of the Great Art_, the treatises _De Sapientia_ +and _De Immortalitate Animorum_ were published in the first instance by +these same patrons from the Nuremberg press. + +But Cardan, while he was hard at work on his Arithmetic, had not forgotten +a certain report which had caused no slight stir in the world of +Mathematics some three years before the issue of his book on Arithmetic, +an episode which may be most fittingly told in his own words. "At this +time[86] it happened that there came to Milan a certain Brescian named +Giovanni Colla, a man of tall stature, and very thin, pale, swarthy, and +hollow-eyed. He was of gentle manners, slow in gait, sparing of his words, +full of talent, and skilled in mathematics. His business was to bring word +to me that there had been recently discovered two new rules in Algebra for +the solution of problems dealing with cubes and numbers. I asked him who +had found them out, whereupon he told me the name of the discoverer was +Scipio Ferreo of Bologna. 'And who else knows these rules?' I said. He +answered, 'Niccolo Tartaglia and Antonio Maria Fiore.' And indeed some +time later Tartaglia, when he came to Milan, explained them to me, though +unwillingly; and afterwards I myself, when working with Ludovico +Ferrari,[87] made a thorough study of the rules aforesaid. We devised +certain others, heretofore unnoticed, after we had made trial of these new +rules, and out of this material I put together my _Book of the Great +Art_."[88] + +Before dealing with the events which led to the composition of the famous +work above-named, it may be permitted to take a rapid survey of the +condition of Algebra at the time when Cardan sat down to write. Up to the +beginning of the sixteenth century the knowledge of Algebra in Italy, +originally derived from Greek and Arabic sources, had made very little +progress, and the science had been developed no farther than to provide +for the solution of equations of the first or second degree.[89] In the +preface to the _Liber Artis Magnae_ Cardan writes:--"This art takes its +origin from a certain Mahomet, the son of Moses, an Arabian, a fact to +which Leonard the Pisan bears ample testimony. He left behind him four +rules, with his demonstrations of the same, which I duly ascribe to him in +their proper place. After a long interval of time, some student, whose +identity is uncertain, deduced from the original four rules three others, +which Luca Paciolus put with the original ones into his book. Then three +more were discovered from the original rules, also by some one unknown, +but these attracted very little notice though they were far more useful +than the others, seeing that they taught how to arrive at the value of the +_cubus_ and the _numerus_ and of the _cubus quadratus_.[90] But in recent +times Scipio Ferreo of Bologna discovered the rule of the _cubus_ and the +_res_ equal to the _numerus_ (_x^3 + px=q_), truly a beautiful and +admirable discovery. For this Algebraic art outdoes all other subtlety of +man, and outshines the clearest exposition mortal wit can achieve: a +heavenly gift indeed, and a test of the powers of a man's mind. So +excellent is it in itself that whosoever shall get possession thereof, +will be assured that no problem exists too difficult for him to +disentangle. As a rival of Ferreo, Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, my +friend, at that time when he engaged in a contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, made out this same rule to help secure the +victory, and this rule he imparted to me after I had diligently besought +him thereanent. I, indeed, had been deceived by the words of Luca +Paciolus, who denied that there could be any general rule besides these +which he had published, so I was not moved to seek that which I despaired +of finding; but, having made myself master of Tartaglia's method of +demonstration, I understood how many other results might be attained; and, +having taken fresh courage, I worked these out, partly by myself and +partly by the aid of Ludovico Ferrari, a former pupil of mine. Now all the +discoveries made by the men aforesaid are here marked with their names. +Those unsigned were found out by me; and the demonstrations are all mine, +except three discovered by Mahomet and two by Ludovico."[91] + +This is Cardan's account of the scheme and origin of his book, and the +succeeding pages will be mainly an amplification thereof. The earliest +work on Algebra used in Italy was a translation of the MS. treatise of +Mahommed ben Musa of Corasan, and next in order is a MS. written by a +certain Leonardo da Pisa in 1202. Leonardo was a trader, who had learned +the art during his voyages to Barbary, and his treatise and that of +Mahommed were the sole literature on the subject up to the year 1494, when +Fra Luca Pacioli da Borgo[92] brought out his volume treating of +Arithmetic and Algebra as well. This was the first printed work on the +subject. + +After the invention of printing the interest in Algebra grew rapidly. From +the time of Leonardo to that of Fra Luca it had remained stationary. The +important fact that the resolution of all the cases of a problem may be +comprehended in a simple formula, which may be obtained from the solution +of one of its cases merely by a change of the signs, was not known, but in +1505 the Scipio Ferreo alluded to by Cardan, a Bolognese professor, +discovered the rule for the solution of one case of a compound cubic +equation. This was the discovery that Giovanni Colla announced when he +went to Milan in 1536. + +Cardan was then working hard at his Arithmetic--which dealt also with +elementary Algebra--and he was naturally anxious to collect in its pages +every item of fresh knowledge in the sphere of mathematics which might +have been discovered since the publication of the last treatise. The fact +that Algebra as a science had made such scant progress for so many years, +gave to this new process, about which Giovanni Colla was talking, an +extraordinary interest in the sight of all mathematical students; +wherefore when Cardan heard the report that Antonio Maria Fiore, Ferreo's +pupil, had been entrusted by his master with the secret of this new +process, and was about to hold a public disputation at Venice with Niccolo +Tartaglia, a mathematician of considerable repute, he fancied that +possibly there would be game about well worth the hunting. + +Fiore had already challenged divers opponents of less weight in the other +towns of Italy, but now that he ventured to attack the well-known Brescian +student, mathematicians began to anticipate an encounter of more than +common interest. According to the custom of the time, a wager was laid on +the result of the contest, and it was settled as a preliminary that each +one of the competitors should ask of the other thirty questions. For +several weeks before the time fixed for the contest Tartaglia studied +hard; and such good use did he make of his time that, when the day of the +encounter came, he not only fathomed the formula upon which Fiore's hopes +were based, but, over and beyond this, elaborated two other cases of his +own which neither Fiore nor his master Ferreo had ever dreamt of. + +The case which Ferreo had solved by some unknown process was the equation +_x^3 + px = q_, and the new forms of cubic equation which Tartaglia +elaborated were as follows: _x^3 + px^2 = q_: and _x^3 - px^2 = q_. Before +the date of the meeting, Tartaglia was assured that the victory would be +his, and Fiore was probably just as confident. Fiore put his questions, +all of which hinged upon the rule of Ferreo which Tartaglia had already +mastered, and these questions his opponent answered without difficulty; +but when the turn of the other side came, Tartaglia completely puzzled the +unfortunate Fiore, who managed indeed to solve one of Tartaglia's +questions, but not till after all his own had been answered. By this +triumph the fame of Tartaglia spread far and wide, and Jerome Cardan, in +consequence of the rumours of the Brescian's extraordinary skill, became +more anxious than ever to become a sharer in the wonderful secret by means +of which he had won his victory. + +Cardan was still engaged in working up his lecture notes on Arithmetic +into the Treatise when this contest took place; but it was not till four +years later, in 1539, that he took any steps towards the prosecution of +his design. If he knew anything of Tartaglia's character, and it is +reasonable to suppose that he did, he would naturally hesitate to make any +personal appeal to him, and trust to chance to give him an opportunity of +gaining possession of the knowledge aforesaid, rather than seek it at the +fountain-head. Tartaglia was of very humble birth, and according to report +almost entirely self-educated. Through a physical injury which he met with +in childhood his speech was affected; and, according to the common Italian +usage, a nickname[93] which pointed to this infirmity was given to him. +The blow on the head, dealt to him by some French soldier at the sack of +Brescia in 1512, may have made him a stutterer, but it assuredly did not +muddle his wits; nevertheless, as the result of this knock, or for some +other cause, he grew up into a churlish, uncouth, and ill-mannered man, +and, if the report given of him by Papadopoli[94] at the end of his +history be worthy of credit, one not to be entirely trusted as an +autobiographer in the account he himself gives of his early days in the +preface to one of his works. Papadopoli's notice of him states that he was +in no sense the self-taught scholar he represented himself to be, but that +he was indebted for some portion at least of his training to the +beneficence of a gentleman named Balbisono,[95] who took him to Padua to +study. From the passage quoted below he seems to have failed to win the +goodwill of the Brescians, and to have found Venice a city more to his +taste. It is probable that the contest with Fiore took place after his +final withdrawal from his birthplace to Venice. + +In 1537 Tartaglia published a treatise on Artillery, but he gave no sign +of making public to the world his discoveries in Algebra. Cardan waited +on, but the morose Brescian would not speak, and at last he determined to +make a request through a certain Messer Juan Antonio, a bookseller, that, +in the interests of learning, he might be made a sharer of Tartaglia's +secret. Tartaglia has given a version of this part of the transaction; +and, according to what is there set down, Cardan's request, even when +recorded in Tartaglia's own words, does not appear an unreasonable one, +for up to this time Tartaglia had never announced that he had any +intention of publishing his discoveries as part of a separate work on +Mathematics. There was indeed a good reason why he should refrain from +doing this in the fact that he could only speak and write Italian, and +that in the Brescian dialect, being entirely ignorant of Latin, the only +tongue which the writer of a mathematical work could use with any hope of +success. Tartaglia's record of his conversation with Messer Juan Antonio, +the emissary employed by Cardan, and of all the subsequent details of the +controversy, is preserved in his principal work, _Quesiti et Inventioni +Diverse de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano_,[96] a record which furnishes +abundant and striking instance of his jealous and suspicious temper. Much +of it is given in the form of dialogue, the terms of which are perhaps a +little too precise to carry conviction of its entire sincerity and +spontaneity. It was probably written just after the final cause of quarrel +in 1545, and its main object seems to be to set the author right in the +sight of the world, and to exhibit Cardan as a meddlesome fellow not to be +trusted, and one ignorant of the very elements of the art he professed to +teach.[97] + +The inquiry begins with a courteously worded request from Messer Juan +Antonio (speaking on behalf of Messer Hieronimo Cardano), that Messer +Niccolo would make known to his principal the rule by means of which he +had made such short work of Antonio Fiore's thirty questions. It had been +told to Messer Hieronimo that Fiore's thirty questions had led up to a +case of the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_, and that +Messer Niccolo had discovered a general rule for such case. Messer +Hieronimo now especially desired to be taught this rule. If the inventor +should be willing to let this rule be published, it should be published as +his own discovery; but, if he were not disposed to let the same be made +known to the world, it should be kept a profound secret. To this request +Tartaglia replied that, if at any time he might publish his rule, he would +give it to the world in a work of his own under his own name, whereupon +Juan Antonio moderated his demand, and begged to be furnished merely with +a copy of the thirty questions preferred by Fiore, and Tartaglia's +solutions of the same; but Messer Niccolo was too wary a bird to be taken +with such a lure as this. To grant so much, he replied, would be to tell +everything, inasmuch as Cardan could easily find out the rule, if he +should be furnished with a single question and its solution. Next Juan +Antonio handed to Tartaglia eight algebraical questions which had been +confided to him by Cardan, and asked for answers to them; but Tartaglia, +having glanced at them, declared that they were not framed by Cardan at +all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, he declared, had sent him one of these +questions for solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) had +given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. Juan Antonio replied by +way of contradiction--somewhat lamely--that the questions had been handed +over to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, apparently, +that no one else could possibly have been concerned in them, whereupon +Tartaglia replied that, supposing the questions had been given by Cardan +to Juan Antonio his messenger, Cardan must have got the questions from +Colla, and have sent them on to him (Tartaglia) for solution because he +could not arrive at the meaning of them himself. He waved aside Juan +Antonio's perfectly irrelevant and fatuous protests--that Cardan would not +in any case have sent these questions if they had been framed by another +person, or if he had been unable to solve them. Tartaglia, on the other +hand, declared that Cardan certainly did not comprehend them. If he did +not know the rule by which Fiore's questions had been answered (that of +the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_), how could he solve +these questions which he now sent, seeing that certain of them involved +operations much more complicated than that of the rule above written? If +he understood the questions which he now sent for solution, he could not +want to be taught this rule. Then Juan Antonio moderated his demand still +farther, and said he would be satisfied with a copy of the questions which +Fiore had put to Tartaglia, adding that the favour would be much greater +if Tartaglia's own questions were also given. He probably felt that it +would be mere waste of breath to beg again for Tartaglia's answers. The +end of the matter was that Tartaglia handed over to the messenger the +questions which Fiore had propounded in the Venetian contest, and +authorized Juan Antonio to get a copy of his own from the notary who had +drawn up the terms of the disputation with Fiore. The date of this +communication is January 2, 1539, and on February 12 Cardan writes a long +letter to Tartaglia, complaining in somewhat testy spirit of the reception +given to his request. He is aggrieved that Tartaglia should have sent him +nothing but the questions put to him by Fiore, thirty in number indeed, +but only one in substance, and that he should have dared to hint that +those which he (Cardan) had sent for solution were not his own, but the +property of Giovanni Colla. Cardan had found Colla to be a conceited fool, +and had dragged the conceit out of him--a process which he was now about +to repeat for the benefit of Messer Niccolo Tartaglia. The letter goes on +to contradict all Tartaglia's assertions by arguments which do not seem +entirely convincing, and the case is not made better by the abusive +passages interpolated here and there, and by the demonstration of certain +errors in Tartaglia's book on Artillery. In short a more injudicious +letter could not have been written by any man hoping to get a favour done +to him by the person addressed. + +In the special matter of the problems which he sent to Tartaglia by the +bookseller Juan Antonio, Cardan made a beginning of that tricky and +crooked course which he followed too persistently all through this +particular business. In his letter he maintains with a show of indignation +that he had long known these questions, had known them in fact before +Colla knew how to count ten, implying by these words that he knew how to +solve them, while in reality all he knew about them was the fact that they +existed. Tartaglia in his answer is not to be moved from his belief, and +tells Cardan flatly that he is still convinced Giovanni Colla took the +questions to Milan, where he found no one able to solve them, not even +Messer Hieronimo Cardano, and that the mathematician last-named sent them +on by the bookseller for solution, as has been already related. + +This letter of Tartaglia's bears the date of February 13, 1539, and after +reading it and digesting its contents, Cardan seems to have come to the +conclusion that he was not working in the right way to get possession of +this secret which he felt he must needs master, if he wanted his +forthcoming book to mark a new epoch in this History of Mathematics, and +that a change of tactics was necessary. Alfonso d'Avalos, Cardan's friend +and patron, was at this time the Governor of Milan. D'Avalos was a man of +science, as well as a soldier, and Cardan had already sent to him a copy +of Tartaglia's treatise on Artillery, deeming that a work of this kind +would not fail to interest him. In his first letter to Tartaglia he +mentions this fact, while picking holes in the writer's theories +concerning transmitted force and views on gravitation. This mention of the +name of D'Avalos, the master of many legions and of many cannons as well, +to a man who had written a Treatise on the management of Artillery, and +devised certain engines and instruments for the management of the same, +was indeed a clever cast, and the fly was tempting enough to attract even +so shy a fish as Niccolo Tartaglia. In his reply to Jerome's scolding +letter of February 12, 1539, Tartaglia concludes with a description of the +instruments which he was perfecting: a square to regulate the discharge of +cannon, and to level and determine every elevation; and another instrument +for the investigation of distances upon a plane surface. He ends with a +request that Cardan will accept four copies of the engines aforesaid, two +for himself and two for the Marchese d'Avalos. + +The tone of this letter shows that Cardan had at least begun to tame the +bear, who now seemed disposed to dance _ad libitum_ to the pleasant music +of words suggesting introductions to the governor, and possible patronage +of these engines for the working of artillery. Cardan's reply of March 19, +1539, is friendly--too friendly indeed--and the wonder is that Tartaglia's +suspicions were not aroused by its almost sugary politeness. It begins +with an attempt to soften down the asperities of their former +correspondence, some abuse of Giovanni Colla, and an apology for the rough +words of his last epistle. Cardan then shows how their misunderstanding +arose chiefly from a blunder made by Juan Antonio in delivering the +message, and invites Tartaglia to come and visit him in his own house in +Milan, so that they might deliberate together on mathematical questions; +but the true significance of the letter appears in the closing lines. "I +told the Marchese of the instruments which you had sent him, and he showed +himself greatly pleased with all you had done. And he commanded me to +write to you forthwith in pressing terms, and to tell you that, on the +receipt of my letter, you should come to Milan without fail, for he +desires to speak with you. And I, too, exhort you to come at once without +further deliberation, seeing that this said Marchese is wonted to reward +all men of worth in such noble and magnanimous and liberal fashion that +none of them ever goes away dissatisfied." + +The receipt of this letter seems to have disquieted Tartaglia somewhat; +for he has added a note to it, in which he says that Cardan has placed him +in a position of embarrassment. He had evidently wished for an +introduction to D'Avalos, but now it was offered to him it seemed a burden +rather than a benefit. He disliked the notion of going to Milan; yet, if +he did not go, the Marchese d'Avalos might take offence. But in the end he +decided to undertake the journey; and, as D'Avalos happened then to be +absent from Milan on a visit to his country villa at Vigevano, he stayed +for three days in Cardan's house. As a recorder of conversations Tartaglia +seems to have had something of Boswell's gift. He gives an abstract of an +eventful dialogue with his host on March 25, 1539, which Cardan begins by +a gentle reproach anent his guest's reticence in the matter of the rule of +the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the _numerus_. Tartaglia's reply to +this complaint seems reasonable enough (it must be borne in mind that he +is his own reporter), and certainly helps to absolve him from the charge +sometimes made against him that he was nothing more than a selfish +curmudgeon who had resolved to let his knowledge die with him, rather than +share it with other mathematicians of whom he was jealous. He told Cardan +plainly that he kept his rules a secret because, for the present, it +suited his purpose to do so. At this time he had not the leisure to +elaborate farther the several rules in question, being engaged over a +translation of Euclid into Italian; but, when this work should be +completed, he proposed to publish a treatise on Algebra in which he would +disclose to the world all the rules he already knew, as well as many +others which he hoped to discover in the course of his present work. He +concludes: "This is the cause of my seeming discourtesy towards your +excellency. I have been all the ruder, perhaps, because you write to me +that you are preparing a book similar to mine, and that you propose to +publish my inventions, and to give me credit for the same. This I confess +is not to my taste, forasmuch as I wish to set forth my discoveries in my +own works, and not in those of others." In his reply to this, Cardan +points out that he had promised, if Tartaglia so desired, that he would +not publish the rules at all; but here Messer Niccolo's patience and good +manners gave way, and he told Messer Hieronimo bluntly that he did not +believe him. Then said Cardan: "I swear to you by the Sacred Evangel, and +by myself as a gentleman, that I will not only abstain from publishing +your discoveries--if you will make them known to me--but that I will +promise and pledge my faith of a true Christian to set them down for my +own use in cypher, so that after my death no one may be able to understand +them. If you will believe this promise, believe it; if you will not, let +us have done with the matter." "If I were not disposed to believe such +oaths as these you now swear," said Tartaglia, "I might as well be set +down as a man without any faith at all. I have determined to go forthwith +to Vigevano to visit the Signor Marchese, as I have now been here for +three days and am weary of the delay, but I promise when I return that I +will show you all the rules." Cardan replied: "As you are bent on going to +Vigevano, I will give you a letter of introduction to the Marchese, so +that he may know who you are; but I would that, before you start, you show +me the rule as you have promised." "I am willing to do this," said +Tartaglia, "but I must tell you that, in order to be able to recall at any +time my system of working, I have expressed it in rhyme; because, without +this precaution, I must often have forgotten it. I care naught that my +rhymes are clumsy, it has been enough for me that they have served to +remind me of my rules. These I will write down with my own hand, so that +you may be assured that my discovery is given to you correctly." Then +follow Tartaglia's verses: + + "Quando chel cubo con le cose apresso + Se agualia a qualche numero discreto + Trouan dui altri differenti in esso + Dapoi terrai questo per consueto + Ch'el lor' produtto sempre sia eguale + Al terzo cubo delle cose neto + El residuo poi suo generale + Delli lor lati cubi ben sottratti + Varra la tua cosa principale. + In el secondo de cotesti atti + Quando chel cubo restasse lui solo + Tu osseruarai quest' altri contratti + Del numer farai due tal part 'a uolo + Che luna in l'altra si produca schietto + El terzo cubo delle cose in stolo + Delle qual poi, per commun precetto + Torrai li lati cubi insieme gionti + Et cotal summa sara il tuo concetto + Et terzo poi de questi nostri conti + Se solve col recordo se ben guardi + Che per natura son quasi congionti + Questi trouai, et non con passi tardi + Nel mille cinquecent' e quatro e trenta + Con fondamenti ben sald' e gagliardi + Nella citta del mar' intorno centa." + +Having handed over to his host these rhymes, with the precious rules +enshrined therein, Tartaglia told him that, with so clear an exposition, +he could not fail to understand them, ending with a warning hint to Cardan +that, if he should publish the rules, either in the work he had in hand, +or in any future one, either under the name of Tartaglia or of Cardan, he, +the author, would put into print certain things which Messer Hieronimo +would not find very pleasant reading. + +After all Tartaglia was destined to quit Milan without paying his respects +to D'Avalos. There is not a word in his notes which gives the reason of +this eccentric action on his part. He simply says that he is no longer +inclined to go to Vigevano, but has made up his mind to return to Venice +forthwith; and Cardan, probably, was not displeased at this exhibition of +petulant impatience on the part of his guest, but was rather somewhat +relieved to see Messer Niccolo ride away, now that he had extracted from +him the coveted information. From the beginning to the end of this affair +Cardan has been credited with an amount of subtle cunning which he +assuredly did not manifest at other times when his wits were pitted for +contest with those of other men. It has been advanced to his disparagement +that he walked in deceitful ways from the very beginning; that he dangled +before Tartaglia's eyes the prospect of gain and preferment simply for the +purpose of enticing him to Milan, where he deemed he might use more +efficaciously his arguments for the accomplishment of the purpose which +was really in his mind; that he had no intention of advancing Tartaglia's +fortunes when he suggested the introduction to D'Avalos, but that the +Governor of Milan was brought into the business merely that he might be +used as a potent ally in the attack upon Tartaglia's obstinate silence. +Whether this may have been his line of action or not, the issue shows that +he was fully able to fight his battle alone, and that his powers of +persuasion and hard swearing were adequate when occasion arose for their +exercise. It is quite possible that Tartaglia, when he began to reflect +over what he had done by writing out and handing over to Cardan his +mnemonic rhymes, fell into an access of suspicious anger--at Cardan for +his wheedling persistency, and at himself for yielding thereto--and packed +himself off in a rage with the determination to have done with Messer +Hieronimo and all his works. Certainly his carriage towards Cardan in the +weeks ensuing, as exhibited in his correspondence, does not picture him in +an amiable temper. On April 9 Jerome wrote to him in a very friendly +strain, expressing regret that his guest should have left Milan without +seeing D'Avalos, and fear lest he might have prejudiced his fortunes by +taking such a step. He then goes on to describe to Tartaglia the progress +he is making in his work with the Practice of Arithmetic, and to ask him +for help in solving one of the cases in Algebra, the rule for which was +indeed contained in Tartaglia's verses, but expressed somewhat obscurely, +for which reason Cardan had missed its meaning.[98] In his reply, +Tartaglia ignores Jerome's courtesies altogether, and tells him that what +he especially desires at the present moment is a sight of that volume on +the Practice of Arithmetic, "for," says he, "if I do not see it soon, I +shall begin to suspect that this work of yours will probably make manifest +some breach of faith; in other words, that it will contain as +interpolations certain of the rules I taught you." Niccolo then goes on to +explain the difficulty which had puzzled Cardan, using terms which showed +plainly that he had as poor an opinion of his correspondent's wit as of +his veracity. + +Cardan was an irascible man, and it is a high tribute to his powers of +restraint that he managed to keep his temper under the uncouth insults of +such a letter as the foregoing. The more clearly Tartaglia's jealous, +suspicious nature displays itself, the greater seems the wonder that a man +of such a disposition should ever have disclosed such a secret. He did not +believe Cardan when he promised that he would not publish the rules in +question without his (the discoverer's) consent--why then did he believe +him when he swore by the Gospel? The age was one in which the binding +force of an oath was not regarded as an obligation of any particular +sanctity if circumstances should arise which made the violation of the +oath more convenient than its observance. However, the time was not yet +come for Jerome to begin to quibble with his conscience. On May 12, 1539, +he wrote another letter to Tartaglia, also in a very friendly tone, +reproaching him gently for his suspicions, and sending a copy of the +_Practice of Arithmetic_ to show him that they were groundless. He +protested that Tartaglia might search from beginning to end without +finding any trace of his jealously-guarded rules, inasmuch as, beyond +correcting a few errors, the writer had only carried Algebra to the point +where Fra Luca had left it. Tartaglia searched, and though he could not +put his finger on any spot which showed that Messer Hieronimo had broken +his oath, he found what must have been to him as a precious jewel, to wit +a mistake in reckoning, which he reported to Cardan in these words: + +"In this process your excellency has made such a gross mistake that I am +amazed thereat, forasmuch as any man with half an eye must have seen +it--indeed, if you had not gone on to repeat it in divers examples, I +should have set it down to a mistake of the printer." After pointing out +to Cardan the blunders aforesaid, he concludes: "The whole of this work of +yours is ridiculous and inaccurate, a performance which makes me tremble +for your good name."[99] + +Every succeeding page of Tartaglia's notes shows more and more clearly +that he was smarting under a sense of his own folly in having divulged his +secret. Night and day he brooded over his excess of confidence, and as +time went by he let his suspicions of Cardan grow into savage resentment. +His ears were open to every rumour which might pass from one class-room to +another. On July 10 a letter came to him from one Maphio of Bergamo, a +former pupil, telling how Cardan was about to publish certain new +mathematical rules in a book on Algebra, and hinting that in all +probability these rules would prove to be Tartaglia's, whereupon he at +once jumped to the conclusion that Maphio's gossip was the truth, and that +this book would make public the secret which Cardan had sworn to keep. He +left many of Cardan's letters unanswered; but at last he seems to have +found too strong the temptation to say something disagreeable; so, in +answer to a letter from Cardan containing a request for help in solving an +equation which had baffled his skill, Tartaglia wrote telling Cardan that +he had bungled in his application of the rule, and that he himself was now +very sorry he had ever confided the rule aforesaid to such a man. He ends +with further abuse of Cardan's _Practice of Arithmetic_, which he declares +to be merely a confused farrago of other men's knowledge,[100] and with a +remark which he probably intended to be a crowning insult. "I well +remember when I was at your house in Milan, that you told me you had never +tried to discover the rule of the _cosa_ and the _cubus_ equal to the +_numerus_ which was found out by me, because Fra Luca had declared it to +be impossible;[101] as if to say that, if you had set yourself to the task +you could have accomplished it, a thing which sets me off laughing when I +call to mind the fact that it is now two months since I informed you of +the blunders you made in the extraction of the cube root, which process is +one of the first to be taught to students who are beginning Algebra. +Wherefore, if after the lapse of all this time you have not been able to +find a remedy to set right this your mistake (which would have been an +easy matter enough), just consider whether in any case your powers could +have been equal to the discovery of the rule aforesaid."[102] + +In this quarrel Messer Giovanni Colla had appeared as the herald of the +storm, when he carried to Milan in 1536 tidings of the discovery of the +new rule which had put Cardan on the alert, and now, as the crisis +approached, he again came upon the scene, figuring as unconscious and +indirect cause of the final catastrophe. On January 5, 1540, Cardan wrote +to Tartaglia, telling him that Colla had once more appeared in Milan, and +was boasting that he had found out certain new rules in Algebra. He went +on to suggest to his correspondent that they should unite their forces in +an attempt to fathom this asserted discovery of Colla's, but to this +letter Tartaglia vouchsafed no reply. In his diary it stands with a +superadded note, in which he remarks that he thinks as badly of Cardan as +of Colla, and that, as far as he is concerned, they may both of them go +whithersoever they will.[103] + +Colla propounded divers questions to the Algebraists of Milan, and +amongst them was one involving the equation _x^4 + 6x^2 + 36 = 60x_, one +which he probably found in some Arabian treatise. Cardan tried all his +ingenuity over this combination without success, but his brilliant pupil, +Ludovico Ferrari, worked to better purpose, and succeeded at last in +solving it by adding to each side of the equation, arranged in a certain +fashion, some quadratic and simple quantities of which the square root +could be extracted.[104] Cardan seems to have been baffled by the fact +that the equation aforesaid could not be solved by the recently-discovered +rules, because it produced a bi-quadratic. This difficulty Ferrari +overcame, and, pursuing the subject, he discovered a general rule for the +solution of all bi-quadratics by means of a cubic equation. Cardan's +subsequent demonstration of this process is one of the masterpieces of the +_Book of the Great Art_. It is an example of the use of assuming a new +indeterminate quantity to introduce into an equation, thus anticipating by +a considerable space of time Descartes, who subsequently made use of a +like assumption in a like case. + +How far this discovery of Ferrari's covered the rules given by Tartaglia +to Cardan, and how far it relieved Cardan of the obligation of secresy, is +a problem fitted for the consideration of the mathematician and the +casuist severally.[105] An apologist of Cardan might affirm that he cannot +be held to have acted in bad faith in publishing the result of Ferrari's +discovery. If this discovery included and even went beyond Tartaglia's, so +much the worse for Tartaglia. The lesser discovery (Tartaglia's) Cardan +never divulged before Ferrari unravelled Giovanni Colla's puzzle; but it +was inevitable that it must be made known to the world as a part of the +greater discovery (Ferrari's) which Cardan was in no way bound to keep a +secret. The case might be said to run on all fours with that where a man +confides a secret to a friend under a promise of silence, which promise +the friend keeps religiously, until one day he finds that the secret, and +even more than the secret, is common talk of the market-place. Is the +obligation of silence, with which he was bound originally, still to lie +upon the friend, even when he may have sworn to observe it by the Holy +Evangel and the honour of a gentleman; and is the fact that great renown +and profit would come to him by publishing the secret to be held as an +additional reason for keeping silence, or as a justification for speech? +In forming a judgment after a lapse of three and a half centuries as to +Cardan's action, while having regard both to the sanctity of an oath at +the time in question, and to the altered state of the case between him and +Tartaglia consequent on Ludovico Ferrari's discovery, an hypothesis not +overstrained in the direction of charity may be advanced to the effect +that Cardan might well have deemed he was justified in revealing to the +world the rules which Tartaglia had taught him, considering that these +isolated rules had been developed by his own study and Ferrari's into a +principle by which it would be possible to work a complete revolution in +the science of Algebra. + +In any case, six years were allowed to elapse before Cardan, by publishing +Tartaglia's rules in the _Book of the Great Art_, did the deed which, in +the eyes of many, branded him as a liar and dishonest, and drove +Tartaglia almost wild with rage. That his offence did not meet with +universal reprobation is shown by negative testimony in the _Judicium de +Cardano_, by Gabriel Naude.[106] In the course of his essay Naude lets it +be seen how thoroughly he dislikes the character of the man about whom he +writes. No evil disposition attributed to Cardan by himself or by his +enemies is left unnoticed, and a lengthy catalogue of his offences is set +down, but this list does not contain the particular sin of broken faith in +the matter of Tartaglia's rules. On the contrary, after abusing and +ridiculing a large portion of his work, Naude breaks out into almost +rhapsodical eulogy about Cardan's contributions to Mathematical science. +"Quis negabit librum de Proportionibus dignum esse, qui cum pulcherrimis +antiquorum inventis conferatur? Quis in Arithmetica non stupet, eum tot +difficultates superasse, quibus explicandis Villafrancus, Lucas de Burgo, +Stifelius, Tartalea, vix ac ne vix quidem pares esse potuissent?" It seems +hard to believe, after reading elsewhere the bitter assaults of +Naude,[107] that he would have neglected so tempting an opportunity of +darkening the shadows, if he himself had felt the slightest offence, or if +public opinion in the learned world was in any perceptible degree +scandalized by the disclosure made by the publication of the _Book of the +Great Art_. + +This book was published at Nuremberg in 1545, and in its preface and +dedication Cardan fully acknowledges his obligations to Tartaglia and +Ferrari, with respect to the rules lately discussed, and gives a catalogue +of the former students of the Art, and attributes to each his particular +contribution to the mass of knowledge which he here presents to the world. +Leonardo da Pisa,[108] Fra Luca da Borgo, and Scipio Ferreo all receive +due credit for their work, and then Cardan goes on to speak of "my friend +Niccolo Tartaglia of Brescia, who, in his contest with Antonio Maria +Fiore, the pupil of Ferreo, elaborated this rule to assure him of victory, +a rule which he made known to me in answer to my many prayers." He goes on +to acknowledge other obligations to Tartaglia:[109] how the Brescian had +first taught him that algebraical discovery could be most effectively +advanced by geometrical demonstration, and how he himself had followed +this counsel, and had been careful to give the demonstration aforesaid for +every rule he laid down. + +The _Book of the Great Art_ was not published till six years after Cardan +had become the sharer of Tartaglia's secret, which had thus had ample time +to germinate and bear fruit in the fertile brain upon which it was cast. +It is almost certain that the treatise as a whole--leaving out of account +the special question of the solution of cubic equations--must have gained +enormously in completeness and lucidity from the fresh knowledge revealed +to the writer thereof by Tartaglia's reluctant disclosure, and, over and +beyond this, it must be borne in mind that Cardan had been working for +several years at Giovanni Colla's questions in conjunction with Ferrari, +an algebraist as famous as Tartaglia or himself. The opening chapters of +the book show that Cardan was well acquainted with the chief properties of +the roots of equations of all sorts. He lays it down that all square +numbers have two different kinds of root, one positive and one +negative,[110] _vera_ and _ficta_: thus the root of 9 is either 3. or -3. +He shows that when a case has all its roots, or when none are impossible, +the number of its positive roots is the same as the number of changes in +the signs of the terms when they are all brought to one side. In the case +of _x^3 + 3bx = 2c_, he demonstrates his first resolution of a cubic +equation, and gives his own version of his dealings with Tartaglia. His +chief obligation to the Brescian was the information how to solve the +three cases which follow, _i.e. x^3 + bx = c. x^3 = bx + c._ and +_x^3 + c = bx_, and this he freely acknowledges, and furthermore admits +the great service of the system of geometrical demonstration which +Tartaglia had first suggested to him, and which he always employed +hereafter. He claims originality for all processes in the book not +ascribed to others, asserting that all the demonstrations of existing +rules were his own except three which had been left by Mahommed ben Musa, +and two invented by Ludovico Ferrari. + +With this vantage ground beneath his feet Cardan raised the study of +Algebra to a point it had never reached before, and climbed himself to a +height of fame to which Medicine had not yet brought him. His name as a +mathematician was known throughout Europe, and the success of his book +was remarkable. In the _De Libris Propriis_ there is a passage which +indicates that he himself was not unconscious of the renown he had won, or +disposed to underrate the value of his contribution to mathematical +science. "And even if I were to claim this art (Algebra) as my own +invention, I should perhaps be speaking only the truth, though Nicomachus, +Ptolemaeus, Paciolus, Boetius, have written much thereon. For men like +these never came near to discover one-hundredth part of the things +discovered by me. But with regard to this matter--as with divers others--I +leave judgment to be given by those who shall come after me. Nevertheless +I am constrained to call this work of mine a perfect one, seeing that it +well-nigh transcends the bounds of human perception."[111] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] It was published at Milan by Bernardo Caluschio, with a +dedication--dated 1537--to Francesco Gaddi, a descendant of the famous +family of Florence. This man was Prior of the Augustinian Canons in Milan, +and a great personage, but ill fortune seems to have overtaken him in his +latter days. Cardan writes (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 107):--"qui cum mihi +amicus esset dum floreret, Rexque cognomine ob potentiam appellaretur, +conjectus in carcerem, misere vitam ibi, ne dicam crudeliter, finivit: nam +per quindecim dies in profundissima gorgyne fuit, ut vivus sepeliretur." + +[85] There is a reference to Osiander in _De Subtilitate_, p. 523. Cardan +gives a full account of his relations with Osiander and Petreius in +_Opera_, tom. i. p. 67. + +[86] November 1536. + +[87] Ferrari was one of Cardan's most distinguished pupils. "Ludovicus +Ferrarius Bononiensis qui Mathematicas et Mediolani et in patria sua +professus est, et singularis in illis eruditionis."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xxxv. p. 111. There is a short memoir of Ferrari in _Opera_, tom. ix. + +[88] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 66. + +[89] Fra Luca's book, _Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni e +Proportionalita_, extends as far as the solution of quadratic equations, +of which only the positive roots were used. At this time letters were +rarely used to express known quantities. + +[90] The early writers on Algebra used _numerus_ for the absolute or known +term, _res_ or _cosa_ for the first power, _quadratum_ for the second, and +_cubus_ for the third. The signs + and - first appear in the work of +Stifelius, a German writer, who published a book of Arithmetic in 1544. +Robert Recorde in his _Whetstone of Wit_ seems first to have used the sign +of equality =. Vieta in France first applied letters as general symbols of +quantity, though the earlier algebraists used them occasionally, chiefly +as abbreviations. Aristotle also used them in the _Physics.--Libri. Hist. +des Sciences Mathematiques_. i. 104. + +[91] _Opera_, tom. iv. p. 222. + +[92] In the conclusion of the Treatise on Arithmetic, Cardan points out +certain errors in the work of Fra Luca. Fra Luca was a pupil of Piero +della Francesca, who was highly skilled in Geometry, and who, according to +Vasari, first applied perspective to the drawing of the human form. + +[93] Tartaglia, _i.e._ the stutterer. + +[94] Papadopoli, _Hist. Gymn. Pata._ (Ven. 1724). + +[95] "Balbisonem post relatam jurisprudentiae lauream redeuntem Brixiam +Nicolaus secutus est, caepitque ex Mathematicis gloriam sibi ac divitias +parare, aeque paupertatis impatiens, ac fortunae melioris cupidus, quam dum +Brixiae tuetur, homo morosae, et inurbanae rusticitatis prope omnium civium +odia sibi conciliavit. Quamobrem alibi vivere coactus, varias Italiae urbes +incoluit, ac Ferrariae, Parmae, Mediolani, Romae, Genuae, arithmeticam, +geometricam, ceteraque quae ad Mathesim pertinent, docuit; depugnavitque +scriptis accerrimis cum Cardano ac sibi ex illis quaesivit nomen et +gloriam. Tandem domicilium posuit Venetiis, ubi non a Senatoribus modo, ut +mos Venetus habet eruditorum hominum studiosissimus, maximi habitus est, +at etiam a variis Magnatum ac Principum legatis praemiis ac muneribus +auctus sortem, quam tamdiu expetierat visus sibi est conciliasse. Ergo +ratus se majorem, quam ut a civibus suis contemneretur, Brixiam rediit, +ubi spe privati stipendii Euclidis elementa explanare coepit; sed quae +illum olim a civitate sua austeritas, rustica, acerba, morosa, depulerat, +eadem illum in eum apud omnes contemptum, et odium iterum dejicit, ut +exinde horrendus ac detestabilis omnibus fugere, atque iterum Venetias +confugere compulsus fuerit. Ibi persenex decessit."--Papadopoli, _Hist. +Gymn. Pata.,_ ii. p. 210. + +[96] This work is the chief authority for the facts which follow. The +edition referred to is that of Venice, 1546. There is also a full account +of the same in Cossali, _Origine dell' Algebra_ (Parma, 1799). vol. ii. p. +96. + +[97] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 115. + +[98] Cardan writes: "Vi supplico per l'amor che mi portati, et per +l'amicitia ch'e tra noi, che spero durara fin che viveremo, che mi mandati +sciolta questa questione. 1 cubo piu 3. cose egual a 10." Cardan had +mistaken (1/3 _b_)^3 for 1/3 _b_^3, or the cube of 1/3 of the co-efficient +for 1/3 of the cube of the co-efficient.--_Quesiti et Inventioni_ p. 124. + +[99] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 125. + +[100] "Non ha datta fora tal opera come cose composto da sua testa ma come +cose ellette raccolte e copiate de diverse libri a penna."--_Quesiti et +Inventioni_, p. 127. + +[101] Cardan repeats the remark in the first chapter of the _Liber Artis +Magnae_ (_Opera_, tom. iv. p. 222). "Deceptus enim ego verbis Lucae +Paccioli, qui ultra sua capitula, generale ullum aliud esse posse negat +(quanquam tot jam antea rebus a me inventis, sub manibus esset) desperabam +tamen invenire, quod quaerere non audebam." Perhaps he wrote them down as +an apology or a defence against the storm which he anticipated as soon as +Tartaglia should have seen the new Algebra. + +[102] Subsequently Tartaglia wrote very bitterly against Cardan, as the +latter mentions in _De Libris Propriis_. "Nam etsi Nicolaus Tartalea +libris materna lingua editis nos calumniatur, impudentiae tamen ac +stultitiae suae non aliud testimonium quaeras, quam ipsos illius libros, in +quibus nominatim splendidiorem unumquemque e civibus suis proscindit: adeo +ut nemo dubitet insanisse hominem aliquo infortunio."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +80. + +[103] _Quesiti et Inventioni_, p. 129. + +[104] Montucla, _Histoire de Math._ i. 596, gives a full account of +Ferrari's process. + +[105] In the _De Vita Propria_, Cardan dismisses the matter briefly: "Ex +hoc ad artem magnam, quam collegi, dum Jo. Colla certaret nobiscum, et +Tartalea, a quo primum acceperam capitulum, qui maluit aemulum habere, et +superiorem, quam amicum et beneficio devinctum, cum alterius fuisset +inventum."--ch. xlv. p. 175. + +[106] Prefixed to the _De Vita Propria_. + +[107] In a question of broken faith, Cardan laid himself open especially +to attack by reason of his constant self-glorification in the matter of +veracity. + +[108] Leonardo knew that quadratic equations might have two positive +roots, and Cardan pursued this farther by the discovery that they might +also have negative roots. + +[109] "Caput xxviii. De capitulo generali cubi et rerum aequalium numero, +Magistri Nicolai Tartagliae, Brixiensis--Hoc capitulum habui a prefato viro +ante considerationem demonstrationum secundi libri super Euclidem, et +aequatio haec cadit in [Symbol: Rx]. cu v binomii ex genere binomii secundi +et qunti [m~]. [Symbol: Rx]. cuba universali recisi ejusdem +binomii."--_Opera_, tom. iv. p. 341. + +[110] Montucla, who as a historian of Mathematics has a strong bias +against Cardan, gives him credit for the discovery of the _fictae radices_, +but on the other hand he attributes to Vieta Cardan's discovery of the +method of changing a complete cubic equation into one wanting the second +term.--Ed. 1729, p. 595. + +[111] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 66. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +IT has been noted that Cardan quitted Pavia at the end of 1544 on account +of the bankruptcy of the University, and that in 1546 a generous offer was +made to him on condition of his entering the service of Pope Paul III.; an +offer which after some hesitation he determined to refuse. In the autumn +of this same year he resumed his teaching at Pavia, a fact which sanctions +the assumption that this luckless seat of learning must have been once +more in funds. In the year following, in 1547, there came to him another +offer of employment accompanied by terms still more munificent than the +Pope's, conveyed through Vesalius[112] and the ambassador of the King of +Denmark. "The emolument was to be a salary of three hundred gold crowns +per annum of the Hungarian currency, and in addition to these six hundred +more to be paid out of the tax on skins of price. This last-named money +differed in value by about an eighth from the royal coinage, and would be +somewhat slower in coming in. Also the security for its payment was not so +solid, and would in a measure be subject to risk. To this was farther +added maintenance for myself and five servants and three horses. This +offer I did not accept because the country was very cold and damp, and the +people well-nigh barbarians; moreover the rites and doctrines of religion +were quite foreign to those of the Roman Church."[113] + +Cardan was now forty-six years of age, a mathematician of European fame, +and the holder of an honourable post at an ancient university, which he +might have exchanged for other employment quite as dignified and far more +lucrative. In dealing with a character as bizarre as his, it would be as a +rule unprofitable to search deeply for motives of action, but in this +instance it is no difficult matter to detect upon the surface several +causes which may have swayed him in this decision to remain at Pavia. +However firmly he may have set himself to win fame as a physician, he was +in no way disposed to put aside those mathematical studies in which he had +already made so distinguished a name, nor to abandon his astrology and +chiromancy and discursive reading of all kinds. At Pavia he would find +leisure for all these, and would in addition be able to make good any +arrears of medical and magical knowledge into which he might have fallen +during the years so largely devoted to the production of the _Book of the +Great Art_. Moreover, the time in question was one of the prime epochs in +the history of the healing art. A new light had just arisen in Vesalius, +who had recently published his book, _Corporis Humani Fabrica_, and was +lecturing in divers universities on the new method of Anatomy, the actual +dissection of the human body. He went to Pavia in the course of his +travels and left traces of his visit in the form of a revived and +re-organized school of Anatomy. This fact alone would have been a +powerful attraction to Cardan, ever greedy as he was of new knowledge, but +there was another reason which probably swayed him more strongly still, to +wit, the care of his eldest son's education and training. Gian Battista +Cardano was now in his fourteenth year, and, according to the usages of +the time, old enough to make a beginning of his training in Medicine, the +profession he was destined to follow. It is not recorded whether or not he +chose this calling for himself; but, taking into account the deep and +tender affection Jerome always manifested towards his eldest son, it is +not likely that undue compulsion was used in the matter. The youth, +according to his father's description, strongly favoured in person his +grandfather Fazio.[114] He had come into the world at a time when his +parents' fortunes were at their lowest ebb, during those terrible months +spent at Gallarate,[115] and in his adolescence he bore divers physical +evidences of the ill nurture--it would be unjust to call it neglect--which +he had received. At one time he was indeed put in charge of a good nurse, +but he had to be withdrawn from her care almost immediately through her +husband's jealousy, and he was next sent to a slattern, who fed him with +old milk, and not enough of that; or more often with chewed bread. His +body was swollen and unhealthy, he suffered greatly from an attack of +fever, which ultimately left him deaf in one ear. He gave early evidence +of a fine taste in music, an inheritance from his father, and was, +according to Cardan's showing, upright and honest in his carriage, gifted +with talents which must, under happier circumstances, have placed him in +the first rank of men of learning, and in every respect a youth of the +fairest promise. The father records that he himself, though well furnished +by experience in the art of medicine, was now and again worsted by his son +in disputation, and alludes in words of pathetic regret to divers +problems, too deep for his own powers of solution, which Gian Battista +would assuredly have mastered in the course of time. He does not forget to +notice certain of the young man's failings; for he remarks that he was +temperate of speech, except when he was angered, and then he would pour +forth such a torrent of words that he scarce seemed in his right mind. +Cardan professes to have discerned a cause for these failings, and the +calamities flowing therefrom, in the fact that Gian Battista had the third +and fourth toes of his right foot united by a membrane; he declares that, +if he had known of this in time, he would have counteracted the evil by +dividing the toes.[116] Gian Battista eventually gained the _baccalaureat_ +in his twenty-second year, and two years after became a member of the +College. + +The life which Cardan planned to lead at Pavia was unquestionably a full +one. He had several young men under his care as pupils besides his son, +amongst them being a kinsman of his, Gasparo Cardano, a youth of sterling +virtue and a useful coadjutor in times to come. He was at this time +engaged on his most important works in Medicine and Physical Science. He +worked hard at his profession, practising occasionally and reading +voraciously all books bearing on his studies. He wrote and published +several small works during the four years--from 1547 to 1551--of his +Professorship at Pavia; the most noteworthy of which were the Book of +Precepts for the guidance of his children, and some Treatises on the +Preservation of Health. He also wrote a book on Physiognomy, or as he +called it Metoposcopy, an abstract of which appears as a chapter in _De +Utilitate_ (lib. iii. c. 10), but the major part of his time must have +been consumed in collecting and reducing to form the huge mass of facts +out of which his two great works, _De Subtilitate_ and _De Varietate +Rerum_, were built up. + +A mere abstract of the contents of these wonderful books would fill many +pages, and prove as uninteresting and unsuggestive as abstracts must +always be; and a commentary upon the same, honestly executed, would make a +heavy draft on the working life-time of an industrious student. In +reference to each book the author has left a statement of the reasons +which impelled him to undertake his task, the most cogent of which were +certain dreams.[117] Soon after he had begun to write the _De Astrorum +Judiciis_ he dreamt one night that his soul, freed from his body, was +ranging the vault of heaven near to the moon, and the soul of his father +was there likewise. But he could not see this spirit, which spake to him +saying, "Behold, I am given to you as a comrade." The spirit of the father +then went on to tell the son how, after various stages of probation, he +would attain the highest heaven, and in the terms of this discourse Cardan +professed to discern the scheme of his more important works. + +The _De Subtilitate_ represents Cardan's original conception of a +treatise dealing with the Cosmos, but during the course of its preparation +a vast mass of subsidiary and contingent knowledge accumulated in his +note-books, and rendered necessary the publication of a supplementary +work, the _De Varietate_,[118] which, by the time it was finished, had +grown to a bulk exceeding that of the original treatise. The seminal ideas +which germinated and produced such a vast harvest of printed words, were +substantially the same which had possessed the brains of Paracelsus and +Agrippa. Cardan postulates in the beginning a certain sympathy between the +celestial bodies and our own, not merely general, but distributive, the +sun being in harmony with the heart, and the moon with the animal humours. +He considers that all organized bodies are animated, so that what we call +the Spirit of Nature is present everywhere. Beyond this everything is +ruled by the properties of numbers.[119] Heat and moisture are the only +real qualities in Nature, the first being the formal, and the second the +material, cause of all things; these conceptions he gleaned probably from +some criticisms of Aristotle on the archaic doctrines of Heraclitus and +Thales as to the origin of the universe. + +It is no marvel that a writer, gifted with so bizarre and imaginative a +temper, so restless and greedy of knowledge, sitting down to work with +such a projection before him, should have produced the richest, and at +the same time the most chaotic, collection of the facts of Natural +Philosophy that had yet issued from the press. The erudition and the +industry displayed in the gathering together of these vast masses of +information, and in their verification by experiment, are indeed amazing; +and, in turning over his pages, it is impossible to stifle regret that +Cardan's confused method and incoherent system should have rendered his +work comparatively useless for the spread of true knowledge, and qualified +it only for a place among the _labores ineptiarum_. + +Cardan begins with a definition of Subtilty. "By subtilty I mean a certain +faculty of the mind by which certain phenomena, discernible by the senses +and comprehensible by the intellect, may be understood, albeit with +difficulty." Subtilty, as he understood it, possesses a threefold +character: substance, accident, and manifestation. With regard to the +senses he admits but four to the first rank: touch, sight, smell, and +hearing; the claims of taste, he affirms, are open to contention. He then +passes on to discuss the properties of matter: fire, moisture, cold, +dryness, and vacuum. The last-named furnishes him with a text for a +discourse on a wonderful lamp which he invented by thinking out the +principle of the vacuum. This digression on the very threshold of the work +is a sample of what the reader may expect to encounter all through the +twenty-one books of the _De Subtilitate_ and the seventeen of the _De +Varietate_. Regardless of the claims of continuity, he jumps from +principle to practice without the slightest warning. Intermingled with +dissertations on abstract causes and the hidden forces of Nature are to be +found descriptions of taps and pumps and syphons, and of the water-screw +of Archimedes, the re-invention of which caused poor Galeazzo Rosso, +Fazio's blacksmith friend, to go mad for joy. There are diagrams of +furnaces, of machinery for raising sunken ships, and of the common +steelyard. Cardan finds no problem of the universe too recondite to essay, +and in like manner he sets down information as to the most trivial details +of every-day economy: how to kill mice, why dogs bay the moon, how to make +vinegar, why a donkey is stupid, why flint and steel produce fire, how to +make the hands white, how to tell good mushrooms from bad, and how to mark +household linen. He treats of the elements, Earth, Air, and Water, +excluding Fire, because it produces nothing material; of the heavens and +light: metals, stones, plants, and animals. Marvellous stories abound, and +the most whimsical theories are advanced to account for the working of +Nature. He tells how he once saw a man from Porto Maurizio, pallid, with +little hair on his face, and fat in person, who had in his breasts milk +enough to suckle a child. He was a soldier, and this strange property +caused him no slight inconvenience. Sages, he affirms, on account of their +studious lives, are little prone to sexual passion. With them the vital +power is carried from the heart to a region remote from the genitals, +_i.e._ to the brain, and for this reason such men as a rule beget children +weak and unlike themselves. Diet has a valid effect on character, as the +Germans, who subsist chiefly on the milk of wild cows, are fierce and bold +and brutal. Again, the Corsicans, who eat young dogs, wild as well as +domestic, are notably fierce, cruel, treacherous, fearless, nimble, and +strong, following thus the nature of dogs. He argues at length to show +that man is neither an animal nor a plant, but something between the two. +A man is no more an animal than an animal is a plant. The animal has the +_anima sensitiva_ which the plant lacks, and man transcends the animal +through the gift of the _anima intellectiva_, which, as Aristotle +testifies, differs from the _sensitiva_. Some maintain that man and the +animals must be alike in nature and spirit, because it is possible for man +to catch certain diseases from animals. But animals take certain +properties from plants, and no one thinks of calling an animal a plant. +Man's nature is threefold: the Divine, which neither deceives nor is +deceived; the Human, which deceives, but is not deceived; the Brutish, +which does not deceive, but is deceived. Dissertations on the various +sciences, the senses, the soul and intellect, things marvellous, demons +and angels, occupy the rest of the chapters of the _De Subtilitate_. + +At the end of the last book of _De Varietate_, Cardan gives a table +showing the books of the two works arranged in parallel columns so as to +exhibit the relation they bear to each other. A comparison of the +treatment accorded to any particular branch of Natural Philosophy in the +_De Subtilitate_ with that given in the _De Varietate_, will show that in +the last-named work Cardan used his most discursive and anecdotic method. +Mechanics are chiefly dealt with in the _De Subtilitate_, and all through +this treatise he set himself to observe in a certain degree the laws of +proportion, and kept more or less to the point with which he was dealing, +a system of treatment which left him with a vast heap of materials on his +hands, even after he had built up the heavy tome of the _De Subtilitate_. +Perhaps when he began his work upon the fresh volume he found this _ingens +acervus_ too intractable and heterogeneous to be susceptible of +symmetrical arrangement, and was forced to let it remain in confusion. Few +men would sit down with a light heart to frame a well-ordered treatise out +of the _debris_ of a heap of note-books, and it would be unjust to +censure Cardan's literary performance because he failed in this task. +Probably no other man living in his day would have achieved a better +result. It is certain that he expended a vast amount of labour in +attempting to reduce his collected mass of facts even to the imperfect +form it wears in the _De Varietate Rerum_.[120] + +Considering that this book covers to a great extent the same ground as its +predecessor, Cardan must be credited with considerable ingenuity of +treatment in presenting his supplementary work without an undue amount of +repetition. In the _De Varietate_ he always contrives to bring forward +some fresh fact or fancy to illustrate whatever section of the universe he +may have under treatment, even though this section may have been already +dealt with in the _De Subtilitate_. The characteristic most strongly +marked in the later book is the increased eagerness with which he plunges +into the investigation of certain forces, which he professes to appreciate +as lying beyond Nature, and incapable of scientific verification in the +modern sense, and the fabled manifestations of the same. He loses no +opportunity of trying to peer behind the curtain, and of seeking--honestly +enough--to formulate those various pseudo-sciences, politely called +occult, which have now fallen into ridicule and disrepute with all except +the charlatan and the dupe, who are always with us. Where he occupies in +the _De Subtilitate_ one page in considering those things which lie +outside Nature--demons, ghosts, incantations, succubi, incubi, +divinations, and such like--he spends ten in the _De Varietate_ over +kindred subjects. There is a wonderful story[121] told by his father of a +ghost or demon which he saw in his youth while he was a scholar in the +house of Giovanni Resta at Pavia. He searches the pages of Hector +Boethius, Nicolaus Donis, Rugerus, Petrus Toletus, Leo Africanus, and +other chroniclers of the marvellous, for tales of witchcraft, prodigies, +and monstrous men and beasts, and devotes a whole chapter to +chiromancy,[122] a subject with which he had occupied his plenteous +leisure when he was waiting for patients at Sacco. The diagram of the +human hand given by him does not differ greatly from that of the +contemporary hand-books of the "Art," and the leading lines are just the +same. The heavenly bodies are as potent here as in Horoscopy. The thumb is +given to Mars, the index finger to Jupiter, the middle finger to Saturn, +the ring finger to the Sun, and the little finger to Venus. Each +finger-joint has its name, the lowest being called the procondyle, the +middle the condyle, and the upper the metacondyle. He passes briefly over +as lines of little import, the _via combusta_ and the _Cingulus Orionis_, +but lays some stress on the character of the nails and the knitting +together of the hand, declaring that hands which can be bent easily +backward denote effeminacy or a rapacious spirit. He teaches that lines +are most abundant in the hands of children, on account of the tenderness +of the skin, and of old men on account of the dryness, a statement which +might suggest the theory that lines come into existence through the +opening and closing of the hand. But the adoption of this view would have +proved more disastrous to chiromancy than ridicule or serious criticism; +so he straightway finds an explanation for this fact in the postulate that +lines in young people's hands speak as to the future, and in old men's as +to the past. Later he goes on to affirm that lines in the hand cannot be +treated as mere wrinkles arising from the folding of the skin, unless we +are prepared to admit that wrinkled people are more humorous than others, +alluding no doubt to the lines in the face caused by laughter, a +proposition which does not seem altogether convincing or consequential, +unless we also postulate that all humorous men laugh at every joke. There +is a line in the hand which he calls the _linea jecoraria_, and the +triangle formed by this and the _linea vitae_ and the _linea cerebri_, +rules the disposition of the subject, due consideration being given to the +acuteness or obtuseness of the angles of this triangle. Cardan seems to +have based his treatise on one written by a certain Ruffus Ephesius, and +it is without doubt one of the dullest portions of his work.[123] + +It is almost certain that Cardan purposed to let the _De Varietate_ come +forth from the press immediately after the _De Subtilitate_, but before +the MS. was ready, it came to pass that he was called to make that +memorable journey to Scotland in order to find a remedy for the ailment +which was troubling the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a journey which has +given to Britons a special interest in his life and work. In dealing with +the Cosmos in the _De Subtilitate_ he had indeed made brief mention of +Britain; but, writing then, he had no personal relations with either +England or Scotland, or the people thereof; and, but for his subsequent +visit, he would not have been able to set down in the pages of his second +book so many interesting and suggestive notes of what he had seen and +heard, and his ideas of the politics of the time. Again, if he had not +been urged by the desire all men feel to read what others may have to say +about places they have visited, it is not likely that he would have +searched the volumes of Hector Boethius and other early writers for +legends and stories of our island. Writing of Britain[124] in the _De +Subtilitate_ he had praised its delicate wool and its freedom from +poisonous beasts: a land where the wolf had been exterminated, and where +the sheep might roam unvexed by any beast more formidable than the fox. +The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days[125] to have led +to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to +that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of men yet living. +But besides this one, he records, in the _De Subtilitate_, few facts +concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in +support of the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in +intellect,[126] and he likewise notices the use of a fertilizing +earth--presumably marl--in agriculture,[127] and the longevity of the +people, some of whom have reached their hundred and twentieth year.[128] +The first notice of us in the _De Varietate_ is in praise of our forestry, +forasmuch as he remarked that the plane tree, which is almost unknown in +Italy through neglect, thrives well in Scotland, he himself having seen +specimens over thirty feet high growing in the garden of the Augustinian +convent near Edinburgh. The lack of fruit in England he attributes rather +to the violence of the wind than to the cold; but, in spite of our cruel +skies, he was able to eat ripe plums in September, in a district close to +the Scottish border. He bewails the absence of olives and nuts, and +recommends the erection of garden-walls in order to help on the +cultivation of the more delicate fruits. + +In a conversation with the Archbishop of St. Andrews he was told that the +King of Scots ruled over one hundred and sixty-one islands, that the +people of the Shetland Islands lived for the most part on fish prepared by +freezing or sun-drying or fire, and had no other wealth than the skins of +beasts. Cardan pictures the Shetlanders of that time as leading an ideal +life, unvexed by discord, war, or ambition, labouring in the summer for +the needs of winter, worshipping Christ, visited only once a year by a +priest from Orkney, who came over to baptize the children born within the +last twelve months, and was remunerated by a tenth of the catch of fish. +He speaks of the men of Orkney as a very lively, robust, and open-hearted +crew, furnished with heads strong enough to defy drunkenness, even after +swallowing draughts of the most potent wine. The land swarms with birds, +and the sheep bring forth two or even three lambs at a time. The horses +are a mean breed, and resemble asses both as to their size and their +patience. Some one told him of a fish, often seen round about the islands, +as big or even bigger than a horse, with a hide of marvellous toughness, +and useful for the abundance of oil yielded by its carcase. He attributes +the bodily strength of these northerners to the absence of four +deleterious influences--drunkenness, care, heat, and dry air. Cardan seems +to have been astonished at the wealth of precious stones he found in +Scotland--dark blue stones, diamonds, and carbuncles[129]--"maxime juxta +academiam Glaguensis oppidi in Gludisdalia regione," and he casts about to +explain how it is that England produces nothing of the kind, but only +silver and lead. He solves the question by laying down an axiom that the +harder the environment, the harder the stone produced. The mountains of +Scotland are both higher and presumably harder than those of England, +hence the carbuncles. + +He was evidently fascinated with the wealth of local legend and story +which haunted the misty regions he visited. In dealing with demons and +familiar spirits he cites the authority of Merlin, "whose fame is still +great in England," and tells a story of a young woman living in the +country of Mar.[130] This damsel was of noble family and very fair in +person, but she displayed a great unwillingness to enter the marriage +state. One day it was discovered that she was pregnant, and when the +parents went to make inquisition for the seducer, the girl confessed that, +both by day and night, a young man of surpassing beauty used to come and +lie with her. Who he was and whence he came she knew not. They, though +they gave little credit to her words, were informed by her handmaid, some +three days afterwards, that the young man was once more with her; +wherefore, having broken open the door, they entered, bearing lights and +torches, and beheld, lying in their daughter's arms, a monster, fearsome +and dreadful beyond human belief. All the neighbours ran quickly to behold +the grisly sight, and amongst them a good priest, well acquainted with +pagan rites. When he had come anear, and had said some verses of the +Gospel of Saint John, the fiend vanished with a terrible noise, bearing +away the roof of the chamber, and leaving the bed in flames. In three +days' time the girl gave birth to a monstrous child, more hideous than +anything heretofore seen in Scotland, wherefore the nurses, to keep off +disgrace from the family, caused it to be burnt on a pile of wood. There +is another story of a youth living about fourteen miles from Aberdeen, who +was visited every night by a demon lady of wonderful loveliness, though he +bolted and locked his chamber-door; but by fasting and praying and +keeping his thoughts fixed on holy things he rid himself at last of the +unclean spirit.[131] He quotes from Boethius the whole story of +Macbeth,[132] and tells how "Duffus rex" languished and wasted under the +malefic arts of certain witches who made an image of the king in wax and, +by using various incantations, let the same melt slowly away before the +fire. The unhappy king came near to die, but, as soon as these nefarious +practices were discovered, the image was destroyed, whereupon the king was +restored to health.[133] + +When Cardan received the first letter from Scotland the manuscript of the +_De Varietate_ must have been ready or nearly ready for the printer; but, +for some reason or other, he determined to postpone the publication of the +work until he should have finished with the Archbishop, and took his +manuscript with him when he set forth on his travels. In 1550 there came +another break in Cardan's life as Professor at Pavia, the reason being the +usual one of dearth of funds.[134] In 1551 he went back for a short time, +but the storms of war were rising on all sides, and the luckless city of +Pavia was in the very centre of the disturbance. The French once more +crossed the Alps, pillaging and devastating the country, their ostensible +mission being the vindication of the rights of Ottavio Farnese to the +Duchy of Parma. Ottavio had quarrelled with Pope Julius III., who called +upon the Emperor for assistance. War was declared, and Charles set to work +to annex Parma and Piacenza as well to the Milanese. Cardan withdrew to +Milan at the end of the year. Gian Battista had now completed his medical +course, so there was now no reason why he should continue to live +permanently at Pavia. Moreover at this juncture he seems to have been +strongly moved to augment the fame which he had already won in Mathematics +and Medicine by some great literary achievement, and he worked diligently +with this object in view.[135] + +At the beginning of November 1551, a letter came to him from +Cassanate,[136] a Franco-Spanish physician, who was at that time in +attendance upon the Archbishop of St. Andrews, requesting him to make the +journey to Paris, and there to meet the Archbishop, who was suffering from +an affection of the lungs. The fame of Cardan as a physician had spread as +far as Scotland, and the Archbishop had set his heart on consulting him. +Cassanate's letter is of prodigious length. After a diffuse exordium he +proceeds to praise in somewhat fulsome terms the _De Libris Propriis_ and +the treatises _De Sapientia_[137] and _De Consolatione_, which had been +given to him by a friend when he was studying at Toulouse in 1549. He had +just read the _De Subtilitate_, and was inflamed with desire to become +acquainted with everything which Cardan had ever written. But what struck +Cassanate more than anything was a passage in the _De Sapientia_ on a +medical question, which he extracts and incorporates in his epistle. +Cardan writes there: "But if my profession itself will not give me a +living, nor open out an avenue to some other career, I must needs set my +brains to work, to find therein something unknown hitherto, for the charm +of novelty is unfailing, something which would prove of the highest +utility in a particular case. In Milan, while I was fighting the battle +against hostile prejudice, and was unable to earn enough to pay my way (so +much harder is the lot of manifest than of hidden merit, and no man is +honoured as a prophet in his own country), I brought to light much fresh +knowledge, and worked my hardest at my art, for outside my art there was +naught to be done. At last I discovered a cure for phthisis, which is also +known as Phthoe, a disease for many centuries deemed incurable, and I +healed many who are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the +_Gallicus morbus_. I also discovered a cure for intercutaneous water in +many who still survive. But in the matter of invention, Reason will be the +leader, but Experiment the Master, the stimulating cause of work in +others. If in any experiment there should seem to be an element of danger, +let it be performed gently, and little by little."[138] It is not +wonderful that the Archbishop, who doubtless heard all about Cardan's +asserted cure of phthisis from Cassanate, should have been eager to submit +his asthma to Cardan's skill. After acknowledging the deep debt of +gratitude which he, in common with the whole human race, owed to Cardan in +respect to the two discoveries aforesaid, Cassanate comes to the business +in hand, to wit, the Archbishop's asthma. Not content with giving a most +minute description of the symptoms, he furnishes Cardan also with a theory +of the operations of the distemper. He writes: "The disease at first took +the form of a distillation from the brain into the lungs, accompanied with +hoarseness, which, with the help of the physician in attendance, was cured +for a time, but the temperature of the brain continued unfavourable, being +too cold and too moist, so that certain unhealthy humours were collected +in the head and there remained, because the brain could neither +assimilate its own nutriment, nor disperse the humours which arose from +below, being weakened through its nutriment of pituitous blood. After an +attack of this nature it always happened that, whenever the body was +filled with any particular matter, which, in the form of substance, or +vapour, or quality, might invade the brain, a fresh attack would certainly +arise, in the form of a fresh flow of the same humour down to the lungs. +Moreover these attacks were found to agree almost exactly with the +conjunctions and oppositions of the moon."[139] + +Cassanate goes on to say that his patient had proved somewhat intractable, +refusing occasionally to have anything to do with his medical attendants, +and that real danger was impending owing to the flow of humour having +become chronic. Fortunately this humour was not acrid or salt; if it were, +phthisis must at once supervene. But the Archbishop's lungs were becoming +more and more clogged with phlegm, and a stronger effort of coughing was +necessary to clear them. Latterly much of the thick phlegm had adhered to +the lungs, and consequently the difficulty of breathing was great. +Cassanate declares that he had been able to do no more than to keep the +Archbishop alive, and he fears no one would be able to work a complete +cure, seeing that the air of Scotland is so moist and salt, and that the +Archbishop is almost worried to death by the affairs of State. He next +urges Cardan to consent to meet the Archbishop in Paris, a city in which +learning of all sorts flourishes exceedingly, the nurse of many great +philosophers, and one in which Cardan would assuredly meet the honour and +reverence which is his due. The Archbishop's offer was indeed magnificent +in its terms. Funds would be provided generous enough to allow the +physician to travel post the whole of the journey, and the goodwill of all +the rulers of the states _en route_ would be enlisted in his favour. +Cassanate finishes by fixing the end of January 1552 as a convenient date +for the _rendezvous_ in Paris, and, as time and place accorded with +Cardan's wishes, he wrote to Cassanate accepting the offer. + +The Archbishop of St. Andrews was John Hamilton, the illegitimate brother +of James, Earl of Arran, who had been chosen Regent of the kingdom after +the death of James V. at Flodden, and the bar sinister, in this case as in +many others, was the ensign of a courage and talent and resource in which +the lawful offspring was conspicuously wanting. Any student taking a +cursory glance at the epoch of violence and complicated intrigue which +marked the infancy of Mary of Scotland, may well be astonished that a man +so weak and vain and incompetent as James Hamilton--albeit his footing was +made more secure by his position as the Queen's heir-presumptive--should +have held possession of his high dignities so long as he did. Alternately +the tool of France and of England, he would one day cause his great rival +Cardinal Beatoun to be proclaimed an enemy of his country, and the next +would meet him amicably and adopt his policy. After becoming the partisan +of Henry VIII. and the foe of Rome, he finally put the coping-stone to his +inconsistencies by becoming a convert to Catholicism in 1543. But in spite +of his indolence and weakness, he was still Regent of Scotland, when his +brother, the Archbishop, was seized with that attack of periodic asthma +which threatened to change vitally the course of Scottish politics. A very +slight study of contemporary records will show that Arran had been +largely, if not entirely, indebted to the distinguished talents and to the +ambition of his brother for his continued tenure of the chief power of the +State. If confirmation of this view be needed, it will be found in the +fact that, as soon as the Archbishop was confined to a sick-room, Mary of +Guise, the Queen Mother, supported by her brothers in France and by the +Catholic party at home, began to undermine the Regent's position by +intrigue, and ultimately, partly by coaxing, partly by threats, won from +him a promise to surrender his power into her hands. + +In the meantime Cardan was waiting for further intelligence and directions +as to his journey. The end of January had been fixed as the date of the +meeting at Paris, and it was not until the middle of February that any +further tidings came to him. Then he received a letter from Cassanate and +a remittance to cover the expenses of his journey.[140] He set out at once +on February 22, undaunted by the prospect of a winter crossing of the +Simplon, and, having travelled by way of Sion and Geneva, arrived at Lyons +on March 13. In Cassanate's first letter Paris had been named as the place +of meeting; but, as a concession to Cardan's convenience, Lyons was added +as an alternative, in case he should find it impossible to spare time for +a longer journey. Cardan accordingly halted at Lyons, but neither +Archbishop nor physician was there to meet him. After he had waited for +more than a month, Cassanate appeared alone, and brought with him a heavy +purse of money for the cost of the long journey to Scotland, which he now +begged Cardan to undertake, and a letter from the Archbishop himself, who +wrote word that, though he had fully determined in the first instance to +repair to Paris, or even to Lyons, to meet Cardan, he found himself at +present mastered by the turn of circumstances, and compelled to stay at +home. He promised Cardan a generous reward, and a reception of a nature to +convince him that the Scots are not such Scythians as they might perchance +be deemed in Milan.[141] Cardan's temper was evidently upset by this turn +of affairs, and his suspicions aroused; for he sets down his belief that +patient and physician had from the first worked with the intention of +dragging him all the way to Scotland, but that they had waited till he was +across the Alps before showing their hand, fearing lest if the word +Scotland should have been used at the outset, he would never have moved +from Milan.[142] In describing his journey he writes:--"I tarried in Lyons +forty-six days, seeing nothing of the Archbishop, nor of the physician +whom I expected, nevertheless I gained more than I spent. I met there +Ludovico Birago, a gentleman of Milan, and commander of the King's +foot-soldiers, and with him I contracted a close friendship, so much so +that, had I been minded to take service under Brissac, the King's +lieutenant, I might have enjoyed a salary of one thousand crowns a year. +Shortly afterwards Guglielmo Cassanate, the Archbishop's physician, +arrived in Lyons and brought with him three hundred other golden crowns, +which he handed to me, in order that I might make the journey with him to +Scotland, offering in addition to pay the cost of travel, and promising me +divers gifts in addition. Thus, making part of our journey down the +Loire, I arrived at Paris. While I was there I met Orontius; but he for +some reason or other refused to visit me. Under the escort of +Magnienus[143] I inspected the treasury of the French Kings, and the +Church of Saint Denis. I saw likewise something there, not so famous, but +more interesting to my mind, and this was the horn of a unicorn, whole and +uninjured. After this we met the King's physicians, and we all dined +together, but I declined to hold forth to them during dinner, because +before we sat down they were urgent that I should begin a discussion. I +next set forth on my journey, my relations with Pharnelius and Silvius, +and another of the King's physicians,[144] whom I left behind, being of a +most friendly nature, and travelled to Boulogne in France, where, by the +command of the Governor of Sarepont, an escort of fourteen armed horsemen +and twenty foot-soldiers was assigned to me, and so to Calais. I saw the +tower of Caesar still standing. Then having crossed the narrow sea I went +to London, and at last met the Archbishop at Edinburgh on the +twenty-ninth of June. I remained there till the thirteenth of September. I +received as a reward four hundred more gold crowns; a chain of gold worth +a hundred and twenty crowns, a noble horse, and many other gifts, in order +that no one of those who were with me should return empty-handed."[145] + +The Archbishop's illness might in itself have supplied a reason for his +inability to travel abroad and meet Cardan as he had agreed to do; but the +real cause of his change of plan was doubtless the condition of public +affairs in Scotland at the beginning of 1552. In the interval of time +between Cassanate's first letter to Cardan and the end of 1551, the Regent +had half promised to surrender his office into the hands of the Guise +party in Scotland, wherefore it was no wonder that the Primate, +recognizing how grave was the danger which threatened the source of his +power, should have resolved that, sick or sound, his proper place was at +the Scottish Court. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[112] Vesalius had certainly lectured on anatomy at Pavia, but it would +appear that Cardan did not know him personally, seeing that he writes in +_De Libris Propriis_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 138): "Brasavolum ... nunquam +vidi, ut neque Vesalium quamquam intimum mihi amicum." + +[113] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 99. + +[114] In describing Fazio, Jerome writes: "Erat Euclidis operum studiosus, +et humeris incurvis: et filius meus natu major ore, oculis, incessu, +humeris, illi simillimus."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iii. p. 8. In the same +chapter Fazio is described as "Blaesus in loquendo; variorum studiorum +amator: ruber, oculis albis et quibus noctu videret." + +[115] "At uxor mea imaginabatur assidue se videre calvariam patris, qui +erat absens dum utero gereret Jo: Baptistam."--_Paralipomenon_, lib. iii. +c. 21. + +[116] _De Utilitate_, p. 832. + +[117] "Post ex geminatis somniis, scripsi libros de Subtilitate quos +impressos auxi et denuo superauctos tertio excudi curavi."--_De Vita +Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175. + +[118] "Libros de Rerum varietate anno MDLVIII edidi: erant enim reliquiae +librorum de subtilitate."--_De Vita Propria_, p. 176. "Reversus in +patriam, perfeci libros XVII de Rerum varietate quos jampridem +inchoaveram."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110. He had collected much material +during his life at Gallarate. + +[119] Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, book I. ch. v., contains an examination of +the Pythagorean doctrine which maintains Number to be the Substance of all +things:--[Greek: all' auto to apeiron kai auto to hen ousian einai touton +on kategorountai.] + +[120] "Sed nullus major labor quam libri de Rerum Varietate quem cum +saepius mutassem, demum traductis quibuscunque insignioribus rebus in +libros de Subtilitate, ita illum exhausi, ut totus denuo conscribendus +fuerit atque ex integro restituendus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 74. + +He seems to have utilized the services of Ludovico Ferrari in compiling +this work.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 64. + +[121] _De Varietate_, p. 661. + +[122] Book XV. ch. lxxix. + +[123] He gives one example of his skill as a palmist in the _De Vita +Propria_: "Memini me dum essem adolescens, persuasum fuisse cuidam Joanni +Stephano Biffo, quod essem Chiromanticus, et tamen nil minus: rogat ille, +ut praedicam ei aliquid de vita; dixi delusum esse a sociis, urget, veniam +peto si quicquam gravius praedixero: dixi periculum imminere brevi de +suspendio, intra hebdomadam capitur, admovetur tormentis: pertinaciter +delictum negat, nihilominus tandem post sex menses laqueo vitam +finivit."--ch. xlii. p. 156. + +[124] "Ergo nunc Britannia inclyta vellere est. Nec mirum cum null[u=] +animal venenat[u=] mittat, imo nec infestum praeter vulpem, olim et lupum: +nunc vero exterminatis etiam lupis, tuto pecus vagat. Rore coeli sitim +sedant greges, ab omni alio potu arcentur, quod aquae ibi ovibus sint +exitiales: quia tamen in pabulo humido vermes multi abundant, cornic[u=] +adeo multitudo crevit, ut ob frugum damna nuper publico consilio illas +perdentibus proposita praemia sint: ubi enim pabulum, ibi animalia sunt quae +eo vescuntur, atque immodice tunc multiplicantur cum ubique abundaverit. +Caret tamen ut dixi, serpentibus, tribus ex causis: nam pauci possunt +generari ob frigus immensum."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 298. + +[125] AEneas Sylvius in describing his visit to Britain a century earlier +says that rooks had been recently introduced, and that the trees on which +they roosted and built belonged to the King's Exchequer. + +[126] "Ejusdem insulae accola fuit Ioannes, ut dixi, Suisset [Richard +Swineshead] cognom[e=]to Calculator; in cujus solius unius argumenti +solutione, quod contra experiment[u=] est de actione mutua tota laboravit +posteritas; quem senem admodum, nec inventa sua dum legeret intelligentem, +flevisse referunt. Ex quo haud dubium esse reor, quod etiam in libro de +animi immortalite scripsi, barbaros ingenio nobis haud esse inferiores: +quandoquidem sub Brumae caelo divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tam clari +ingenii viros emiserit."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 444. + +[127] _Ibid.,_ p. 142. + +[128] p. 369. + +[129] The fame of Scots as judges of precious stones had spread to Italy +before Cardan's time. In the _Novellino_ of Masuccio, which was first +printed in 1476, there is a passage in the tenth novel of the first part, +in which a rogue passes as "grandissimo cognoscitore" of gems because he +had spent much time in Scotland. + +[130] _De Varietate_, p. 636. + +[131] _De Varietate_, p. 637. + +[132] _Ibid.,_ p. 637. + +[133] _Ibid.,_ p. 565. + +[134] "Peracto L anno quod stipendium non remuneraretur mansi +Mediolani."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15. + +[135] About this time he wrote the _Liber Decem Problematum_, and the +treatise _Delle Burle Calde_, one of his few works written in +Italian.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 109. + +[136] Cassanate's letter is given in full (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 89). + +[137] The quotation from the _De Sapientia_ differs somewhat from the +original passage which stands on p. 578 of the same volume. + +[138] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 89. + +[139] In a subsequent interview with Cardan, Cassanate modifies this +statement.--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 124. + +[140] "Accepique antequam discederem aureos coronatos Gallicos 500 et +M.C.C. in reditu."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16. + +[141] "Difficillimis causis victus venire non potui." The Archbishop's +letter is given in _Opera_, tom. i. p. 137. + +[142] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 469. + +[143] He mentions this personage in _De Varietate_, p. 672: "Johannes +Manienus medicus, vir egregius et mathematicaram studiosus." He was +physician to the monks of Saint Denis. + +[144] The reception given to Cardan in Paris was a very friendly one. +Orontius was a mechanician and mathematician; and jealousy of Cardan's +great repute may have kept him away from the dinner, but the physicians +were most hospitable. Pharnelius [Fernel] was Professor of Medicine at the +University, and physician to the Court. Sylvius was an old man of a +jocular nature, but as an anatomist bitterly opposed to the novel methods +of Vesalius, who was one of Cardan's heroes. With this possibility of +quarrelling over the merits of Vesalius, it speaks well for the temper of +the doctors that they parted on good terms. Ranconet, another Parisian who +welcomed Cardan heartily, was one of the Presidents of the Parliament of +Paris. He seems to have been a man of worth and distinguished attainments, +and Cardan gives an interesting account of him in _Geniturarum Exempla_, +p. 423. + +[145] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 75. Cardan refers more than once to +the generosity of the Archbishop. He computes (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 93) +that his visit must have cost Hamilton four talents of gold; that is to +say, two thousand golden crowns. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +CARDAN, as he has himself related, arrived at Edinburgh on June 29, 1552. +The coming of such a man at such a time must have been an event of +extraordinary interest. In England the Italy of the Renaissance had been +in a measure realized by men of learning and intellect through the reports +of the numerous scholars--John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Henry Parker, +Lord Morley, Howard Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyat, may be taken as +examples--who had wandered thither and come back with a stock of histories +setting forth the beauty and charm, and also the terror and wickedness, of +that wonderful land. Some echoes of this legend had doubtless drifted down +to Scotland, and possibly still more may have been wafted over from +France. Ascham had taken up his parable in the _Schoolmaster_, describing +the devilish sins and corruptions of Italy, and now the good people of +Edinburgh were to be given the sight of a man coming thence, one who was +fabled to have gathered together more knowledge, both of this world and of +that other hidden one which was to them just as real, than any mortal man +alive. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Cardan should +have been regarded rather as a magician than as a doctor, and in the +_Scotichronicon_[146] it is recorded that the Primate was cured of a +lingering asthma by the incantations of an astrologer named Cardan, from +Milan. Cardan in his narrative speaks of Edinburgh as the place where he +met his patient, and does not mention any other place of sojourn, but the +record just quoted goes on to say that he abode with the Primate for +eleven weeks at his country residence at Monimail, near Cupar, Fife, where +there is a well called to this day Cardan's Well. + +Cardan, as it has been noticed already, refused to commit himself to any +opinion as to the character of the Archbishop's distemper over the +dinner-table where he and Cassanate had been entertained by the French +King's physicians. Cassanate had set forth his views in full as to the +nature of the asthma which had to be dealt with in his letter to Cardan, +and it is highly probable that he would again bring forward these views in +the hearing of the Paris doctors. It is certain that some of the French +physicians had, previous to this, prescribed a course of treatment for the +Archbishop, probably without seeing him, and that the course was being +tried when Cardan arrived in Edinburgh.[147] For the first six weeks of +his stay he watched the case, and let the treatment aforesaid go +on--whether it differed from that which Cassanate recommended or not there +is no evidence to show. But no good result came of it. The Archbishop +wasted in body and became fretful and disturbed in mind, and, at last, +Cardan was obliged to let his opinion of the case be known; and, as this +was entirely hostile to the treatment which was being pursued, the +inevitable quarrel between the doctors burst forth with great violence. +The Archbishop was irate with his ordinary medical attendant, probably the +physician who was left in charge during Cassanate's absence--and this man +retaliated upon Cardan for having thus stirred up strife. Cardan's +position was certainly a very uneasy one. The other physicians were full +of jealousy and malice, and the Archbishop began to accuse him of dilatory +conduct of the case, redoubling his complaints as soon as he found himself +getting better under the altered treatment. So weary did Cardan become of +this bickering that he begged leave to depart at once, but this +proposition the Primate took in very ill part. + +Cassanate in his first diagnosis had traced the Archbishop's illness to an +excess of coldness and humidity in the brain. Now Cardan, on the other +hand, maintained that the brain was too hot. He found Cassanate's +treatment too closely fettered by his theory as to the causes of periodic +asthma, but he did not venture to exhibit his own course of treatment till +after he had gained some knowledge of the Archbishop's temper and habits. +He came to the conclusion that his patient was overwrought with the cares +of State, that he ate too freely, that he did not sleep enough, and that +he was of a temper somewhat choleric. Cardan set forth this view of the +case in a voluminous document, founding the course of treatment he +proposed to pursue upon the aphorisms of Galen. He altogether rejected +Cassanate's view as to the retention of the noxious humours in the head. +The Archbishop had the ruddy complexion of a man in good health, a +condition which could scarcely co-exist with the loading of the brain +with matter which would certainly putrify if retained for any long time. +Cardan maintained that the serous humour descended into the lungs, not by +the passages, but by soaking through the membranes as through linen.[148] +After describing the origin and the mode of descent of this humour, he +goes on to search for an auxiliary cause of the mischief, and this he +finds in the imperfect digestive powers of the stomach and liver. If the +cause lay entirely in the brain, how was it that all the cerebral +functions were not vitiated? In fine, the source of the disease lay, not +in the weakness of the brain, but in an access of heat, caused possibly by +exposure to the sun, by which the matter of the brain had become so +rarefied that it showed unhealthy activity in absorbing moisture from the +other parts. This heat, therefore, must be reduced. + +To accomplish this end three lines of treatment must be followed. First, a +proper course of diet; second, drugs; and third, certain manual +operations. As to diet, the Archbishop was ordered to take nothing but +light and cooling food, two to four pints of asses' milk in the early +morning, drawn from an ass fed on cooling herbs, and to use all such foods +as had a fattening tendency; tortoise or turtle-soup,[149] distilled +snails, barley-water and chicken-broth, and divers other rich edibles. The +purging of the brain was a serious business; it was to be compassed by an +application to the coronal suture of an ointment made of Greek pitch, +ship's tar, white mustard, euphorbium, and honey of anathardus: the +compound to be sharpened, if necessary, by the addition of blister fly, or +rendered less searching by leaving out the euphorbium and mustard. Cardan +adds, that, by the use of this persuasive application, he had sometimes +brought out two pints of water in twenty-four hours. The use of the +shower-bath and plentiful rubbing with dry cloths was also recommended. + +The purging of the body was largely a question of diet. To prevent +generation of moisture, perfumes were to be used; the patient was to sleep +on raw silk and not upon feathers, and to let an hour and a half come +between supper and bed-time. Sleep, after all, was the great thing to be +sought. The Archbishop was counselled to sleep from seven to ten hours, +and to subtract time from his studies and his business and add the same to +sleep.[150] + +Cardan's treatment, which seems to have been suggested as much by the man +of common-sense as by the physician, soon began to tell favourably upon +the Archbishop. He remained for thirty-five days in charge of his patient, +during which time the distemper lost its virulence and the patient gained +flesh. In the meantime the fame of his skill had spread abroad, and +well-nigh the whole nobility of Scotland flocked to consult him,[151] and +they paid him so liberally that on one day he made nineteen golden crowns. +But when winter began to draw near, Cardan felt that it was time to move +southward. He feared the cold; he longed to get back to his sons, and he +was greatly troubled by the continued ill-behaviour of one of the servants +he had brought with him--"maledicus, invidus, avarissimus, Dei +contemptor;" but he found his patient very loth to let him depart. The +Archbishop declared that his illness was alleviated but not cured, and +only gave way unwillingly when Cardan brought forward arguments to show +what dangers and inconveniences he would incur through a longer stay. +Cardan had originally settled to return by way of Paris, but letters which +he received from his young kinsman, Gasparo Cardano, and from Ranconet, +led him to change his plans. The country was in a state of anarchy, the +roads being infested with thieves, and Gasparo himself had the bad fortune +to be taken by a gang of ruffians. In consequence of these things Cardan +determined to return by way of Flanders and the Empire. + +It was not in reason that Cardan would quit Scotland and resign the care +of his patient without taking the stars into his counsel as to the future. +He cast the Archbishop's horoscope, and published it in the _Geniturarum +Exempla_. It was not a successful feat. In his forty-eighth year, _i.e._ +in 1560, the astrologer declared that Hamilton would be in danger of +poison and of suffering from an affection of the heart. But the time of +the greatest peril seemed to lie between July 30 and September 21, 1554. +The stars gave no warning of the tragic fate which befell Archbishop +Hamilton in the not very distant future. For the succeeding six years he +governed the Church in Scotland with prudence and leniency, but in 1558 he +began a persecution of the reformers which kindled a religious strife, +highly embarrassing to the Catholic party then holding the reins of +power. His cruelties were borne in mind by the reformers when they got the +upper hand. In 1563 he was imprisoned for saying mass. In 1568 Mary, after +her escape from Loch Leven, gave the chief direction of her affairs into +the hands of the Archbishop, who was the bitter foe of the Regent Murray. +Murray having defeated the Queen's forces at Langside, Hamilton took +refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which was surprised and captured in 1571, when +the Archbishop was taken to Stirling and hanged. In the words of the +_Diurnal of Occurrants_: "as the bell struck six hours at even, he was +hangit at the mercat cross of Stirling upon a jebat."[152] His enemies +would not let him rest even there, for the next day, fixed to the tree, +were found the following verses: + + "Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto + Frondibus ut nobis talia poma feras." + +To return to Cardan. Having at last won from his patient leave to depart, +he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most +generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment +which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the French +Viceroy, he contrasts it with the liberal rewards granted to him in what +must then have been the poorest of the European kingdoms;[153] and in the +Preface of the _De Astrorum Judiciis_ (Basel, 1554) he writes in +sympathetic and grateful terms of the kind usage he had met in the +North.[154] It must have been a severe disappointment to him that he was +unable to revisit Paris on his way home, for letters from his friend +Ranconet told him that a great number of illustrious men had proposed to +repair to Paris for the sake of meeting him; and many of the nobles of +France were anxious to consult him professionally, one of them offering a +fee of a thousand gold crowns. But Cardan was so terrified by the report +given by Gasparo of the state of France, that he made up his mind he would +on no account touch its frontiers on his homeward journey. + +Before he quitted Scotland there had come to him letters from the English +Court entreating him to tarry there some days on his way home to Italy, +and give his opinion on the health of Edward VI., who was then slowly +recovering from an attack of smallpox and measles. The young King's +recovery was more apparent than real, for he was, in fact, slowly sinking +under the constitutional derangement which killed him a few months later. +Cardan could hardly refuse to comply with this request, nor is there any +evidence to show that he made this visit to London unwillingly. But he +soon found out that those about the Court were anxious to hear from him +something more than a statement of his opinion as to Edward's health. They +wanted, before all else, to learn what the stars had to say as to the +probable duration of the sovereign's life. During his stay in Scotland +Cardan would certainly have gained some intelligence of the existing +state of affairs at the English Court; how in the struggle for the custody +of the regal power, the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Protector, the +King's uncles, had lost their heads; and how the Duke of Northumberland, +the son of Dudley, the infamous minion of Henry VII. and the destroyer of +the ill-fated Seymours, had now gathered all the powers and dignities of +the kingdom into his own hands, and was waiting impatiently for the death +of Edward, an event which would enable him to control yet more completely +the supreme power, through the puppet queen whom he had ready at hand to +place upon the throne. An Italian of the sixteenth century, steeped in the +traditions of the bloody and insidious state-craft of Milan and the +Lombard cities, Cardan would naturally shrink from committing himself to +any such perilous utterance: all the more for the reason that he had +already formed an estimate of the English as a fierce and cruel people. +With his character as a magician to maintain he could scarcely keep entire +silence, so he wrote down for the satisfaction of his interrogators a +horoscope: a mere perfunctory piece of work, as we learn afterwards. He +begins by reciting the extraordinary nature of the King's birth, repeating +the legend that his mother was delivered of him by surgical aid, and only +lived a few hours afterwards; and declares that, in his opinion, it would +have been better had this boy never been born at all. "Nevertheless, +seeing that he had come into this world and been duly trained and +educated, it would be well for mankind were he to live long, for all the +graces waited upon him. Boy as he was, he was skilled in divers tongues, +Latin, English, and French, and not unversed in Greek, Italian, and +Spanish; he had likewise knowledge of dialectics, natural philosophy, and +music. His culture is the reflection of our mortal nature; his gravity +that of kingly majesty, and his disposition is worthy of so illustrious a +prince. Speaking generally, it was indeed a strange experience to realize +that this boy of so great talent and promise was being educated in the +knowledge of the affairs of men. I have not set forth his accomplishments, +tricked out with rhetoric so as to exceed the truth; of which, in sooth, +my relation falls short." Cardan next draws a figure of Edward's +horoscope, and devotes several pages to the customary jargon of +astrologers; and, under the heading "De animi qualitatibus," says: "There +was something portentous about this boy. He had learnt, as I heard, seven +languages, and certainly he knew thoroughly his own, French, and Latin. He +was skilled in Dialectic, and eager to be instructed in all subjects. When +I met him, he was in his fifteenth year, and he asked me (speaking Latin +no less perfectly and fluently than myself), 'What is contained in those +rare books of yours, _De rerum varietate_?' for I had dedicated these +manuscripts to his name.[155] Whereupon I began by pointing out to him +what I had written in the opening chapter on the cause of the comets which +others had sought so long in vain. He was curious to hear more of this +cause, so I went on to tell him that it was the collected light of the +wandering stars. 'Then,' said he, 'how is it, since the stars are set +going by various impulses, that this light is not scattered, or carried +along with the stars in their courses?' I replied: 'It does indeed move +with them, but at a speed vastly greater on account of the difference of +our point of view; as, for instance, when the prism is cast upon the wall +by the sun and the crystal, then the least motion of the crystal will +shift the position of the reflection to a great distance.' The King said: +'But how can this be done when no _subjectum_ is provided? for in the case +you quote the wall is the _subjectum_ to the reflection.' I replied: 'It +is a similar effect to that which we observe in the Milky Way, and in the +reflection of light when many candles are lighted in a mass; these always +produce a certain clear and lucent medium. _Itaque ex ungue leonem_.' + +"This youth was the great hope of good and learned men everywhere, by +reason of his frankness and the gentleness of his manners. He began to +take an interest in the Arts before he understood them, and to understand +them before he had full occasion to use them. The production of such a +personality was an effort of humanity; and, should he be snatched away +before his time, not only England, but all the world must mourn his loss. + +"When he was required to show the gravity of a king, he would appear to be +an old man. He played upon the lyre; he took interest in public affairs; +and was of a kingly mind, following thus the example of his father, who, +while he was over-careful to do right, managed to exhibit himself to the +world in an evil light. But the son was free from any suspicion of such a +charge, and his intelligence was brought to maturity by the study of +philosophy." + +Cardan next makes an attempt to gauge the duration of the King's life, and +when it is considered that he was a skilled physician, and Edward a sickly +boy, fast sinking into a decline, it is to be feared that he let sincerity +give way to prudence when he proclaimed that, in his fifty-sixth year the +King would be troubled with divers illnesses. "Speaking generally of the +whole duration of his life he will be found to be steadfast, firm, +severe, chaste, intelligent, an observer of righteousness, patient under +trouble, mindful both of injuries and benefits, one demanding reverence +and seeking his own. He would lust as a man, but would suffer the curse of +impotence. He would be wise beyond measure, and thereby win the admiration +of the world; very prudent and high-minded; fortunate, and indeed a second +Solomon." + +Edward VI. died on July 6, 1553, about six months after Cardan had +returned to Milan; and, before the publication of the _Geniturarum +Exempla_ in 1554, the author added to the King's horoscope a supplementary +note, explaining his conduct thereanent and shedding some light upon the +tortuous and sinister intrigues which at that time engaged the ingenuity +of the leaders about the English Court. Now that he was safe from the +consequences of giving offence, he wrote in terms much less guarded as to +the state of English affairs. It must be admitted that his calculations as +to the King's length of days, published after death, have no special value +as calculations; but his impressions of the probable drift of events in +England are interesting as the view of a foreigner upon English politics, +and moreover they exhibit in strong light the sinister designs of +Northumberland. Cardan records his belief that, in the fourth month of his +fifteenth year, the King had been in peril of his life from the plottings +of those immediately about him. On one occasion a particular disposition +of the sun and Mars denoted that he was in danger of plots woven by a +wicked minister, nay, there were threatenings even of poison.[156] He does +not shrink from affirming that this unfortunate boy met his death by the +treachery of those about him. As an apology for the horoscope he drew +when he was in England, he lays down the principle that it is inexpedient +to give opinions as to the duration of life in dealing with the horoscopes +of those in feeble health, unless you shall beforehand consult all the +directions and processes and ingresses of the ruling planets, "and if I +had not made this reservation in the prognostic I gave to the English +courtiers, they might justly have found fault with me." + +He next remarks that he had spent much time in framing this +horoscope--albeit it was imperfect--according to his usual practice, and +that if he had gone on somewhat farther, and consulted the direction of +the sun and moon, the danger of death in which the King stood would +straightway have manifested itself. If he had still been distrustful as to +the directions aforesaid, and had gone on to observe the processes and +ingresses, the danger would have been made clear, but even then he would +not have dared to predict an early death to one in such high position: he +feared the treacheries and tumults and the transfer of power which must +ensue, and drew a picture of all the evils which might befall himself, +evils which he was in no mood to face. Where should he look for protection +amongst a strange people, who had little mercy upon one another and would +have still less for him, a foreigner, with their ruler a mere boy, who +could protect neither himself nor his guest? It might easily come about +that his return to Italy would be hindered; and, supposing the crisis to +come to the most favourable issue, what would he get in return for all +this danger and anxiety? He calls to mind the cases of two soothsayers who +were foolish enough to predict the deaths of princes, Ascletarion, and a +certain priest, who foretold the deaths of Domitian and Galeazzo Sforza; +and describes their fate, which was one he did not desire to call down +upon himself. Although his forecast as to Edward's future was incomplete +and unsatisfactory, he foresaw what was coming upon the kingdom from the +fact that all the powers thereof, the strong places, the treasury, the +legislature, and the fleet, were gathered into the hands of one man +(Northumberland). "And this man, forsooth, was one whose father[157] the +King's father had beheaded; one who had plunged into confusion all the +affairs of the realm; seeing that he had brought to the scaffold, one +after the other, the two maternal uncles of the King. Wherefore he was +driven on both by his evil disposition and by his dread of the future to +conspire against his sovereign's life. Now in such a season as this, when +all men held their tongues for fear (for he brought to trial whomsoever he +would), when he had gained over the greater part of the nobles to his side +by dividing amongst them the spoil of the Church; when he, the most bitter +foe of the King's title and dignity, had so contrived that his own will +was supreme in the business of the State, I became weary of the whole +affair; and, being filled with pity for the young King, proved to be a +better prophet on the score of my inborn common-sense, than through my +skill in Astrology. I took my departure straightway, conscious of some +evil hovering anigh, and full of tears."[158] + +The above is Cardan's view of the machinations of the statesmen in high +places in the English Court during the last months of Edward's life. +Judged by the subsequent action of Northumberland it is in the main +correct; and, taking into consideration his associations and environment +during his stay in London, this view bears evident traces of independent +judgment. Sir John Cheke, the King's former preceptor, and afterwards +Professor of Greek at Cambridge, had received him with all the courtesy +due to a fellow-scholar, and probably introduced him at Court. Cheke was a +Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and just about this time was appointed Clerk +to the Privy Council, wherefore he must have been fully acquainted with +the aims and methods of the opposing factions about the Court. His +fellow-clerk, Cecil, was openly opposed to Northumberland's designs, and +prudently advanced a plea of ill health to excuse his absence from his +duties: but Cheke at this time was an avowed partisan of the Duke, and of +the policy which professed to secure the ascendency of the anti-Papal +party. Cardan, living in daily intercourse with Cheke, might reasonably +have taken up the point of view of his kind and genial friend; but no,--he +evidently rated Northumberland, from beginning to end, as a knave and a +traitor, and a murderer at least in will. + +When he quitted England in the autumn of 1552 Cardan did not shake himself +entirely free from English associations. In an ill-starred moment he +determined to take back to Italy with him an English boy.[159] He was +windbound for several days at Dover, and the man with whom he lodged seems +to have offered to let him take his son, named William, aged twelve years, +back to Italy. Cardan was pleased with the boy's manner and appearance, +and at once consented; but the adventure proved a disastrous one. The boy +and his new protector could not exchange a word, and only managed to make +each other understand by signs, and that very imperfectly. The boy was +resolute to go on while Cardan wanted to be rid of him; but his conscience +would not allow him to send him home unless he should, of his own free +will, ask to be sent, and by way of giving William a distaste for the life +he had chosen, he records that he often beat him cruelly on the slightest +pretext. But the boy was not to be shaken off. He persisted in following +his venture to the end, and arrived in Cardan's train at Milan, where he +was allowed to go his own way. The only care for his training Cardan took +was to have him taught music. He chides the unhappy boy for his +indifference to learning and for his love of the company of other youths. +What with his literary work and the family troubles which so soon fell +upon him, Cardan's hands were certainly full; but, all allowance being +made, it is difficult to find a valid excuse for this neglect on his part. +William grew up to be a young man, and was finally apprenticed to a tailor +at Pavia, but his knavish master set him to work as a vinedresser, +suspecting that Cardan cared little what happened so long as the young man +was kept out of his sight. William seems to have been a merry, +good-tempered fellow; but his life was a short one, for he took fever, and +died in his twenty-second year.[160] + +Besides chronicling this strange and somewhat pathetic incident, Cardan +sets down in the _Dialogus de Morte_ his general impressions of the +English people. Alluding to the fear of death, he remarks that the +English, so far as he has observed, were scarcely at all affected by it, +and he commends their wisdom, seeing that death is the last ill we have to +suffer, and is, moreover, inevitable. "And if an Englishman views his own +death with composure, he is even less disturbed over that of a friend or +kinsman: he will look forward to re-union in a future state of +immortality. People like these, who stand up thus readily to face death +and mourn not over their nearest ones, surely deserve sympathy, and this +boy (William) was sprung from the same race. In stature the English +resemble Italians, they are fairer in complexion, less ruddy, and broad in +the chest. There are some very tall men amongst them: they are gentle in +manner and friendly to travellers, but easily angered, and in this case +are much to be dreaded. They are brave in battle, but wanting in caution; +great eaters and drinkers, but in this respect the Germans exceed them, +and they are prone rather than prompt to lust. Some amongst them are +distinguished in talent, and of these Scotus and Suisset[161] may be given +as examples. They dress like Italians, and are always fain to declare that +they are more nearly allied to us than to any others, wherefore they try +specially to imitate us in habit and manners as closely as they can. They +are trustworthy, freehanded, and ambitious; but in speaking of bravery, +nothing can be more marvellous than the conduct of the Highland Scots, +who are wont to take with them, when they are led to execution, one +playing upon the pipes, who, as often as not, is condemned likewise, and +thus he leads the train dancing to death." Like as the English were to +Italians in other respects, Cardan was struck with the difference between +the two nations as soon as the islanders opened their mouths to speak. He +could not understand a single word, but stood amazed, deeming them to be +Italians who had lost their wits. "The tongue is curved upon the palate; +they turn about their words in the mouth, and make a hissing sound with +their teeth." He then goes on to say that all the time of his absence his +mind was full of thoughts of his own people in Italy, wherefore he sought +leave to return at once. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[146] _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 286 [ed. G. F. S. Gordon, Glasgow, +1867]. Naude, in his _Apologie pour les grands hommes soupconnez_ de +Magie, writes: "Ceux qui recherchoiant les Mathematiques et les Sciences +les moins communes etoient soupconnez d'etre enchanteurs et +Magiciens."--p. 15. + +[147] "Curam agebat Medicus ex constituto Medicorum Lutetianorum."--_De +Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 137. Cardan makes no direct mention of any other +physician in Scotland besides Cassanate; but the Archbishop would +certainly have a body physician in attendance during Cassanate's absence. + +[148] "Per totam tunicam sicut in linteis."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 128. + +[149] "Accipe testudinem maximam et illam incoque in aqua, donec +dissolvatur, deinde abjectis corticibus accipiantur caro, et ossa et +viscera omnia mundata."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 140. + +[150] Another piece of advice runs as follows: "De venere certe non est +bona, neque utilis, ubi tamen contingat necessitas, debet uti ea inter +duos somnos, scilicet post mediam noctem, et melius est exercere eam ter +in sex diebus pro exemplo ut singulis duobus diebus semel, quam bis in una +die, etiam quod staret per decem dies."--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 135. + +[151] "Interim autem concurrebant multi, imo pene tota +nobilitas."--_Opera_, tom. l. p. 93. + +[152] _Scotichronicon_, vol. i. p. 234. Larrey in his _History of England_ +seems to have given currency to the legend that Cardan foretold the +Archbishop's death. "S'il en faut croire ce que l'Histoire nous dit de ce +fameux Astrologe, il donna une terrible preuve de sa science a +l'Archeveque qu'il avoit gueri, lorsque prenait conge de lire, il lui tint +ce discours: 'Qu'il avoit bien pu le guerir de sa maladie; mais qu'il +n'etoit pas en son pouvoir de changer sa destinee, ni d'empecher qu'il ne +fut pendu.'"--Larrey, _Hist. d'Angleterre_, vol. ii. p. 711. + +[153] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 101. + +[154] "Scotic[u=] nomen antea horruer[a=], eorum exemplo qui prius +coeperunt odisse quam cognoscere. Nunc cum ipsa gens per se humanissima +sit atque supra existimationem civilis, tu tamen tantum illi addis +ornamenti, ut longe nomine tuo jam nobilior evadat."--_De Astrorum +Judiciis_, p. 3. + +[155] Cardan evidently carried the MS. with him, for he writes (_Opera_, +tom. i. p. 72): "Hoc fuit quod Regi Angliae Edoardo sexto admodum +adolescenti dum redirem a Scotia ostendi." + +[156] "Cumque ibi esset nodus eti[a=] venenum, quod utin[a=] +abfuerit."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 411. + +[157] Edmund Dudley, the infamous minister of Henry VII. + +[158] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 412. + +[159] In the prologue to _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 673, he +gives a full account of this transaction. Of the boy himself he writes: +"hospes ostendit mihi filium nomine Guglielmum, aetatis annorum duodecim, +probum, scitulum, et parentibus obsequentem. Avus paternus nomine +Gregorius adhuc vivebat, et erat Ligur: pater Laurentius, familia nobili +Cataneorum." + +[160] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 119. Cardan here calls him "Gulielmus _Lataneus_ +Anglus adolescens mihi charissimus." In the _De Morte_, however, he speaks +of him as "ex familia Cataneorum" (see last page). + +[161] Cardan writes (_De Subtilitate_, p. 444) that Suisset [Richard +Swineshead], who lived about 1350, was known as the Calculator; but +Kaestner [_Gesch. der Math._ I. 50] maintains that the title Calculator +should be applied to the book rather than to the author, and hints that +this misapprehension on Cardan's part shows that he knew of Suisset only +by hearsay. The title of the copy of Suisset in the British Museum stands +"Subtilissimi Doctoris Anglici Suiset. Calculationes Liber," Padue [1485]. +Brunet gives one, "Opus aureum calculationum," Pavia, 1498. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +CARDAN travelled southward by way of the Low Countries. He stayed some +days at Antwerp, and during his visit he was pressed urgently to remain in +the city and practise his art. A less pleasant experience was a fall into +a ditch when he was coming out of a goldsmith's shop. He was cut and +bruised about the left ear, but the damage was only skin-deep. He went on +by Brussels and Cologne to Basel, where he once more tarried several days. +He had a narrow escape here of falling into danger, for, had he not been +forewarned by Guglielmo Gratarolo, a friend, he would have taken up his +quarters in a house infected by the plague. He was received as a guest by +Carlo Affaidato, a learned astronomer and physicist, who, on the day of +departure, made him accept a valuable mule, worth a hundred crowns. +Another generous offer of a similar kind was made to him shortly +afterwards by a Genoese gentleman of the family of Ezzolino, who fell in +with him accidentally on the road. This was the gift of a very fine horse +(of the sort which the English call Obinum), but, greatly as Cardan +desired to have the horse, his sense of propriety kept him back from +accepting this gift.[162] + +He went next to Besancon, where he was received by Franciscus Bonvalutus, +a scholar of some note, and then by Berne to Zurich. He must have crossed +the Alps by the Splugen Pass, as Chur is named in his itinerary, and he +also describes his voyage down the Lake of Como on the way to Milan, where +he arrived on January 3, 1553. Cardan was a famous physician when he set +out on his northward journey; but now on his return he stood firmly placed +by the events of the last few months at the head of his profession. +Writing of the material results of his mission to Scotland, he declares +that he is ashamed to set down the terms upon which he was paid, so +lavishly was he rewarded for his services. The offers made to him by so +many exalted personages to secure his permanent and exclusive attention +would indeed have turned the heads of most men. There was the offer from +the King of Denmark; another, in 1552, from the King of France at a salary +of thirteen hundred crowns a year; and yet another made by the agents of +Charles V., who was then engaged in his disastrous attack upon Metz. All +of them he refused: he had no inclination to share the perils of the +leaguer of Metz, and his sense of loyalty forbad him to join himself to +the power which was at that time warring against his sovereign. He speaks +also of another offer made to him by the Queen of Scotland of a generous +salary if he would settle in Scotland; but the country was too remote for +his taste. There is no authority for this offer except the _De Vita +Propria_, and it is there set down in terms which render it somewhat +difficult to identify the Queen aforesaid.[163] + +As soon as he entered Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Governor, desired to +secure his services as physician to the Duke of Mantua, his brother, +offering him thirty thousand gold crowns as honorarium; but, in spite of +the Governor's persuasions and threats, he would not accept the office. +When the news had come to Paris that Cardan was about to quit Britain, +forty of the most illustrious scientists of France repaired to Paris in +order to hear him expound the art of Medicine; but the disturbed state of +the country deterred him from setting foot in France. He refers to a +letter from his friend Ranconet as a testimony of the worship that was +paid to him, and goes on to say that, in his journeying through France and +Germany, he fared much as Plato fared at the Olympic games. + +In a passage which Cardan wrote shortly after his return from Britain, he +lets it be seen that he was not ill-satisfied with the figure he then made +in the world. He writes--"Therefore, since all those with whom I am +intimate think well of me for my truth and probity, I can let my envious +rivals indulge themselves as they list in the shameful habit of +evil-speaking. With regard to folly, if I now utter, or ever have uttered, +foolish words, let those who accuse me show their evidence. I, who was +born poor, with a weakly body, in an age vexed almost incessantly by wars +and tumults, helped on by no family influence, but forced to contend +against the bitter opposition of the College at Milan, contrived to +overcome all the plots woven against me, and open violence as well. All +the honours which a physician can possess I either enjoy, or have refused +when they were offered to me. I have raised the fortunes of my family, and +have lived a blameless life. I am well known to all men of worship, and to +the whole of Europe. What I have written has been lauded; in sooth, I +have written of so many things and at such length, that a man could +scarcely read my works if he spent his life therewith. I have taken good +care of my domestic affairs, and by common consent I have come off victor +in every contest I have tried. I have refused always to flatter the great; +and over and beyond this I have often set myself in active opposition to +them. My name will be found scattered about the pages of many writers. I +shall deem my life long enough if I come in perfect health to the age of +fifty-six. I have been most fortunate as the discoverer of many and +important contributions to knowledge, as well as in the practice of my art +and in the results attained; so much so that if my fame in the first +instance has raised up envy against me, it has prevailed finally, and +extinguished all ill-feeling."[164] + +These words were written before the publication of the _Geniturarum +Exempla_ in 1554. Cardan's life for the six years which followed was busy +and prosperous, but on the whole uneventful. The Archbishop of St. Andrews +wrote to him according to promise at the end of two years to give an +account of the results of his treatment. His letter is worthy of remark as +showing that he, the person most interested, was well satisfied with +Cardan's skill as a physician. Michael, the Archbishop's chief +chamberlain, was the bearer thereof, and as Hamilton speaks of him as +"epistolam vivam," it is probable that he bore likewise certain verbal +messages which could be more safely carried thus than in writing. A +sentence in the _De Vita Propria_,[165] mixed up with the account of +Hamilton's cure, seems to refer to this embassy, and to suggest that +Michael was authorized to promise Cardan a liberal salary if he would +accept permanent office in the Primate's household. Moreover, Hamilton +writes somewhat querulously about Cassanate's absence abroad on a visit to +his family, a fact which would make him all the more eager to secure +Cardan's services. His letter runs as follows--"Two of your most welcome +letters, written some months ago, I received by the hand of an English +merchant; others came by the care of the Lord Bishop of Dunkeld, together +with the Indian balsam. The last were from Scoto, who sent at the same +time your most scholarly comments on that difficult work of Ptolemy.[166] +To all that you have written to me I have replied fully in three or four +letters of my own, but I know not whether, out of all I have written, any +letter of mine has reached you. But now I have directed that a servant of +mine, who is known to you, and who is travelling to Rome, shall wait upon +you and salute you in my name, and bear to you my gratitude, not only for +the various gifts I have received from you, but likewise because my health +is well-nigh restored, the ailment which vexed me is driven away, my +strength increased, and my life renewed. Wherefore I rate myself debtor +for all these benefits, as well as this very body of mine. For, from the +time when I began to take these medicines of yours, selected and +compounded with so great skill, my complaint has afflicted me less +frequently and severely; indeed, now, as a rule, I am not troubled +therewith more than once a month; sometimes I escape for two months."[167] + +In the following year (1555) Cardan's daughter Chiara, who seems to have +been a virtuous and well-conducted girl, was married to Bartolomeo Sacco, +a young Milanese gentleman of good family, a match which proved to be +fortunate. Cardan had now reached that summit of fame against which the +shafts of jealousy will always be directed. The literary manners of the +age certainly lacked urbanity, and of all living controversialists there +was none more truculent than Julius Caesar Scaliger, who had begun his +career as a man of letters by a fierce assault upon Erasmus with regard to +his _Ciceronianus_, a leading case amongst the quarrels of authors. +Erasmus he had attacked for venturing to throw doubts upon the suitability +of Cicero's Latin as a vehicle of modern thought; this quarrel was over a +question of form; and now Scaliger went a step farther, and, albeit he +knew little of the subject in hand, published a book of _Esoteric +Exercitations_ to show that the _De Subtilitate_ of Cardan was nothing but +a tissue of nonsense.[168] The book was written with all the heavy-handed +brutality he was accustomed to use, but it did no hurt to Cardan's +reputation, and, irritable as he was by nature, it failed to provoke him +to make an immediate rejoinder, a delay which was the cause of one of the +most diverting incidents in the whole range of literary warfare. + +Scaliger sat in his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no +notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the +spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Caesar +the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of +abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was +touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal +result of his onslaught; still there can be little doubt that his mind was +filled with a certain satisfaction when he reflected that he was in sooth +a terrible assailant, and that his fist was heavier than any other man's. +In any case, he felt that it behoved him to make some sign, wherefore he +sat down and penned a funeral oration over his supposed victim, which is +worth giving at length.[169] + +"At this season, when fate has dealt with me in a fashion so wretched and +untoward that it has connected my name with a cruel public calamity, when +a literary essay of mine, well known to the world, and undertaken at the +call of duty, has ensued in dire misfortune, it seems to me that I am +bound to bequeath to posterity a testimony that, sharp as may have been +the vexation brought upon Jerome Cardan by my trifling censures, the grief +which now afflicts me on account of his death is ten times sharper. For, +even if Cardan living should have been a terror to me, I, who am but a +single unit in the republic of letters, ought to have postponed my own and +singular convenience to the common good, seeing how excellent were the +merits of this man, in every sort of learning. For now the republic is +bereft of a great and incomparable scholar, and must needs suffer a loss +which, peradventure, none of the centuries to come will repair. What +though I am a person of small account, I could count upon him as a +supporter, a judge, and (immortal gods) even a laudator of my +lucubrations; for he was so greatly impressed by their weighty merits, +that he deemed he would best defend himself by avoiding all comment on the +same, despairing of his own strength, and knowing not how great his powers +really were. In this respect he was so skilful a master, that he could +assuredly have fathomed the depths of every method and every device used +against him, and would thereby have made his castigation of myself to +serve as an augmentation of his own fame. He, in sooth, was a man of such +quality that, if he had deemed it a thing demanded of him by equity, he +would never have hesitated to point out to other students the truth of +those words which I had written against him as an accusation, while, on +the other hand, this same constancy of mind would have made him adhere to +the opinions he might have put forth in the first instance, so far as +these opinions were capable of proof. I, when I addressed my +_Exercitations_ to him during his life--to him whom I knew by common +report to be the most ingenious and learned of mortal men--was in good +hope that I might issue from this conflict a conqueror; and is there +living a man blind enough not to perceive that what I looked for was +hard-earned credit, which I should certainly have won by finding my views +confirmed by Cardan living, and not for inglorious peace brought about by +his death? And indeed I might have been suffered to have share in the +bounty and kindliness of this illustrious man, whom I have always heard +described as a shrewd antagonist and one full of confidence in his own +high position, for it was an easy task to win from him the ordinary rights +of friendship by any trifling letter, seeing that he was the most +courteous of mankind. It is scarcely likely that I, weary as I was, one +who in fighting had long been used to perils of all sorts, should thus +cast aside my courage; that I, worn out by incessant controversies and +consumed by the daily wear and tear of writing, should care for an +inglorious match with so distinguished an antagonist; or that I should +have set my heart upon winning a bare victory in the midst of all this +dust and tumult. For not only was the result which has ensued unlooked for +in the nature of things and in the opinion of all men qualified to judge +in such a case; it was also the last thing I could have desired to happen, +for the sake of my good name. My judgment has ever been that all men (for +in sooth all of us are, so to speak, little less than nothing) may so lose +their heads in controversy that they may actually fight against their own +interests. And if such a mischance as this may happen to any man of +eminence--as has been my case, and the case of divers others I could +recall--it shall not be written down in the list of his errors, unless in +aftertimes he shall seek to justify the same. It is necessary to advance +roughness in the place of refinement, and stubborn tenacity for +steadfastness. No man can be pronounced guilty of offence on the score of +some hasty word or other which may escape his lips; such a charge should +rather be made when he defends himself by unworthy methods. Therefore if +Cardan during his life, being well advised in the matter, should have kept +silent over my attempts to correct him, what could have brought me greater +credit than this? He would have bowed to my opinion in seemly fashion, and +would have taken my censures as those of a father or a preceptor. But +supposing that he had ventured to engage in a sharper controversy with me +over this question, is there any one living who would fail to see that he +might have gone near to lose his wits on account of the mental agitation +which had afflicted him in the past? But as soon as his superhuman +intellect had thoroughly grasped the question, it seemed to him that he +must needs be called upon to bear what was intolerable. He could not pluck +up courage enough to bear it by living, so he bore it by dying. Moreover, +what he might well have borne, he could not bring himself to bear, to wit +that he and I should come to an agreement and should formulate certain +well-balanced decisions for the common good. For this reason I lament +deeply my share in this affair, I who had most obvious reasons for +engaging in this conflict, and the clearest ones for inventing a story as +to the victory I hoped to gain; reasons which a man of sober temper could +never anticipate, which a brave man would never desire. + +"Cardan's fame has its surest foundation in the praise of his adversaries. +I lament greatly this misfortune of our republic: the causes of which the +parliament of lettered men may estimate by its particular rules, but it +cannot rate this calamity in relation to the excellences of this +illustrious personality. For in a man of learning three properties ought +to stand out pre-eminently--a spotless and gentle rule of life; manifold +and varied learning; and consummate talent joined to the shrewdest +capacity for forming a judgment. These three points Cardan attained so +completely that he seemed to have been made entirely for himself, and at +the same time to have been the only mortal made for mankind at large. No +one could be more courteous to his inferiors or more ready to discuss the +scheme of the universe with any man of mark with whom he might chance to +foregather. He was a man of kingly courtesy, of sympathetic loftiness of +mind, one fitted for all places, for all occasions, for all men and for +all fortunes. In reference to learning itself, I beg you to look around +upon the accomplished circle of the learned now living on the earth, in +this most fortunate age of ours; here the combination of individual talent +shows us a crowd of illustrious men, but each one of these displays +himself as occupied with some special portion of Philosophy. But Cardan, +in addition to his profound knowledge of the secrets of God and Nature, +was a consummate master of the humaner letters, and was wont to expound +the same with such eloquence that those who listened to him would have +been justified in affirming that he could have studied nothing else all +his life. A great man indeed! Great if he could lay claim to no other +excellence than this; and forsooth, when we come to consider the quickness +of his wit, his fiery energy in everything he undertook, whether of the +least or the greatest moment, his laborious diligence and unconquerable +steadfastness, I affirm that the man who shall venture to compare himself +with Cardan may well be regarded as one lacking in all due modesty. I +forsooth feel no hostility towards one whose path never crossed mine, nor +envy of one whose shadow never touched mine; the numerous and weighty +questions dealt with in his monumental work urged me on to undertake the +task of gaining some knowledge of the same. After the completion of the +Commentaries on Subtlety, he published as a kind of appendix to these that +most learned work the _De Rerum Varietate_. And in this case, before news +was brought to me of his death, I followed my customary practice, and in +the course of three days compiled an Excursus in short chapters. When I +heard that he was dead I brought them together into one little book, in +order that I also might lend a hand in this great work of his, and this +thing I did after a fashion which he himself would have approved, +supposing that at some time or other he might have held discourse with me, +or with some other yet more learned man, concerning his affairs."[170] + +It is a matter of regret that this cry of _peccavi_ was not published till +all the chief literary contemporaries of Scaliger were in their graves. As +it did not appear till 1621, the men of his own time were not able to +enjoy the shout of laughter over his discomfiture which would surely have +gone up from Paris and Strasburg and Basel and Zurich. Estienne and +Gessner would hardly have felt acute sorrow at a flout put upon Julius +Caesar Scaliger. Crooked-tempered as he was, Cardan, compared with +Scaliger, was as a rose to a thistle, but there were reasons altogether +unconnected with the personalities of the disputants which swayed the +balance to Cardan's advantage. The greater part of Scaliger's criticism +was worthless, and the opinion of learned Europe weighed overwhelmingly on +Cardan's side. Thuanus,[171] who assuredly did not love him, and Naude, +who positively disliked him, subsequently gave testimony in his favour. He +did not follow the example of Erasmus, and let Scaliger's abuse go by in +silence, but he took the next wisest course. He published a short and +dignified reply, _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, in which, from +title-page to colophon, Scaliger's name never once occurs. The gist of +the book may best be understood by quoting an extract from the criticism +of Cardan by Naude prefixed to the _De Vita Propria_. He writes: "This +proposition of mine will best be comprehended by the man who shall set to +work to compare Cardan with Julius Caesar Scaliger, his rival, and a man +endowed with an intellect almost superhuman. For Scaliger, although he +came upon the stage with greater pomp and display, and brought with him a +mind filled with daring speculation, and adequate to the highest flights, +kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical +philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of +argument he might find most advantageous in any other of the fields of +learning. Moreover, if any one shall give daily study to these celebrated +_Exercitations_, he will find therein nothing to show that Cardan is +branded by any mark of shame which may not be removed with the slightest +trouble, if the task be undertaken in a spirit of justice. For, in the +first place, who can maintain that Scaliger was justified in publishing +his _Exercitations_ three years after the issue of the second edition of +the _Libri de Subtilitate_, without ever having taken the trouble to read +this edition, and without exempting from censure the errors which Cardan +had diligently expunged from his book in the course of his latest +revision, lest he (Scaliger) should find that all the mighty labour +expended over his criticisms had been spent in vain? Besides, who does not +know that Cardan, in his _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, blunted the point +of all his assailant's weapons, swept away all his objections, and broke +in pieces all his accusations, in such wise that the very reason of their +existence ceased to be? Cardan, in sooth, was a true man, and held all +humanity as akin to him. There is small reason why we should marvel that +he erred now and again; it is a marvel much greater that he should only +have gone astray so seldom and in things of such trifling moment. Indeed I +will dare to affirm, and back my opinion with a pledge, that the errors +which Scaliger left behind him in these _Exercitations_ were more in +number than those which he so wantonly laid to Cardan's charge, having +sweated nine years over the task. And this he did not so much in the +interests of true erudition as with the desire of coming to blows with all +those whom he recognized as the chiefs of learning." + +During the whole dispute Cardan kept his temper admirably. Scaliger was a +physician of repute; and it is not improbable that the spectacle of +Cardan's triumphal progress back to Milan from the North may have aroused +his jealousy and stimulated him to make his ill-judged attack. But even on +the ground of medical science he was no match for Cardan, while in +mathematics and philosophy he was immeasurably inferior. Cardan felt +probably that the attack was nothing more than the buzzing of a gadfly, +and that in any case it would make for his own advantage and credit, +wherefore he saw no reason why he should disquiet himself; indeed his +attitude of dignified indifference was admirably calculated to win for him +the approval of the learned world by the contrast it furnished to the +raging fury of his adversary.[172] + +After the heavy labour of editing and issuing to the world the _De Rerum +Varietate_, and of re-editing the first issue of the _De Subtilitate_, +Cardan might well have given himself a term of rest, but to a man of his +temper, idleness, or even a relaxation of the strain, is usually irksome. +The _De Varietate_ was first printed at Basel in 1553, and, as soon as it +was out of the press, it brought a trouble--not indeed a very serious +one--upon the author. The printer, Petrus of Basel (who must not be +confused with Petreius of Nuremberg) took it upon him to add to Chapter +LXXX of the work some disparaging remarks about the Dominican +brotherhoods, making Cardan responsible for the assertion that they were +rapacious wolves who hunted down reputed witches and despisers of God, not +because of their offences, but because they chanced to be the possessors +of much wealth. Cardan remonstrated at once--he always made it his +practice to keep free from all theological wrangling,--but Petrus treated +the whole question with ridicule,[173] and it does not seem that Cardan +could have had any very strong feeling in the matter, for the obnoxious +passage is retained in the editions of 1556 and 1557. The religious +authorities were however fully justified in assuming that the presence of +such a passage in the pages of a book so widely popular as the _De +Varietate_ would necessarily prove a cause of scandal, and give cause to +the enemy to blaspheme. For Reginald Scot, in the eighth chapter of +_Discoverie of Witchcraft_, alludes to the passage in question in the +following terms: "Cardanus writeth that the cause of such credulitie +consisteth in three points: to wit in the imagination of the melancholike, +in the constancie of them that are corrupt therewith, and in the deceipt +of the Judges; who being inquisitors themselves against heretikes and +witches, did both accuse and condemne them, having for their labour the +spoile of their goods. So as these inquisitors added many fables hereunto, +least they should seeme to have doone injurie to the poore wretches, in +condemning and executing them for none offense. But sithens (said he) the +springing up of Luther's sect, these priests have tended more diligentlie +upon the execution of them; bicause more wealth is to be caught from them; +insomuch as now they deale so looselie with witches (through distrust of +gaines) that all is seene to be malice, follie, or avarice that hath beene +practised against them. And whosoever shall search into this cause, or +read the cheefe writers hereupon, shall find his words true." + +In 1554 Cardan published also with Petrus of Basel the _Ptolemaei de +astrorum judiciis_ with the _Geniturarum Exempla_, bound in one volume, +but he seems to have written nothing but a book of fables for the young, +concerning which he subsequently remarks that, in his opinion, grown men +might read the same with advantage. It is a matter of regret that this +work should have disappeared, for it would have been interesting to note +how far Cardan's intellect, acute and many-sided as it was, was capable of +dealing with the literature of allegory and imagination. He has set down +one fact concerning it, to wit that it contained "multa de futuris +arcana." The next year he produced only a few medical trifles, but in 1557 +he brought out two other scientific works which he characterizes as +admirable--one the _Ars parva curandi_, and the other a treatise _De +Urinis_. In the same year he published the book which, in forming a +judgment of him as a man and a writer, is perhaps as valuable as the _De +Vita Propria_ and the _De Utilitate_, to wit the _De Libriis Propriis_. +This work exists in three forms: the first, a short treatise, "cui titulus +est ephemerus," is dedicated to "Hieronymum Cardanum medicum, affinem +suum," and has the date of 1543. The second has the date of 1554, and, +according to Naude, was first published "apud Gulielmum Rovillium sub +scuto Veneto, Lugduni, 1557." The third was begun in 1560,[174] and +contains comments written in subsequent years. The first is of slight +interest, the second is a sort of register of his works, amplified from +year to year, while the third has more the form of a treatise, and +presents with some degree of symmetry the crude materials contained in the +first. Having finished with his writings up to the year 1564, Cardan +lapses into a philosophizing strain, and opens his discourse with the +ominous words, "Sed jam ad institutum revertamur, deque ipso vitae humanae +genere aliquo dicamus." He begins with a disquisition on the worthlessness +of life, and repeats somewhat tediously the story of his visit to +Scotland. He gives a synopsis of all the sciences he had ever +studied--Theology, Dialectics, Arithmetic, Music, Optics, Astronomy, +Astrology, Geometry, Chiromancy, Agriculture, Medicine, passing on to +treat of Magic, portents and warnings, and of his own experience of the +same at the crucial moments of his life. He ends by a reference to an +incident already chronicled in the _De Vita Propria_,[175] how he escaped +death or injury from a falling mass of masonry by crossing the street in +obedience to an impulse he could not explain, and speculates why God, who +was able to save him on this occasion with so little trouble, should have +let him rush on and court the overwhelming stroke which ultimately laid +him low. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 100. + +[163] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16: "cum Scotorum Regina cujus levirum +curaveram." Cardan had probably prescribed for a brother of the Duc de +Longueville, the first husband of Mary of Guise, during his sojourn in +Paris. + +[164] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 459. + +[165] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 137. + +[166] _Commentaria in Ptolemaei de Astrorum Judiciis_ (Basil, 1554). He +wrote these notes while going down the Loire in company with Cassanate on +his way from Lyons to Paris in 1552.--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175. + +He gives an interesting account (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110) as to how the +book first came under his notice. The day before he quitted Lyons with +Cassanate, a school-master came to ask for advice, which Cardan gave +gratis. Then the patient, knowing perhaps the physician's taste for the +marvellous, related how there was a certain boy in the place who could see +spirits by looking into an earthen vessel, but Cardan was little impressed +by what he saw, and began to talk with the school-master about Archimedes. +The school-master brought out a work of the Greek philosopher with which +was bound up the _Ptolemaei Libri de Judiciis_. Cardan fastened upon it at +once, and wanted to buy it, but the school-master insisted that he should +take it as a gift. He declares that his Commentaries thereupon are the +most perfect of all his writings. The book contains his famous Nativity of +Christ. A remark in _De Libris Propriis_ (cf. _Opera_, tom. i. p. 67) +indicates that there was an earlier edition of Ptolemy, printed at Milan +at Cardan's own cost, because when he saw the numerous mistakes made by +Ottaviano Scoto in printing the _De Malo Medendi_ and the _De +Consolatione_, he determined to go to another printer. + +[167] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 93. + +[168] Cardan notices the attack in these words--"His diebus quidam +conscripserat adversus nostrum de Subtilitate librum, Opus ingens. +Adversus quem ego Apologiam scripsi."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 117. Scaliger +absurdly calls his work the _fifteenth_ book of _Exercitations_, and +wished the world to believe that he had written, though not printed, the +fourteen others. + +[169] It was not printed until many years after the deaths of both +disputants, and appeared for the first time in a volume of Scaliger's +letters and speeches published at Toulouse in 1621, and it was afterwards +affixed to the _De Vita Propria_. + +[170] "Si Scaliger avoit eu un peu moins de demangeaison de contre dire, +il auroit acquis plus de gloire, qu'il n'a fait dans ce combat: mais, ce +que les Grecs ont apelle [Greek: ametria tes antholkes], une passion +excessive de prendre le contrepied des autres, a fait grand tort a +Scaliger. C'est par ce principe qu'il a soutenu que le perroquet est une +tres laide bete. Si Cardan l'eut dit, Scaliger lui eut oppose ce qu'on +trouve dans les anciens Poetes touchant la beaute de cet oiseau. Vossius a +fait une Critique tres judicieuse de cette humeur contrariante de +Scaliger, et a marque en meme temps en quoi ces deux Antagonistes etoient +superieurs et inferieures, l'un a l'autre."--(Scaliger, in _Exercitat.,_ +246.) "Quia Cardanus psittacum commendarat a colorum varietate ac praeterea +fulgore, quod et Appuleius facit in secundo Floridorum, contra contendit +esse deformem, non modo ob foeditatem rostri, ac crurum, et linguae, sed +etiam quia sit coloris fusci ac cinericii, qui tristis. Quid faciamus +summo Viro? Si Cardanus ea dixisset, provocasset ad judicia poetarum, +atque adeo omnium hominum. Nunc quia pulchri dixit coloris, ille deformis +contendit. Hoc contradictionis studium, quod ubique in hisce +exercitationibus se prodit, sophista dignius est, quamque +philosopho."--Bayle: Article "Cardan." (Sir Thomas Browne, in one of his +Commonplace Books, observes--"If Cardan saith a parrot is a beautiful +bird, Scaliger will set his wits on work to prove it a deformed animal.") + +Naude (_Apologie_, ch. xiii.) says that of the great men of modern times +Scaliger and Cardan each claimed the possession of a guardian spirit, and +hints that Scaliger may have been moved to make this claim in order not to +be outdone by his great antagonist. It should, however, be remembered that +Cardan did not seriously assert this belief till long after his +controversy with Scaliger. Naude sums up thus: "D'ou l'on peut juger +asseurement, que lui et Scaliger n'ont point eu d'autre Genie que la +grande doctrine qu'ils s'etoient acquis par leurs veilles, par leurs +travaux, et par l'experience qu'ils avoient des choses sur lesquelles +venant a elever leur jugement ils jugeoint pertinemment de toutes +matieres, et ne laissoient rien echapper qui ne leur fust conneu et +manifeste." + +[171] Thuanus, ad Annum MDLXXVI, part of the Appendix to the _De Vita +Propria_. + +[172] Cardan does not seem to have harboured animosity against Scaliger. +In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xlviii. p. 198, he writes: "Julius Caesar +Scaliger plures mihi titulos ascribit, quam ego mihi concedi postulassem, +appellans _ingenium profundissimum, felicissimum, et incomparabile_." + +[173] "Quid tua interest quod quatuor verba adjecerim? an hoc tantum +crimen est! quid facerem absens absenti?" Cardan writes on in meditative +strain: "Coeterum cum non ignorem maculatos fuisse codices B. Hieronimi, +atque aliorum patrum nostrorum, ab his qui aliter sentiebant, erroremque +suum auctoritate viri tegere voluerunt: ut ne quis in nostris operibus +hallucinetur vel ab aliis decipiatur, sciant omnes me nullibi Theologum +agere, nec velle in alienam messem falcem ponere."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +112. + +Johannes Wierus, one of the first rationalists on the subject of +witchcraft, has quoted largely from Chapter LXXX of _De Varietate_ in his +book _De Praestigiis Daemonum_, in urging his case against the orthodox +view. + +[174] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 96. "Annus hic est Salutis millesimus +quingentesimus ac sexagesimus." + +[175] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 78. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE year 1555 may be held to mark the point of time at which Cardan +reached the highest point of his fortunes. After a long and bitter +struggle with an adverse world he had come out a conqueror, and his rise +to fame and opulence, if somewhat slow, had been steady and secure. He +longed for wealth, not that he might figure as a rich man, but so that he +might win the golden independence which permits a student to prosecute the +task which seems to subserve the highest purposes of true learning, and +frees him from the irksome battle for daily bread. He loved, indeed, to +spend money over beautiful things, and there are few more attractive +touches in the picture he draws of himself than the confession of his +passion for costly penholders, gems, rare books, vessels of brass and +silver, and painted spheres.[176] In this brief season of ease and +security, there were no flaming portents in the sky to foretell the cruel +stroke of evil fortune which was destined so soon to fall upon him. + +Cardan has left a very pathetic sketch of his own miserable boyhood in the +strangely ordered home in Milan, with his callous, tyrannical father, his +quick-tempered mother, and the superadded torment of his Aunt Margaret's +presence. Fazio Cardano was a man of rigorous sobriety, and he seems +moreover to have atoned for his early irregularities by the practice of +that austere piety which Jerome notices more than once as a characteristic +of his old age.[177] The discipline was hard, and the life unlovely, but +the home was at least decent and orderly, and no opportunities or +provocations to loose manners or ill doing existed therein. In Cardan's +own case it is to be feared that, after Lucia's death, the affairs of his +household fell into dire confusion, in spite of the presence of his +mother-in-law, Thadea, who had come to him as housekeeper--her husband, +Altobello, having died soon after the marriage of his daughter with +Cardan. He was an ardent lover of music, and, as a consequence, his house +would be constantly filled with singing men and boys, a tribe of somewhat +sinister reputation.[178] Then, when he was not engaged with music, he +would be gambling in some fashion or other. After lamenting the vast +amount of time he has wasted over the game of chess, he goes on: "But the +play with the dice, an evil far more noxious, found its way into my house; +and, after my sons had learned to play the same, my doors always stood +open to dicers. I can find no excuse for this practice except the trivial +one, that, what I did, I did in the hope of relieving the poverty of my +children."[179] In a home of this sort, ruled by a father who was +assuredly more careful of his work in the study and class-room than of his +duties as paterfamilias, it is not wonderful that the two young men, Gian +Battista and Aldo, should grow up into worthless profligates. It has been +recorded how Cardan, during a journey to Genoa, wrote a Book of Precepts +for his children,[180] a task the memory of which afterwards wrung from +him a cry of despair. There never was compiled a more admirable collection +of maxims; but, excellent as they were, it was not enough to write them +down on paper; and the young men, if ever they took the trouble to read +them, must have smiled as they called to mind the difference between their +father's practices and the precepts he had composed for their guidance. +Furthermore, he had written at length, in the _De Consolatione_, on the +folly which parents for the most part display in the education of their +children. "They show their affection in such foolish wise, that it would +be nearer the mark to say they hate, rather than love, their offspring. +They bring them up not to follow virtue, but to occupy themselves with all +manner of hurtful things; not to learning, but to riot; not to the worship +of God, but to foster in them the desire to drain the cup of lustful +pleasure; not for the life eternal, but to the enticements of +lechery."[181] + +At this time Gian Battista had gained the doctorate of medicine at Pavia, +and had made his contribution to medical knowledge by the publication of +an insignificant tract, _De cibis foetidis non edendis_. Cardan was +evidently full of hope for his elder son's career, but Aldo seems to have +been a trouble from the first. Yet, in casting Aldo's horoscope (probably +at the time of his birth) Cardan predicts for him a flourishing +future.[182] Never was there made a worse essay in prophecy. Aldo's +childhood had been a sickly one. He had well-nigh died of convulsions, and +later on he had been troubled with dysentery, abscesses of the brain, and +a fever which lasted six months. Moreover, he could not walk till he was +three years old. With a weakly body, his nature seems to have put forth +all sorts of untoward growths. There is a story which Naude brings forward +as part of his indictment against Cardan, that the father being irritated +beyond endurance by some ill conduct of his younger son during supper, cut +off his ear by way of punishment. It was a most barbarous act; one going +far beyond the range of any tradition of the early _patria potestas_, +which may have yet lingered in Italy; and scarcely calculated to bring +about reformation in the youth thus punished. In any case, Aldo went on +from bad to worse; at one time his father found it necessary to place him +under restraint, and the last record of him is that one in Cardan's +testament, by which he was disinherited. + +Gian Battista's failings were doubtless grave and numerous, but he had at +least sufficient industry to qualify himself as a physician. He was +certainly his father's favourite child, and on this account the eulogies +written of him in those dark hours when Cardan's reason was reeling under +the accumulated blows of private grief and public disgrace, must be +accepted with caution. There is no evidence to show he was in intellect +anything like the budding genius his father deemed him; as to conduct and +manner of life, his carriage was exactly what the majority of youths, +brought up in a similar fashion, would have adopted. There must have been +something in the young man's humours which from the first made his father +apprehensive as to the future, for Cardan soon came to see that an early +marriage would be the surest safeguard for Gian Battista's future. With +his mind bent on this scheme, he pointed out to his son various damsels of +suitable station, any one of whom he would be ready to welcome into his +family, but Gian Battista always found some excuse for declining +matrimony. He declared that he was too closely engaged with his work; and, +over and beyond this, it would not be seemly to bring home a bride into a +house like their own, full of young men, for Cardan, as usual, had several +pupils living with him. It was at the end of 1557 that the first +forebodings of misfortune appeared. To Cardan, according to custom, they +came in the form of a portent, for he records how he lay awake at midnight +on December 20, and was suddenly conscious that his bed was shaking. He at +once attributed this to a shock of an earthquake, and in the morning he +demanded of the servant, Simone Sosia, who occupied the truckle bed in the +room, whether he had felt the same. Simone replied that he had, whereupon +Cardan, as soon as he arose, went to the piazza and asked of divers +persons he met there, whether they had also been disturbed, but no one had +felt anything of the shock he alluded to. He went home, and while the +family were at table, a messenger, sent, as he afterwards records, by a +certain woman of the town,[183] entered the room, and told him that his +son was going to be married immediately after breakfast. Cardan asked who +the bride might be, but the messenger said he knew not, and departed. It +is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon +as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst +over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and +setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good +family, of whom two were certainly enamoured of him. Any one of the four +would have been acceptable as a daughter-in-law, but he declared that now +he would insist upon having full information as to the antecedents of any +other bride his son might have selected, before admitting her to the +shelter of his roof. Over and over again had he counselled Gian Battista +that he must on no account marry in haste, or without his advice, or +without making sure that his income would be sufficient to support the +responsibilities of the married state; rather than this should happen, he +would willingly allow the young man to keep a mistress in the house for +the sake of offspring, for he desired beyond all else to rear +grandchildren from Gian Battista, because he nursed the belief that, as +the son resembled his grandfather Fazio, so the son's children would +resemble their grandfather--himself. When he was questioned, Gian Battista +declared he knew nothing about the report, and was fully as astonished as +his father; but two days later Gian Battista's own servant came to the +house, and announced that his master had been married that same +morning,[184] but that he knew not the name of the bride. Cardan now +ascertained that Gian Battista's disinclination for matrimony had arisen +from the fact that he had been amusing himself with a girl who was nothing +else than an attractive and finely-dressed harlot, named Brandonia Seroni, +the last woman in all Milan whom he could with decency receive into his +house. And the pitiful story was not yet complete. In marrying her the +foolish youth had burdened himself with her mother, two or more sisters, +and three brothers, the last-named being rough fellows without any calling +but that of common soldiers. The character of the girl herself may be +judged by the answer given by her father Evangelista Seroni to Cardan +during the subsequent trial. When Seroni was asked whether he had given +his daughter as a virgin in marriage, he answered frankly in the negative. + +Cardan at once made up his mind to shut his door upon the newly-married +pair; but the unconquerable tenderness he felt for Gian Battista urged him +on to send to the young man all the ready money he had saved. After two +years of married life, two children, a boy and a girl, were born: husband +and wife alike were in ill health, and every day brought its domestic +quarrel. In the meantime sinister whispers were heard, set going in the +first instance by the mother and sister of Brandonia, that Gian Battista +was the father neither of the first nor of the second child. They even +went so far as to designate the men to whom they rightly belonged, and +contrived that this rumour should come to the ears of the injured husband. +The consequence of their malignant tale-bearing was a quarrel more violent +than ever, and the rise of a resolution in Gian Battista's mind to rid +himself at all hazard of the accursed burden he had bound upon his +shoulders. + +Until the end of 1559 Cardan continued to live in Milan, vexed no doubt by +the ever-present spectacle of the wretched case into which his beloved son +had fallen. He records how the young wife, unknown to her husband, handed +over to her father the wedding-ring which he (Cardan) had given to his +son, along with a piece of silken stuff, in order to pledge them for +money. This outrage, joined to the certain conviction that his wife was +false to him, proved a provocation beyond the limits of Gian Battista's +patience, and finally incited him to make a criminal attempt upon +Brandonia's life. Hitherto he had been earnest enough in his desire to rid +himself of his wife so long as she raged against him; but, on the +restoration of peace, his anger against her would vanish. Now he had lost +all patience; he laid his plans advisedly, and set to work to execute them +by enlisting the cooperation of the servant who had been with him ever +since his marriage, and by taking to live with him in his own house +Seroni, his wife, and son and daughter.[185] It cannot be said that the +would-be murderer displayed at this juncture any of the traditional +Italian craft in setting about his deadly task. The day before the attempt +was made he took out of pawn the goods which Evangelista Seroni had +pledged, and promised his servant a gift of clothes and money if he would +compass the death of Brandonia, who was still ailing from the effects of +her second confinement. To this suggestion the servant, who had also +warned Gian Battista of his wife's misconduct, at once assented. + +But even on the very day when he had fully determined to make his essay in +murder he vacillated again and again, and it seemed likely that Brandonia +would once more be reprieved. When he entered her bed-chamber, full of his +resolve to strike for freedom, he found her lying gravely ill with an +attack of fever, shivering violently, and cold at the extremities. His +anger forthwith vanished, and his hand was stayed; but as if urged on by +ruthless fate, the mother-in-law, and the sister, and Brandonia herself, +ill as she was, attacked Gian Battista with the foulest abuse and +reproaches; this was the last straw. He went out and sought his servant, +and told the fellow at once to make a cake and put a poison therein. The +date of this fatal action was some day early in 1560. + +On October 1, 1559, Cardan had left Milan, and gone back to Pavia to +resume his work as professor, taking Aldo with him. He threw himself into +the discharge of his office and the life of the city with his customary +ardour. Over and above his work of teaching he completed his treatise _De +Secretis_, and likewise found time to hold a long disputation on the +decisions of Galen with Andrea Camutio, one of the most illustrious +physicians of the age. Concerning this episode he writes: "In disputation +I showed myself so keen of wit that all men marvelled at the instances I +brought forward, but for a long time no one ventured to put me to the +proof. Thus I escaped the trouble of any such undertaking until two +accidents both unforeseen involved me therein. At Pavia, Branda Porro, my +whilom teacher in Philosophy, interrupted me one day when I was disputing +with Camutio[186] on some matter of Philosophy, for, as I have said +before, my colleagues were wont to lead me on to argue in philosophy +because they were well assured that it would be vain to try to get the +better of me in Medicine. Now Branda began by advancing Aristotle as an +authority, whereupon I, when he brought out his citation, said, 'Take +care, you have left out the "_non_" which should stand after "_album_."' +Then Branda contradicted me, and I, spitting out the phlegm with which I +am often troubled, told him quietly that he was in the wrong. He sent for +the Codex in great rage, and when it was brought I asked that it might be +given to me. I then read out the words just as they stood; but he, as if +he suspected that I was reading falsely, snatched the volume out of my +hands, and declared that I was puting a cheat upon my hearers. When he +came to the word in dispute he held his tongue forthwith, and all the +others looked at me in amazement."[187] + +It is certain that Cardan was still vexed in mind by the trouble he had +left behind him at Milan. If he had not forgiven Gian Battista, he was +full of kindly thought of him. He sent him from Pavia a new silk cloak, +such as physicians wear, so that he might make a better show in his +calling, and doubtless continued his supplies of money. Just a week before +the quarrel last recorded, Aldo, against his father's wish, left Pavia and +returned to Milan. Cardan used every argument he could bring forward to +keep his younger son with him, but in vain; and, as he was unwilling to +put constraint upon him, Aldo departed. Cardan says that he was within an +ace of going with him, for the University was then in vacation: then the +crowning catastrophe might have been averted, but the same fate which was +driving on the son to destruction, kept the father at Pavia. Thus it +happened that Aldo was an inmate of his brother's house when the poisoned +cake was made. Cardan has written down a detailed account of the +perpetration of this squalid tragedy, and no clearer presentation can be +given than the one which his own words supply. + +He writes: "Thus my son and the servant went together to make the cake, +and the servant put therein secretly some of the poison which had been +given him. After the cake had been made, a small piece was given to my +son's wife, who was very ill at the time, but her stomach rejected it at +once. Her mother ate some of it, and likewise vomited after taking it. +Though Gian Battista saw what happened he did not believe that the cake +was really poisoned, for two reasons. First, because he had not, in truth, +ordered that the poison should be mixed therewith; and second, because his +brother-in-law (Bartolomeo Sacco) had said to him, before the cake was +finished, 'See that you make it big enough, for I also am minded to taste +it.' Next he gave some to his father-in-law, who straightway vomited, and +complained of a pricking of the tongue. He warned my son; but he, still +holding that the cake was harmless, ate thereof somewhat greedily; and, +after having been sick, had to lie by for some time. On the second day +after this Gian Battista, and his brother, and the servant as well were +taken in hold: and on the Sunday following I, having been informed of what +had happened, went to Milan in great anxiety as to what I should do." + +The news which had been brought to Cardan at Pavia told him, over and +beyond what is written above, that his son's wife was dead, poisoned as +every one believed through having eaten the cake, which had caused nausea +and pain to every one else who had tasted it.[188] The catastrophe was +accompanied by the usual portents. Some weeks previous to the attempt Gian +Battista had chanced to walk out to the Porta Tonsa, clad in the smart +silk gown which his father had recently given him, and as he was passing a +butcher's shop, a certain pig, one of a drove which was there, rose up out +of the mud and attacked the young physician and befouled his gown. The +butcher and his men, to whom the thing seemed portentous, drove off the +hog with staves, but this they could only do after the beast had wearied +itself, and after Gian Battista had gone away. Again, at the beginning of +February following, while Cardan was in residence as a Professor at Pavia, +he chanced to look at the palm of his hand, and there, at the root of the +third finger of the right hand, he beheld a mark like a bloody sword. That +same evening a messenger arrived from Milan with the news of his son's +arrest, and a letter from his son-in-law, begging him to come at once. The +mark on his hand grew and grew for fifty-three days, gradually mounting up +the finger, until the last fatal day, when it extended to the tip of the +finger, and shone bright like fiery blood. The morning after Gian +Battista's execution the mark had almost vanished, and in a day or two no +sign of it remained. + +Cardan hurried to Milan to hear from Bartolomeo Sacco, his son-in-law, the +full extent of the calamity. Probably there were few people in the city +who did not regard Gian Battista as a worthless fellow, whose death would +be a gain to the State and a very light loss to his immediate friends, but +Cardan was not of this mind. He turned his back upon his professional +engagements at Pavia, and threw himself, heart and soul, into the fight +for his son's life. He could not make up his mind as to Gian Battista's +recent conduct; if he ate of the cake, he surely could not have put in +poison himself, or directed others to do so; if, on the other hand, he had +poisoned the cake, Cardan feared greatly that, in the simplicity of his +nature, he would assuredly let his accusers know what he had done. And his +mind was greatly upset by the prodigies of which he had recently had +experience. For some reason or other he did not visit the accused in +prison, or give him any advice as to what course he should follow, a piece +of neglect which he cites as a reproach against himself afterwards; but +certain associates of Gian Battista, and his fellow-captives as well, +urged him to assert his innocence, a course which Cardan recognized as the +only safe one. At the first examination the accused followed this counsel; +at the second he began to waver when the servant deposed that his master +had given him a certain powder to mix with Brandonia's food in order to +increase her flow of milk; and, later on, when confronted with the man +from whom he had received the poison, he confessed all; and, simpleton as +he was, admitted that for two months past his mind had been set upon the +deed, and that on two previous occasions he had attempted to administer to +her the noxious drug against the advice of his servant. From the first +Cardan had placed his hopes of deliverance in the intervention of the +Milanese Governor, the Duca di Sessa, who had not long ago consulted him +as physician,[189] but the Duke refused to interfere. The intervention of +an executive officer in the procedure of a Court of Justice was no rare +occurrence at that period, and Cardan was deeply disappointed at the +squeamishness or indolence of his whilom patient. He records afterwards +how the Duke met his full share of the calamities which fell upon all +those who were concerned in Gian Battista's condemnation;[190] and in the +_Dialogus Tetim_, a work which he wrote immediately after the trial, he +bewails afresh the inaction of this excellent ruler and the consequent +loss of his son.[191] + +For twenty days and more, while Gian Battista lay in prison, Cardan, +almost mad with apprehension and suspense, spent his time studying in the +library at Milan. Sitting there one day, he heard a warning voice which +told him that the thing he most feared had indeed come to pass. He felt +that his heart was broken, and, springing up, he rushed out into the +court, where he met certain of the Palavicini, the friends with whom he +was staying, and cried out, "Alas, alas, he was indeed privy to the death +of his wife, and now he has confessed it all, therefore he will be +condemned to death and beheaded." Then having caught up a garment he went +out to the piazza, and, before he had gone half-way he met his son-in-law, +who asked him in sorrowful tones whither he was going. Cardan answered +that he was troubled with apprehensions lest Gian Battista should have +confessed his crime, whereupon Bartolomeo Sacco told him that what he +feared had indeed come to pass. Gian Battista had admitted the truth of +the charge against him: he was ultimately put on his trial before the +Senate of Milan,[192] the President of the Court being one Rigone, a man +whom Cardan afterwards accused of partiality and of a hostile bias towards +the prisoner. Cardan himself stood up to defend his son; but with a full +confession staring him in the face, he was sorely puzzled to fix upon a +line of defence. This he perceived must of necessity be largely +rhetorical; and, after he had grasped the entire situation, he set to work +to convince the Court on two main points, first, that Gian Battista was a +youth of simple guileless character; and, second, there was no proof that +Brandonia had died of poison. A physician of good repute, Vincenzo +Dinaldo, swore that she had died of fever (_lipyria_), and not from the +effect of poison; and five others, men of the highest character, declared +that she bore no signs of poison, either externally or internally. Her +tongue and extremities and her body were not blackened, nor was the +stomach swollen, nor did the hair and nails show any signs of falling, +nor were the tissues eaten away. In the opening of his defence Cardan +attempted to discredit the character of Brandonia. He showed how great +were the injuries and provocations which Gian Battista had received from +her, and that she was a dissolute wanton; her father himself, when under +examination, having refused to say that she was a virgin when she left his +house to be married. He claimed justification for the husband who should +slay his wife convicted of adultery; and here, in this case, Brandonia was +convicted by her own confession. He maintained that, if homicide is to be +committed at all, poison is preferable to the knife, and then he went on +to weave a web of ineffectual casuistry in support of his view, which +moved the Court to pity and contempt. He cited the _Lex Cornelia_, which +doomed the common people to the arena, and the patricians to exile, and +claimed the penalty last-named as the one fitting to the present +case.[193] Then he proceeded to show that the woman had really died from +natural causes; for, even granting that she had swallowed arsenic in the +cake, she had vomited at once, and the poison would have no time to do its +work; moreover there was no proof that Gian Battista had given specific +directions to anybody to mix poison with the ingredients of the cake. The +most he had done was to utter some vague words thereanent to his servant, +who forthwith took the matter into his own hands.[194] If Gian Battista +had known, if he had merely been suspicious that the cake was poisoned, +would he have let a crumb of it pass his lips; and if any large quantity +of poison had been present, would he and the other persons who had eaten +thereof have recovered so quickly? Cardan next went on to argue that, +whatever motive may have swayed Gian Battista at this juncture, it could +not have been the deliberate intent to kill his wife, because forsooth the +wretched youth was incapable of deliberate action of any sort. He could +never keep in the same mood for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch. He +nursed alternately in his heart vengeance and forgiveness, changing as +discord or peace ruled in his house. Cardan showed what a life of misery +the wretched youth had passed since his marriage. Had this life continued, +the finger of shame would have been pointed at him, he must have lost his +status as a member of his profession, and have been cut off from the +society of all decent people; nay, he would most likely have died by the +hand of one or other of his wife's paramours. This was to show how +powerful was the temptation to which the husband was exposed, and again he +sang the praises of poison as an instrument of "removal"; because if +effectively employed, it led to no open scandal. + +He next brought forward the simple and unsophisticated character of the +accused, and the physical afflictions which had vexed him all his life, +giving as illustrations of his son's folly the headlong haste with which +he had rushed into a marriage, his folly in giving an ineffectual dose, if +he really meant to poison his wife, in letting his plot be known to his +servant, and in confessing. Lastly, Cardan had in readiness one of his +favourite portents to lay before the Court. When Brandonia's brother had +come into the house and found his father and sister sick through eating +the cake, he suspected foul play and rushed at Gian Battista and at Aldo +who was also there, and threatened them with his sword; but before he +could harm them he fell down in a fit, his hand having been arrested by +Providence. Providence had thus shown pity to this wretched youth, and now +Cardan besought the Senate to be equally merciful. + +Cardan's pleas were all rejected; indeed such issue was inevitable from +the first, if the Senate of Milan were not determined to abdicate the +primary functions of a judicial tribunal. Gian Battista was condemned to +death, but a strange condition was annexed to the sentence, to wit that +his life would be spared, if the prosecutors, the Seroni family, could be +induced to consent. But their consent was only to be gained by the payment +of a sum of money entirely beyond Cardan's means, their demand having been +stimulated through some foolish boasting of the family wealth by the +condemned prisoner.[195] Cardan was powerless to arrest the course of the +law, and Gian Battista was executed in prison on the night of April 7, +1560. + +In the whole world of biographic record it would be hard to find a figure +more pathetic than that of Cardan fighting for the life of his unworthy +son. No other episode of his career wins from the reader sympathy half so +deep. The experience of these terrible days certainly shook still further +off its balance a mind not over steady in its calmest moments. Cardan +wrote voluminously and laboriously over Gian Battista's fate, but in his +dirges and lamentations he never lets fall an expression of detestation or +regret with regard to the crime itself: all his soul goes out in +celebrating the charm and worth of his son, and in moaning over the ruin +of mind, body, and estate which had fallen upon him through this cruel +stroke of adverse fate. When he sat down to write the _De Vita Propria_, +Cardan was strongly possessed with the belief that all through his career +he had been subject to continuous and extraordinary persecution at the +hands of his enemies. The entire thirtieth chapter is devoted to the +description of these plots and assaults. In his earlier writings he +attributes his calamities to evil fate and the influences of the stars; +his wit was indeed great, and assuredly it was allied to madness, so it is +not impossible that these personal foes who dogged his steps were largely +the creatures of an old man's monomaniacal fancies. The persecution, he +affirms, began to be so bitter as to be almost intolerable after the +condemnation of Gian Battista. "Certain members of the Senate afterwards +admitted (though I am sure they would be loth that men should hold them +capable of such a wish) that they condemned my son to death in the hope +that I might be killed likewise, or at least might lose my wits, and the +powers above can bear witness how nearly one of these ills befell me. I +would that you should know what these times were like, and what practices +were in fashion. I am well assured that I never wrought offence to any of +these men, even by my shadow. I took advice how I might put forward a +defence of some kind on my son's behalf, but what arguments would have +prevailed with minds so exasperated against me as were theirs?"[196] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[176] _De Vita Propria_, p. 57. + +[177] "In ore illud semper ei erat: Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum, qui +ipse est fons omnium virtutum."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iii. p. 7. +Reginald Scot, in the _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, says that the aforesaid +exclamation of Fazio was the Paracelsian charm to drive away spirits that +haunt any house. There is a passage in _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. +p. 600) which gives Fazio's view of happiness after death:--"Memineram +patrem meum, Facium Cardanum, cum viveret, in ore semper habuisse, se +mortem optare, quod nullum suavius tempus experiretur, qu[a=] id in quo +profundissime dormiens omnium quae in hac vita fiunt expers esset." + +[178] Cardan gives his impressions of musicians:--"Unde nostra aetate +neminem ferine musicum invenias, qui non omni redundat vitiorum genere. +Itaque hujusmodi musica maximo impedimento non solum pauperi et negotioso +viro est, sed etiam omnibus generaliter. Quin etiam virorum egregiorum +nostrae aetatis neminem musicum agnovimus, Erasmum, Alciatum, Budaeum, +Jasonem, Vesalium, Gesnerum. At vero quod domum everterit meam, si dicam, +vera fatebor meo more. Nam et pecuniae non levem jacturam feci, et quod +majus est, filiorum mores corrupi. Sunt enim plerique ebrii, gulosi, +procaces, inconstantes, impatientes, stolidi, inertes, omnisque libidinis +genere coinquinati. Optimi quique inter illos stulti sunt."--_De +Utilitate_, p. 362. + +[179] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xiii. p. 45. + +[180] "Quid profuit haec tua industria, quis infelicior in filiis? quorum +alter male periit: alter nec regi potest nec regere?"--_Opera_, tom. i. p. +109. + +[181] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 614. + +[182] "In caeteris erit elegans, splendidus, humanus, gravis et qui ab +omnibus, potentioribusque, praesertim probetur."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. +464. + +[183] "A scorto nuntius venit."--_De Utilitate_, p. 833. + +[184] This incident is taken from the _De Utilitate_, which was written +soon after the events chronicled. The account given in the _De Vita +Propria_, written twenty years later, differs in some details. "Venio +domum, accurrit famulus admodum tristis, nunciat Johannem Baptistam +duxisse uxorem Brandoniam Seronam."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 147. + +[185] Cardan in describing this action of Gian Battista, who was then +determined to murder his wife, says of him: "Erat enim natura clemens +admodum et gratus."--_De Utilitate_, p. 834. + +[186] "Triduana illa disceptatio Papiae cum Camutio instituta, publicata +apud Senatum: ipse primo argumento primae diei siluit."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xii. p. 37. This does not exactly tally with Camutio's version. With +regard to Cardan's assertion that his colleagues hesitated to meet him in +medical discussion it may be noted that Camutio printed a book at Pavia in +1563, with the following title: "Andraeae Camutii disputationes quibus +Hieronymi Cardani magni nominis viri conclusiones infirmantur, Galenus ab +ejusdem injuria vindicatur, Hippocratis praeterea aliquot loca diligentius +multo quam unquam alias explicantur." In his version (_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xii. p. 37) Cardan inquires sarcastically: "Habentur ejusdem imagines +quaedam typis excusae in Camutii monumentis." + +[187] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 39. The Third Book of the +_Theonoston_ (_Opera_, tom. ii. p. 403) is in the form of a disputation, +"De animi immortalite," with this same Branda. + +[188] In his defence at the trial Cardan affirmed that, while Brandonia +was lying sick from eating the cake, her mother and the nurse quarrelled +and fought, and finally fell down upon the sick woman. When the fight was +over Brandonia was dead. In _Opera_, tom. ii. p. 311 (_Theonoston_, lib. +i.) he writes: "Obiit illa non veneno, sed vi morbi atque Fato quo tam +inclytus juvenis morte sua, omnia turbare debuerat." + +[189] "Vocatus sum enim ad Ducem Suessanum ex Ticinensi Academia accepique +C. aureos coronatos et dona ex serico."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. +138. + +[190] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 153. + +[191] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 671. He cites the names of former Governors of +Milan and other patrons, many of them harsh men, and not one as kind and +beneficent as the Duca di Sessa; to wit Antonio Leva, Cardinal Caracio, +Alfonso d'Avalos, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Cardinal of Trent, and the Duca +d'Alba. Yet the rule of his best friend brought him his worst misfortune. + +[192] There is a full account of the trial in an appendix to the _De +Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda_ (Basel, 1561). It is not included in the +edition hitherto cited. + +[193] Laudabatur ejus benignitas aC simul factum Io. Petri Solarii +tabellionis, qui cum filium spurium convictum haberet de veneficio, in +duas sorores legitimas, solum haereditatis consequendae causa, satis habuit +damnasse illum ad triremes."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33. + +[194] "Evasit nuper ob constantiam in tormentis famulus filii mei, qui +pretio venenum dederat dominae sine causa: periit filius meus, qui nec +jusserat dari."--_De Utilitate_, p. 339. + +[195] Gian Battista seems to have boasted about the family wealth, and +thus stirred up the Seroni to demand an excessive and impossible sum. "Haec +et alia hujusmodi cum protulissem, non valere, nisi eousque, ut decretum +sit, si impetrare pacem potuissem vitae parceretur. Sed non potuit filii +stultitia, qui dum jactat opes quae non sunt, illi quod non erat +exigunt."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 34. + +[196] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +CARDAN had risen to high and well-deserved fame, and this fact alone might +account for the existence of jealousy and ill-feeling amongst certain of +those whom he had passed in the race. Some men, it is true, rise to +eminence without making more than a few enemies, but Cardan was not one of +these. His foes must have been numerous and truculent, the assault they +delivered must have been deadly and overwhelming to have brought to such +piteous wreck fortunes which seemed to rest upon the solid ground of +desert. The public voice might accuse him of folly, but assuredly not of +crime; he was the victim and not the culprit; his skill as a physician was +as great as ever, but these considerations weighed little with the hounds +who were close upon his traces. Now that the tide of his fortune seemed to +be on the ebb they gathered around him. He writes: "And this, in sooth, +was the chief, the culminating misfortune of my life: forasmuch as I could +not with any show of decency be kept in my office, nor could I be +dismissed without some more valid excuse, I could neither continue to +reside in Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As I walked +about the city men looked askance at me; and whenever I might be forced to +exchange words with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus, +being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I shunned my friends. I +had no notion what I should do, or whither I should go. I cannot say +whether I was more wretched in myself than I was odious to my +fellows."[197] + +Cardan gathered a certain amount of consolation from meditating over the +ills which befell all those who were concerned in Gian Battista's fate. +The Senator Falcutius, a man of the highest character in other respects, +died about four months later, exclaiming with his dying breath that he was +undone through the brutal ignorance of a certain man, who had been eager +for the death sentence. One Hala shortly afterwards followed Falcutius to +the grave, having fallen sick with phthisis immediately after the trial. +Rigone, the President of the Court, lost his wife, and gave her burial +bereft of the usual decencies of the last rite, a thing which Cardan says +he could not have believed, had he not been assured of the same by the +testimony of many witnesses. It was reported too, that Rigone himself, +though a man of good reputation, was forced to feign death in order to +escape accusation on some charge or other. His only son had died shortly +before, so it might be said with reason that his house was as it were +thrown under an evil spell by the avenging Furies of the youth whom he had +sent to die in a dungeon. Again, within a few days the prosecutor himself, +Evangelista Seroni, the man who was the direct cause of his son-in-law's +death, was thrown into prison, and, having been deprived of his office of +debt collector, became a beggar. Moreover, the son whom he specially loved +was condemned to death in Sicily, and died on the gallows. Public and +private calamity fell upon the Duca di Sessa,[198] the Governor of Milan, +doubtless because he had allowed the law to take its course. Indeed every +person great or small who had been concerned in Gian Battista's +condemnation, was, by Cardan's showing, overtaken by grave misfortune. + +Cardan still held his Professorship at Pavia, and in spite of the +difficulties and embarrassments of his position he went back to resume his +work of teaching a few days after the fatal issue of his son's trial and +condemnation. By the pathetic simplicity of its diction the following +extract gives a vivid and piteous picture of the utter desolation and +misery into which he was cast: it shows likewise that, after a lapse of +fifteen years, the memory of his shame and sorrow was yet green, and that +a powerful stimulus had been given to his superstitious fancies by the +events lately chronicled. "In the month of May, in the year MDLX, a time +when sleep had refused to come to me because of my grief for my son's +death: when I could get no relief from fasting nor from the flagellation I +inflicted upon my legs when I rode abroad, nor from the game of chess +which I then played with Ercole Visconti, a youth very dear to me, and +like myself troubled with sleeplessness, I prayed God to have pity upon +me, because I felt that I must needs die, or lose my wits, or at least +give up my work as Professor, unless I got some sleep, and that soon. Were +I to resign my office, I could find no other means of earning my bread: if +I should go mad I must become a laughing-stock to all. I must in any case +lavish what still remained of my patrimony, for at my advanced age I could +not hope to find fresh employment. Therefore I besought God that He would +send me death, which is the lot of all men. I went to bed: it was already +late, and, as I must needs rise at four in the morning, I should not have +more than two hours' rest. Sleep, however, fell upon me at once, and +meseemed that I heard a voice speaking to me out of the darkness. I could +discern naught, so it was impossible to say what voice it was, or who was +the speaker. It said, 'What would you have?' or 'What are you grieving +over?' and added, 'Is it that you mourn for your son's death?' I replied, +'Can you doubt this?' Then the voice answered, 'Take the stone which is +hanging round your neck and place it to your mouth, and so long as you +hold it there you will not be troubled with thoughts of your son.' Here I +awoke, and at once asked myself what this beryl stone could have to do +with sleep, but after a little, when I found no other means of escape from +my trouble, I called to mind the words spoken of a certain man: 'He hoped +even beyond hope, and it was accounted to him as righteousness' (spoken of +Abraham), and put the stone in my mouth, whereupon a thing beyond belief +came to pass. In a moment all remembrance of my son faded from my mind, +and the same thing happened when I fell asleep a second time after being +aroused."[199] + +The record of Cardan's life for the next two years is a meagre one. His +rest was constantly disturbed either by the machinations of his foes or by +the dread thereof, the evil last-named being probably the more noxious of +the two. As long ago as 1557 he had begun the treatise _De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda_, a work giving evidence of careful construction, and +one which, as a literary performance, takes the first rank.[200] This book +had been put aside, either through pressure of other work or family +troubles, but now the circumstances in which he found himself seemed +perfectly congenial for the elaboration of a subject of this nature, so he +set to work to finish it, concluding with the chapter _De Luctu_, which +has been used largely as the authority for the foregoing narrative of Gian +Battista's crime and death. At this period, when his mind was fully stored +and his faculties adequately disciplined for the production of the best +work, he seems to have realized with sharp regret that the time before him +was so short, and that whatever fresh fruit of knowledge he might put +forth would prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his +replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him +problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack +of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In +his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three +very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a +marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? If he had written this +treatise when he was thirty he would straightway have risen to fame and +fortune, in spite of his poverty, his rivals, and his enemies. Then, in +ten years' space, he would have finished and brought out all those books +which were now lying unfinished around him in his old age; and moreover +would have won so great gain and glory, that no farther good fortune +would have remained for him to ask for. Another work which he had begun +about the same time (1558) was the treatise on _Dialectic_, illustrated by +geometrical problems and theorems, and likewise by the well-known logical +catch lines _Barbara Celarent_. During the summer vacation of 1561 he +returned to Milan, and began a _Commentary on the Anatomy of Mundinus_, +the recognized text-book of the schools up to the appearance of Vesalius. +In the preface to this work he puts forward a vigorous plea for the +extended use of anatomy in reaching a diagnosis.[201] He had likewise on +hand the _Theonoston_, a set of essays on Moral subjects written something +in the spirit of Seneca; and, after Gian Battista's death, he wrote the +dialogue _Tetim, seu de Humanis Consiliis_. In the year following, 1561, a +farther sorrow and trouble came upon him by the death of the English +youth, William. If he was guilty of neglect in the case of this young +man--and by his own confession he was--he was certainly profoundly grieved +at his death. In the Argument to the _Dialogus de Morte_ he laments that +he ever let the youth leave his house without sending him back to England, +and tells how he was cozened by Daldo, the crafty tailor, out of a premium +of thirty-one gold crowns, in return for which William was to be taught a +trade. "But during the summer, Daldo, who had a little farm in the +country, took the youth there and let him join in the village games, and +by degrees made him into a vinedresser. But if at any time it chanced that +William's services were also wanted at the tailor's shop, his master would +force him to return thereto in the evening (for the farm was two miles +distant), and sit sewing all the night. Besides this the boy would go +dancing with the villagers, and in the course of their merry-making he +fell in love with a girl. While I was living at Milan he was taken with +fever, and came to me; but, for various reasons, I did not give proper +attention to him, first, because he himself made light of his ailment; +second, because I knew not that his sickness had been brought on by +excessive toil and exposure to the sun; and third, because, when he had +been seized with a similar distemper on two or three occasions before +this, he had always got well within four or five days. Besides this I was +then in trouble owing to the running away of my son Aldo and one of my +servants. What more is there to tell? Four days after I had ordered him to +be bled, messengers came to me in the night and begged me to go and see +him, for he was apparently near his end. He was seized with convulsions +and lost his senses, but I battled with the disease and brought him round. +I was obliged to return to Pavia to resume my teaching, and William, when +he was well enough to get up, was forced to sleep in the workshop by his +master, who had been bidden to a wedding. There he suffered so much from +cold and bad food that, when he was setting out for Pavia to seek me, he +was again taken ill. His unfeeling master caused him to be removed to the +poor-house, and there he died the following morning from the violence of +the distemper, from agony of mind, and from the cold he had suffered. +Indeed I was so heavily stricken by mischance that meseemed I had lost +another son." + +It was partly as a consolation in his own grief, and partly as a monument +to the ill-fated youth, that Cardan wrote the _Dialogus de Morte_, a work +which contains little of interest beyond the record of Cardan's +impressions of Englishmen already quoted. But it was beyond hope that he +should find adequate solace for the gnawing grief and remorse which +oppressed him in this, or any other literary work. He was ill looked upon +at Milan, but his position at Pavia seems to have been still more irksome. +He grew nervous as to his standing as a physician, for, with the powerful +prejudice which had been raised against him both as to his public and his +private affairs, he felt that a single slip in his treatment of any +particular case would be fatal to him. In Milan he did meet with a certain +amount of gratitude from the wealthier citizens for the services he had +wrought them; but in Pavia, his birthplace, the public mind was strongly +set against him; indeed in 1562 he was subjected to so much petty +persecution at the hands of the authorities and of his colleagues, that he +determined to give up his Professorship at all cost. He describes at great +length one of the most notable intrigues against him. "Now in dealing with +the deadly snares woven against my life, I will tell you of something +strange which befell me. During my Professorship at Pavia I was in the +habit of reading in my own house. I had in my household at that time a +woman to do occasional work, the youth Ercole Visconti, two boys, and +another servant. Of the two boys, one was my amanuensis and well skilled +in music, and the other was a lackey. It was in 1562 that I made up my +mind to resign my office of teaching and quit Pavia, a resolution which +the Senate took in ill part, and dealt with me as with a man transported +with rage. But there were two doctors of the city who strove with all +their might to drive me away: one a crafty fellow who had formerly been a +pupil of mine; the other was the teacher extraordinary in Medicine, a +simple-minded man, and, as I take it, not evil by nature; but covetous and +ambitious men will stop at nothing, especially when the prize to be won is +an office held in high esteem. Thus, when they despaired of getting rid +of me through the action of the Senate--what though I was petitioning to +be relieved of my duties--they laid a plot to kill me, not by the dagger +for fear of the Senate and of possible scandal, but by malignant craft. My +opponent perceived that he could not be promoted to the post of principal +teacher unless I should leave the place, and for this reason he and his +allies spread their nets from a distance. In the first place, they caused +to be written to me, in the name of my son-in-law[202] and of my daughter +as well, a most vile and filthy letter telling how they were ashamed of +their kinship with me; that they were ashamed likewise for the sake of the +Senate, and of the College; and that the authorities ought to take +cognizance of the matter and pronounce me unworthy of the office of +teacher and cause me to be removed therefrom forthwith. Confounded at +receiving such an impudent and audacious reproof at the hands of my own +kindred, I knew not what to do or say, or what reply I should make; nor +could I divine for what reason this unseemly and grievous affront had been +put upon me. It afterwards came to light that the letter was written in +order to serve as an occasion for fresh attacks; for, before many days had +passed, another letter came to me bearing the name of one Fioravanti, +written in the following strain. This man was likewise shocked for the +sake of the city, the college, and the body of professors, seeing that a +report had been spread abroad that I was guilty of abominable offences +which cannot be named. He would call upon a number of his friends to take +steps to compel me to consider the public scandal I was causing, and would +see that the houses where these offences were committed should be pointed +out. When I read this letter I was as one stupefied, nor could I believe +it was the work of Fioravanti, whom I had hitherto regarded as a man of +seemly carriage and a friend. But this letter and its purport remained +fixed in my mind and prompted me to reply to my son-in-law; for I believed +no longer that he had aught to do with the letter which professed to come +from him; indeed I ought never to have harboured such a suspicion, seeing +that both then and now he has always had the most kindly care for me; nor +has he ever judged ill of me. + +"I called for my cloak at once and went to Fioravanti, whom I questioned +about the letter. He admitted that he wrote it, whereupon I was more than +ever astonished, for I was loth to suspect him of crooked dealing, much +more of any premeditated treachery. I began to reason with him, and to +inquire where all these wonderful plans had been concocted, and then he +began to waver, and failed to find an answer. He could only put forward +common report, and the utterances of the Rector of the Gymnasium, as the +source of them."[203] + +Cardan goes on to connect the foregoing incident, by reasoning which is +not very clear, with what he maintained to have been a veritable attempt +against his life. "The first act of the tragedy having come to an end, the +second began, and this threw certain light upon the first. My foes made it +their special care that I, whom they held up as a disgrace to my country, +to my family, to the Senate, to the Colleges of Milan and Pavia, to the +Council of Professors, and to the students, should become a member of the +Accademia degli Affidati, a society in which were enrolled divers +illustrious theologians, two Cardinals, and two princes, the Duke of +Mantua, and the Marquis Pescara. When they perceived how loth I was to +take this step they began to threaten. What was I to do, broken down by +the cruel fate of my son, and suffering every possible evil? Finally I +agreed, induced by the promise they made me, that, in the course of a few +days, I should be relieved of my duties as Professor; but I did not then +perceive the snare, or consider how it was that they should now court the +fellowship of one whom, less than fifteen days ago, all ranks of the +College had declared to be a monster not to be tolerated. Alas for faith +in heaven, for the barbarity of men, for the hatred of false friends, for +that shamelessness and cruelty more fell than serpent's bite! What more is +there to tell? The first time I entered the room of the Affidati I saw +that a heavy beam had been poised above in such fashion that it might +easily fall and kill whatsoever person might be passing underneath. +Whether this had been done by accident or design I cannot say. But +hereafter I attended as rarely as possible, making excuses for my absence; +and, when I did go, I went when no one looked for me, and out of season, +taking good heed of this trap the while. Wherefore no evil befell me +thereby, either because my foes deemed it unwise to work such wickedness +in public, or because they had not finally agreed to put their scheme in +operation, or because they were plotting some fresh evil against me. +Another attempt was made a few days later, when I was called to the ailing +son of one Piero Trono, a surgeon; they placed high over the door a leaden +weight which might easily be made to fall, pretending that it had been put +there to hold up the curtain. This weight did fall; and, had it struck me, +it would certainly have killed me: how near I was to death, God knows. +Wherefore I began to be suspicious of something I could not define, so +greatly was my mind upset. Then a third attempt was made, which was +evident enough. A few days later, when they were about to sing a new Mass, +the same rascally crew came to me, asking me whether I would lend them the +services of my two singing boys, for my enemies knew well enough that +these boys acted as my cup-bearers, and over and beyond this they made an +agreement with my hired woman that she should give me poison. They first +went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he, +suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his +fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one +of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on +getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for +we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one +of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' Then +Ercole said somewhat vaguely that he would ask his master. He came to me, +having fathomed and laid bare the whole intention of the plot, so that, if +I had not been stark mad and stupid, I might easily have seen through +their design. Fifteen days or so had passed when the same men once more +sought me out and begged me to let them have the two boys to help them in +the performance of a comedy. Then Ercole came to me and said, 'Now in +sooth the riddle is plain to read; they are planning to get all your +people away from your table, so that they may kill you with poison; nor +are they satisfied with plotting your death merely by tricks of this sort; +they are determined to kill you by any chance which may offer."[204] + +How far these plots were real, and how far they sprang from monomania it +is impossible to say. Cardan's relations with his brother physicians had +never been of the happiest, and it is quite possible that a set may have +been made in the Pavian Academy to get rid of a colleague, difficult to +live with at the best, and now cankered still more in temper by +misfortune, and likewise, in a measure, disgraced by the same. Surrounded +by annoyances such as these, and tormented by the intolerable memories and +associations of the last few years, it is not wonderful that he should +seek a way out of his troubles by a change of scene and occupation. + +As early as 1536 Cardan had had professional relations with certain +members of the Borromeo family, which was one of the most illustrious in +Milan, and in 1560 Carlo Borromeo was appointed Archbishop of Milan. There +is no record of the date when Cardan first made acquaintance with this +generous patron, who was the nephew of the reigning Pope, Pius IV., +himself a Milanese, but it is certain that Cardan had at an earlier date +successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,[205] wherefore it +is legitimate to assume that the physician was _persona grata_ to the +whole family. As soon as Cardan had determined to withdraw from Pavia he +applied to the Cardinal, who had just made a magnificent benefaction to +Bologna in the form of the University buildings. He espoused Cardan's +interests at once, and most opportunely, for the protection of a powerful +personage was almost as needful at Bologna, as the sequel shows, as it +would have been at Pavia. It was evident that Cardan had foes elsewhere +than in Pavia; indeed the early stages of the negotiation, which went on +in reference to his transfer to Bologna, suggest a doubt whether the +change would bring him any advantage other than the substitution of one +set of enemies for another. He writes: "When I was about to be summoned +to teach at Bologna, some persons of that place who were envious of my +reputation sent a certain officer (a getter-up of petitions) to Pavia. Now +this fellow, who never once entered the class-room, nor had a word with +any one of my pupils, wrote, on what authority I know not, a report in +these words: 'Concerning Girolamo Cardano, I am told that he taught in +this place, but got no pupils, always lecturing to empty benches: that he +is a man of evil life, ill regarded by all, and little less than a fool, +repulsive in his manners, and entirely unskilled in medicine. After he had +promulgated certain of his opinions he found no one in the city who would +employ him, nor did he practise his art.' + +"These words were read to the Senate by the messenger on his return in the +presence of the illustrious Borromeo, the Pope's Legate to the city. The +Senate were upon the point of breaking off all further negotiations, but +while the man was reading his report, some one present heard the words in +which he declared that I did not practise medicine. 'Hui!' he cried, 'I +know that is not true, for I myself have seen divers men of the highest +consideration going to him for help, and I--though I am not to be ranked +with them--have often consulted him myself.' Then the Legate took up the +parole and said, 'I too bear witness that he cured my own mother when she +was given up by every one else.' Then the first speaker suggested that +probably the rest of the tale was just as worthy of belief as this one +statement, the Legate agreeing thereto; whereupon the messenger aforesaid +held his tongue and blushed for shame. Ultimately the Senate determined to +appoint me Professor for one year, 'for,' they said, 'if he should prove +to be the sort of man the officer describes, or if his teaching should +profit us nothing, we can let him go; but if it be otherwise, the +contract may be ratified.' With regard to the salary, over which a dispute +had already arisen, the Legate gave his consent, and the business came to +an end. + +"But, disregarding this settlement, my opponents urged one of their number +to wait upon me as a delegate from the Senate, and this man would fain +have added to the terms already sanctioned by the Senate, others which I +could not possibly accept. He offered me a smaller stipend, no teaching +room was assigned to me, and no allowance for travelling expenses. I +refused to treat with him, whereupon he was forced to depart, and to +return to me later on with the terms of my engagement duly set +forth."[206] + +It was in June 1562 that Cardan finally resigned his position at Pavia, +but it was not until some months after this date that the final agreement +with the Bolognese Senate, lately referred to, was concluded, and in the +interim he was forced to suffer no slight annoyance and persecution at the +hands of his adversaries in Pavia, in Bologna, and in Milan as well. Just +before he resigned his Professorship he was warned by the portentous +kindling of a fire, seemingly dead,[207] that fresh mischief was afoot, +and he at once determined in his mind that his foes had planned +destruction against him afresh. So impressed was he at this manifestation +that he swore he would not leave home on the day following. "But early in +the morning there came to my house four or five of my pupils bidding me to +a feast, where all the chief Professors of the Gymnasium and the Academy +proposed to be present. I replied that I could not come, whereupon +they, knowing that it was not my wont to dine in the middle of the day, +and deeming that it was on this score that I refused to join them, said, +'Then for your sake we will make the feast a supper.' I answered that I +could not on any account make one of their party, and then they demanded +to know the cause of my refusal. I replied it was because of a strange +event which had befallen me, and of a vow I had made thereanent. At this +they were greatly astonished, and two of them exchanged significant +glances, and they urged me again and again that I should not be so firmly +set upon marring so illustrious a gathering by my absence, but I gave back +the same answer as before."[208] They came a second time, but Cardan was +not to be moved. He records, however, that he did break his vow after all +by going out after dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill. + +It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in what seems, by +contemporary daylight, to have been a complimentary invitation to dinner; +but to the old man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this +episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault against his life. He +finds some compensation, however, in once more recording the fact that all +these disturbers of his peace--like the men who were concerned in Gian +Battista's condemnation--came to a bad end. His rival, who had taken his +place as Professor, had not taught in the schools more than three or four +times before he was seized with disease and died after three months' +suffering. "Upon him there lay only the suspicion of the charge, but I +heard afterwards that a friend of his was certainly privy to the deed of +murder which they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup of +poisoned wine at the supper. In the same year died Delfino, and a little +while after Fioravanti."[209] + +In July Cardan withdrew to Milan, where, to add to his other troubles, he +was seized with an attack of fever. He was now thoroughly alarmed at the +look of his affairs. Many of his fears may have been imaginary, but the +burden of real trouble which he had to carry was one which might easily +bring him to the ground, and, when once a man is down, the crowd has +little pity or scruple in trampling him to death. He set about to review +his position, and to spy out all possible sources of danger. He writes: "I +called to mind all the books I had written, and, seeing that in them there +were many obscure passages upon which an unfavourable meaning might be put +by the malice of my enemies, I wrote to the Council, submitting all my +writings to its judgment and will and pleasure. By this action I saved +myself from grave danger and disgrace in the future."[210] The Council to +which Cardan here refers was probably the Congregation of the Index +appointed by the Council at Trent for the authoritative examination of all +books before allowing them to be read by the faithful. Before the close of +the Council (1563) these duties had been handed over to the Pope (Pius +IV.), who published the revised and definite Roman Index in 1564. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[197] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71. + +[198] "Quin etiam dominus ac Princeps alioquin generosus et humanus, cum +ipsum ob invidiam meam et accusatorum multitudinem deseruisset, et ipse +multis modis conflictatus est gravibus morbis, caede propriae neptis a +conjuge suo, litibus gravibus: tum etiam subsecuta calamitas publica, +Zotophagite insula amissa, classe regia dissipata."--_De Vita Propria_, +ch. xli. p. 153. The island alluded to must have been _Lotophagites +insula_, an island near the Syrtes Minor on the African coast, and the +loss of the same probably refers to some disaster during the Imperialist +wars against the Moors. + +[199] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 160. + +[200] Cardan rates it as his best work on an ethical subject.--_Opera_, +tom i. p. 146. And on p. 115 he writes: "Utinam contigisset absolvere ante +errorem filii; neque enim ille errasset, nec errandi causam aliquam +habuisset: nec, etiamsi errasset, periisset." He also quotes a letter full +of sound and loving counsels which he had sent to Gian Battista six months +before he fell into the snare. + +[201] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 129. + +[202] Bartolomeo Sacco was evidently living at Pavia at this date. + +[203] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 83. + +[204] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 86. + +[205] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 55. + +[206] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 54. + +[207] _Ibid.,_ ch. xxx. p. 88. There is also a long account of this +occurrence in _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459. + +[208] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 89. + +[209] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 90. + +[210] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 460. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +WHILE Cardan was lying sick at Milan, a messenger came from Pavia, begging +him to hasten thither to see his infant grandson, who had been ailing when +he left Pavia, and was now much worse. The journey under the burning sun +of the hottest summer known for many years aggravated his malady, but he +brought the child out of danger. He caught erysipelas in the face, and to +this ailment succeeded severe trouble with the teeth. If it had not been +for the fact that the time of the new moon had been near, he says that he +must have submitted to blood-letting; but after the new moon his health +mended, and thus he escaped the two-fold danger--that of the disease, and +that of the lancet. He tells of an attempt made against his life by a +servant for the sake of robbery, an attempt which came very near success; +and of a severe attack of gout in the knee. After a month's confinement to +his house he began to practise Medicine; and, finding patients in plenty, +he nourished a hope that Fortune had done her worst, and that he might be +allowed to repair his shattered fortunes by the exercise of his calling, +but the activity of his adversaries--which may or may not have been +provoked solely by malignity--was unsleeping. He hints at further attempts +against his good name and his life, and gives at length some painful +details of another charge made against him of an infamous character. It +is almost certain that his way was made all the harder for him from the +complaints which he had put in print about the indifference of the Duca di +Sessa to his interests at the time of Gian Battista's trial. The Milanese +doctors had no love for him, and every petulant word he might let fall +would almost surely be brought to the Governor's ears. By Cardan's own +admission it appears that utterances of this sort were both frequent and +acrid. There was a certain physician of the city who wished to place his +son gratis in Cardan's household. Cardan, however, refused, whereupon the +physician in question called attention to a certain book in which Cardan +had made some remarks to the effect that the friendship of the Duca di +Sessa had been a fatal one to him, inasmuch as, having trusted too +entirely to this friendship for his support, he had let go other interests +which might have served him better. The physician aforesaid made a second +application to Cardan to receive his son, offering this time to intercede +with the Governor on his behalf. This proposition roused the old man's +anger, and he exclaimed that he had no need of such friendship or +protection; that in fact the interruption of their good understanding had +come about more by his own act than the Governor's, who had been either +unable or unwilling to save Gian Battista's life. The doctor replied, in +the presence of divers persons, that Gian Battista had perished through +his own foolishness: if he had not confessed he would never have been +condemned; that the Senate had condemned him and not the Duca di Sessa, +and that Cardan was now slandering this prince most unjustly. A lot of +busy-bodies had by this time been attracted by the wrangle, and these +heard the doctor's accusations in full, but gathered a very imperfect +notion of Cardan's reply. He indignantly denied this charge, and in his +own account of the scene he affirms that he won the approbation of all who +listened, by the moderation of his bearing and speech. + +Four days after this occurrence he again met this physician, who declared +he knew for certain that a kinsman of the Duca di Sessa, a hot-tempered +man, had just read some slanders written by Cardan about the Duke, and had +declared he would cut the writer in half and throw his remains into the +jakes; the physician went on to say that he had appeased this gentleman's +resentment, and that Cardan had now no cause for fear. Cardan at once saw +through the dishonesty of the fellow, who was not content with bringing +forward an unjust accusation, but must likewise subject him to these +calumnies and the consequent dangers. After a bout of wrangling, in which +the physician sought vainly to win from him an acknowledgment of the +service he had wrought, the malicious fellow shouted out to the crowd +which had gathered around them that Cardan persisted in his infamous +slanders against the Governor. Wanton as the charge was, Cardan felt that +with his present unpopularity it might easily grow into a fatal danger. +Might was right in Milan as far as he was concerned, but he determined +that he must make a stand against this pestilent fellow. By good luck he +met some friends, to whom he told the adventure; and while he was +speaking, the gentleman who was said to have threatened him, and the +slanderous physician as well, joined the gathering; whereupon one of +Cardan's friends repeated the whole story to the gentleman; who, as he was +quite unversed in letters, was hugely diverted at hearing himself set down +as a student, and told the physician that he was a fool, thereby +delivering Cardan at least from this annoyance. + +He had refused the terms which the party opposed to him in the Senate at +Bologna had sent for his acceptance, and was still waiting to hear whether +they would carry out their original propositions. It was during this time +of suspense that he was subjected to strange and inexplicable treatment at +the hands of the Milanese Senate, treatment which, viewed by the light of +his own report--the only one extant--seems very harsh and unjust. He +writes: "At the time when I was greatly angered by the action of the +Bolognese agent, four of the Senators persuaded me to seek practice once +more in Milan, wherefore I, having altered my plans, began to try to earn +an honest living, for I reckoned that the Senate of Milan knew that I had +rejected the offers from Bologna, since these offers were unjust in +themselves, and put before me in unjust fashion. But afterwards, although +the same iniquitous terms were offered to me, I accepted them, not indeed +because I was satisfied therewith, but because of my necessity, and so +that I might be free from those dangers which, as I have before stated, +pressed upon me in those days. The reason why I took this step was that +the Senate, by most unexpected action, removed my name from the lists of +those licensed to teach; nor was this all. They warned me by a message +that they had recently given hearing to a double charge against me of very +grave offences, and that nothing but my position, and the interests of the +College, kept them back from laying me in hold. Nevertheless, influenced +by these considerations, they had been moved to reduce my punishment to +that of exile. But neither my good fortune nor God deserted me; for on the +same day certain things came to pass by means of which I was able, with a +single word, to free myself from all suspicion upon either charge, and to +prove my innocence. Moreover, I forced them to admit that no mention of +this affair had ever been made before the Senate, although two graduates +had informed me that it had been discussed."[211] + +The Senate, however, was reluctant to stultify its late action, and +refused to restore Cardan's name to the list of teachers. But he was put +right in the sight of the world by the sharp censure pronounced by the +Senate upon those busy-bodies who had ventured to speak in its name. +Cardan's last days in Milan were cheered with a brief gleam of good +fortune. His foes seem to have overshot the mark, and to have aroused +sympathy for the old man, who, whatever his faults, was alike an honour to +his country and the victim of fortune singularly cruel. The city took him +under its protection, assured of his innocence as to the widespread +charges against him, and pitying his misfortunes. His friend Borromeo had +probably been forwarding his interests at the Papal Court, for he records +that, just at this time, certain Cardinals and men of weight wrote to him +from Rome in kindly and flattering terms. On November 16, 1562, the +messenger from the Senate of Bologna arrived at Milan, bearing an offer of +slightly more liberal terms. They were not so favourable as Cardan wished +for; but, even had they been worse, he would probably have closed with +them. In spite of the benevolent attitude of his well-wishers in Milan, it +irked him to be there; the faces in the streets, the town gossip, all +tended to recall to him the death of his son, so he departed at once to +take up his duties. + +At Bologna Cardan went first to live in a hired house in the Via Gombru. +Aldo was nominally a member of his household; but his presence must have +been a plague rather than a comfort to his father, and he took with him +likewise his orphan grandson, the son of Gian Battista and Brandonia, whom +he destined to make his heir on account of Aldo's ill conduct.[212] This +young man seems to have been a hopeless scoundrel from the first. The +ratio in which fathers apportion their affection amongst their offspring +is a very capricious one, and Cardan may have been fully as wide of the +mark in chiding his younger as he was in lauding the talents and virtues +of his elder son. But it is certain that on several occasions the +authorities shared Cardan's view of Aldo's ill behaviour. More than once +he alludes to the young reprobate's shameful conduct, and the intolerable +annoyance caused by the same. Many of the ancient rights of parents over +their children, which might to-day be deemed excessive, were still +operative in the cities of Italy, and Cardan readily invoked the help of +them in trying to work reformation of a sort upon Aldo, whom he caused to +be imprisoned more than once, and finally to be banished.[213] The +numerous hitches which delayed his final call to Bologna were probably due +to the fact that a certain party amongst the teachers there were opposed +to his appointment, and things did not run too smoothly after he had taken +up his residence in his new home. It was not in Cardan's nature, however +much he may have been cowed and broken down by misfortune, to mix with men +inimical to himself without letting them have a taste of his quality. He +records one skirmish which he had with Fracantiano, the Professor of the +Practice of Medicine, a skirmish which, in its details, resembles so +closely his encounter with Branda Porro, at Pavia, some time before, that +it suggests a doubt whether it ever had a separate existence, and was not +simply a variant of the Branda legend. "It happened that he (Fracantiano) +was giving an account of the passage of the gall into the stomach, and was +speaking in Greek before the whole Academy (he was making the while an +anatomical dissection), when I cried out, 'There is an "[Greek: ou]" +wanting in that sentence.' And as he delayed making any correction of his +error, and I kept on repeating my remark in a low voice, the students +cried out, 'Let the _Codex_ be sent for.' Fracantiano sent for it gladly. +It was brought at once, and when he came to read the passage, he found +that what I had affirmed was true to a hair. He spake not another word, +being overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment. Moreover the students, +who had almost compelled me to come to the lecture, were even more +impressed by what had happened. But from that day forth my opponent +avoided all meeting with me; nay, he even gave orders to his servants that +they should warn him whenever they might see me approaching, and thus he +contrived that we should never foregather. One day when he was teaching +Anatomy, the students brought me, by a trick, into the room, whereupon he +straightway fled, and having entangled his feet in his robe, he fell down +headlong. This accident caused no little confusion, and shortly afterwards +he left the place, being then a man well advanced in years."[214] + +He had not lived long in Bologna before he was fated to experience another +repetition of one of the untoward episodes of his past life, to wit the +fall of a house. It was not his own house this time, but it was +sufficiently near to induce him to change his abode without delay. Next +door to the house he had hired in the Via Gombru stood a palace belonging +to a certain Gramigna. "The entire house fell, and was ruined in a single +night, and together with the house perished the owner thereof." It was +believed that this man had divers powerful enemies, and, in order that he +might secure his position, he contrived to bring certain of his foes into +his house, having first made a mine of gunpowder under the portico, and +set a match thereto. But for some reason or other the plot miscarried the +night when he destined to carry it out. Gramigna went to see what was +amiss, and at that very moment the mine exploded and brought the house to +the ground. After this explosion Cardan moved to a house in the Galera +quarter, belonging to the family of Ranucci; but he did not find this +dwelling perfect, as he was forced to vacate the rooms which were most to +his taste on account of the bad state of the ceilings, the plaster of +which, more than once, fell down upon his head. + +In his _Paralipomena_, "the last fruit off an old tree," which he put +together about this time, there are numerous stories of prodigies and +portents; of doors which would not close, and doors which opened of their +own accord; of rappings on the walls, and of mysterious thunderings and +noises during the night. He tells, at length, the story, already referred +to, of the strange thing which happened to him, on the eve of his +departure from Pavia in 1562, while he was awaiting tidings from Rome as +to his appointment at Bologna. "I wore on the index finger of my right +hand a selenite stone set in a ring, and on my left a jacinth, which I +never took off my finger, this stone being large and hexagonal in shape. +I took the selenite from my finger and put it beneath my pillow, for I +fancied it kept off sleep, wearing still the jacinth because it appeared +to have the opposite effect. I slept until midnight, when I awoke and +missed the ring from my left hand. I called Jacopo Antonio, a boy of +fifteen years of age who acted as my servant and slept in a truckle bed, +and bade him look for my rings. He found the selenite at once where I had +placed it; but though we both of us sought closely for the jacinth we +could not find it. I was sorrowful to death on account of this omen, and +despair seized upon my soul when I remembered the dire consequences of +similar signs, all of which I had duly noted in my writings. I could +scarcely believe this to be a thing happening in the order of nature. +After a short delay I collected my thoughts, and told the servant to bring +a light from the hearth. He replied that he would rather not do this, that +he was afraid of the darkness, and that the fire was always extinguished +in the evening. I bade him light a candle with the flint, when he told me +that we had neither matches nor tinder nor sulphur. I persisted, and +determined that a light should be got by one means or another, for I knew +that, if I should go to sleep under so dire an omen, I must needs perish. +So I ordered him to get a light as best he could. He went away and raked +up the ashes, and found a bit of coal about the bigness of a cherry all +alight, and caught hold of it with the tongs. At the same time I had +little hope of getting a light, but he applied it to the wick of a lamp +and blew thereon. The wick was lighted without any flame issuing from the +live coal, which thing seemed to me a further marvel." + +After a search with the candle the ring was found on the floor under the +middle of the bed, but the marvel was not yet worked out: the ring could +not possibly have got into such a place unless it had been put there by +hand. It could not have rolled there, on account of its shape, nor could +it have fallen from the bed, because the pillow was closely joined to the +head of the bed, round which ran a raised edge with no rift therein. +Cardan concludes: "I know that much may be said over this matter, but +nothing, forsooth, which will convince a man, ever so little inclined to +superstition, that there was no boding sign manifested thereby, +foretelling the ruin of my position and good name. Then, having soothed my +mind, albeit I was well-nigh hopeless, I consoled myself with the belief +that God still protected me." After pondering long and anxiously over the +possible significance of this sign he took a more sanguine view of the +future. He next put the jacinth ring on his finger and bade the boy try to +pull it off, but he tried in vain, so well and closely did the ring fit +the finger. From this time forth Cardan laid aside this ring, after having +worn it for many years as a safeguard against lightning, plague, +wakefulness, and palpitation of the heart.[215] + +Many other instances of a like character might be given from the +_Paralipomena_; but the foregoing will suffice to show that the natural +inclination of Cardan's temper towards the marvellous had been aggravated +by his recent troubles. Also the belief that all men's hands were against +him never slumbered, but for this disposition there may well have been +some justification. Scarcely had he settled in Bologna before an intrigue +was set in motion against him. "After the events aforesaid, and after I +had gone to teach in Bologna, my adversaries, by a trick, managed to +deprive me of the use of a class-room, that is to say they allotted to me +an hour just about the time of dinner, or they gave the class-room at the +very same hour, or a little earlier, to another teacher. When I perceived +that the authorities were unwilling to accede to three distinct +propositions which I made to them, namely, that this other teacher should +begin his lecture sooner and leave off sooner: or that he should teach +alternately with me: I so far got my own way at the next election that the +other lecturer had to do his teaching elsewhere."[216] + +It would appear that the intrigues, of which Cardan gives so many +instances, must have been the work of certain individuals, jealous of his +fame and perhaps smarting under some caustic speech or downright insult, +rather than of the authorities; the Senate of Bologna showed no hostility +to him, but on the other hand procured for him the privileges of +citizenship. While the negotiations were going on at Bologna for the +further regulation of his position as a teacher, he tells a strange story +how, on three or four different occasions, certain men came to him by +night, in the name of the Senate and of the Judicial officers, and tried +to induce him to recommend that a certain woman, who had been condemned +for blasphemy, and for poisoning or witchcraft as well, should be +pardoned, both by the temporal and spiritual authorities, bringing forward +specially the argument that, in the sight of philosophers, such things as +demons and spirits did not exist. They likewise urged him to procure the +release from prison of another woman, who had not yet been condemned, +because a certain sick man had died under the hands of some other doctors. +They brought also a lot of nativities for him to read, as if he had been +a soothsayer, and not a teacher of medicine, but he would have nothing to +say to them.[217] + +It is somewhat strange that Cardan should have detected no trace of the +snare of the enemy in this manoeuvre. Bearing in mind the character of the +request made, and the fact that Cardan was by no means a _persona grata_ +to the petitioners, it seems highly probable that they might have been +more anxious to draw from Cardan a profession of his disbelief in +witchcraft, than to procure the enlargement of the accused persons whose +cause they had nominally espoused. At this period it was indeed dangerous +to be a wizard, but it was perhaps still more dangerous to pose as an +avowed sceptic of witchcraft. At the end of the fifteenth century the +frequency of executions for sorcery in the north of Italy had provoked a +strong outburst of popular feeling against this wanton bloodshed; but +Spina, writing in the interest of orthodox religion, deplores that +disbelief in the powers of Evil and their manifestations, always +recognized by the Church, should have led men on to profess by their +action any doubt as to the truth of witchcraft. But in spite of the +fulminations of men of this sort, from this time onwards the more +enlightened scholars of Europe began to modify their opinions on the +subject of demoniac possession, and of witchcraft in general. The first +book in which the new views were enunciated was the treatise _De +Praestigiis Daemonum_, by Johann Wier, a physician of Cleves, published in +1563. The step in advance taken by this reformer was not a revolutionary +one. He simply denied that witches were willing and conscious instruments +of the malefic powers, asserting that what evil they wrought came about by +reason of the delusions with which the evil spirits infected the persons +said to be possessed. The devil afflicted his victims directly, and then +threw the suspicion of the evil deed upon some old woman. Wier's book was +condemned and denounced by the clergy--he himself was a Protestant--but +the most serious counterblast against it came from the pen of Jean Bodin, +the illustrious French philosopher and jurist. He held up Wier to +execration as an impious blasphemer, and asserted that the welfare of +Christendom must needs suffer great injury through the dissemination of +doctrines so detestable as those set forth in his book.[218] + +Seeing that such a spirit was dominant in the minds of men like Bodin, it +will be evident that a charge of impiety or atheism might well follow a +profession of disbelief, or even scepticism, as to the powers of witches +or of evil spirits. A maxim familiar as an utterance of Sir Thomas Browne, +"Ubi tres medici duo athei," was, no doubt, in common use in Cardan's +time; and he, as a doctor, would consequently be ill-looked upon by the +champions of orthodoxy, who would certainly not be conciliated by the fact +that he was the friend of Cardinal Morone. This learned and enlightened +prelate had been imprisoned by the savage and fanatical Paul IV., on a +charge of favouring opinions analogous to Protestantism, but Pius IV., the +easy-going Milanese jurisconsult, turned ecclesiastic, enlarged him by one +of the first acts of his Papacy, and restored him to the charge of the +diocese of Modena. + +Besides enjoying at Bologna the patronage of princes of the Church like +Borromeo and Morone, Cardan found there an old friend in Ludovico +Ferrari, who was at this time lecturing on mathematics. He also received +into his house a new pupil, a Bolognese youth named Rodolfo Sylvestro, who +was destined hereafter to bring as great credit to his teacher's name in +Medicine as Ferrari had already brought thereto in Mathematics. Rodolfo +proved to be one of the most faithful and devoted of friends; he remained +at Bologna as long as Cardan continued to live there, sharing his master's +ill-fortune, and ultimately accompanied him to Rome in 1571. He gives the +names of two other Bolognese students, Giulio Pozzo and Camillo Zanolino, +but of all his surviving pupils he rates Sylvestro as the most gifted. + +The records of Cardan's life at this period are scant and fragmentary, few +events being chronicled except dreams and portents. In giving an account +of one of these manifestations, which happened in September 1563, he +incidentally lets light upon certain changes and vicissitudes in his own +affairs. He was at this time living in an apartment in the house of the +Ranucci, next door to a half-ruined palace of the Ghislieri. One night he +awoke from sleep, and found that the neck-band of his shirt had become +entangled with the cord by which he kept his precious emerald and a +written charm suspended round his neck. He tried to disentangle the knot, +but in vain, so he left the complication as it was, purposing to unravel +it by daylight. He did not fall asleep; but, after lying quiet for a +little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot, +when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit. +"This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty +difficulties, and at the same time proved, as I have often said elsewhere, +that there must have been present something else unperceived by me. For +my affairs were in this condition: my son-in-law at Milan had the +administration of the scant remains of my property, and I received no +rents therefrom for a whole year. My literary work was lying at the +printer's, but it was not printed. Here, at Bologna, I was forced to +lecture without having a fixed hour assigned to me. A crowd of enemies +were intriguing against me. My son Aldo was in prison, and of little +profit to me. But immediately after this portent I learned that my two +chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the +lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to +live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next +describe what came to pass with regard to the others. + +"During the next July (1564), through the help of Francesco Alciati,[219] +the secretary of Pope Pius IV., a man to whom I am indebted for almost +every benefit I have received since 1561, I began to enjoy my own again. +On August 26 I received from the printer my books all printed with the +greatest care, and by reason of the dispatch of this business my income +was greatly increased. The next day my chief opponent resigned his office, +and left vacant a salary of seven hundred gold crowns. The only +manifestation of adverse fortune left to trouble me was the conspiracy of +the doctors against me, but there were already signs that this would +disappear before long, and in sooth it came to an end after the lapse of +another year."[220] + +During this portion of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived +comparatively alone, and to have spent his weary leisure in brooding over +his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the _De Libris +Propriis_, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over +Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily +come as a friend to those whose lives are wretched, he begins to speculate +whether, after all, he ought not to rejoice rather than mourn over his +son's death. "Certes he is rid of this miserable life of danger and +difficulty, vain, sorrowful, brief, and inconstant; these times in which +the major part of the good things of the world fall to the trickster's +share, and all may be enjoyed by those who are backed up by wealth or +power or favour. Power is good when it is in the hands of those who use it +well, but it is a great evil when murderers and poisoners are allowed to +wield it. To the ill-starred, to the ungodly, and to the foolish, death is +a boon, freeing them from numberless dangers, from heavy griefs, from +fatal troubles, and from infamy; wherefore in such cases it ought not to +be spoken of as something merely good or indifferent, but rated as the +best of fortune. Shall I not declare to God (for He willed the deed), to +myself, and to my surviving family, that my son's death was a thing to be +desired, for God does all justly, wisely, and lovingly? He lets me stand +as an example to show others that a good and upright man cannot be +altogether wretched. I am poor, infirm, and old; bereaved by a cruel wrong +of my best-loved son, a youth of the fairest promise, and left only with +the faintest hope of any ray of future good fortune, or of seeing my race +perpetuated after my death, for my daughter, who has been nine years +married, is barren. + +"At one time I was prosperous in every relation of life: in my +friendships, in my children, and in my health. In my youth I seemed to be +one raised up to realize the highest hopes. I was accustomed to all the +good things--nay, to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched, +despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable, +I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I +neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work +as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for +this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs +better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book which I +have lately published with those which I wrote some time ago, he will not +fail to perceive how vastly my intellect has gained in richness, in +vivacity, and in purity." + +Though the note of sorrow or even of despair is perceptible in these +sentences, there is no sign that the virile and elastic spirit of the +writer is broken. But there are manifest signs of an increasing tendency +towards mental detachment from the world which had used him so ill. With +the happiest of men the almost certain prospect of extinction at the end +of a dozen years usually tends to foster the growth of a conviction that +the world after all is a poor affair, and that to quit it is no great +evil. How strongly therefore must reflections of a kindred nature have +worked upon a man so cruelly tried as Cardan! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[211] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462. + +[212] "Sed filius minor natu adeo male se gessit, ut malim transire in +nepotem ex primo filio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvi. p. 112. + +[213] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71. + +[214] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 40. + +[215] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459. + +[216] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56. + +[217] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxiii. p. 104. + +[218] This opinion prevailed with men of learning far into the next +century. Sir Thomas Browne writes: "They that doubt of these, do not only +deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sect not +of infidels, but atheists."--_Religio Medici, Works_, vol. ii. p. 89. + +[219] This was the Cardinal, the nephew of Andrea the great jurist, who +was also a good friend of Cardan. + +[220] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 463. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +AT the beginning of the year 1565 Cardan had a narrow escape from death by +burning, for his bed from some unknown cause caught fire twice in the same +night while he was asleep. The servant was disturbed by the smoke, and +having aroused his master, told him what was amiss, whereupon Cardan flew +into a violent rage, for he deemed that the youth must be drunk. But he +soon perceived the danger, and then they both set to work to extinguish +the flames. His own description of the occurrence is highly +characteristic. "Having put out the fire, I settled myself again to sleep, +and, while I was dreaming of alarms, and that I was flying from some +danger, it happened that either these terrifying dreams, or the fire and +smoke again aroused me, and, looking around, I found that the bed was once +more alight, and the greater part of it consumed. The vari-coloured +coverlet, the leather hangings, and all the covering of the bed was +unhurt. Thus this great alarm and danger and serious disturbance caused +only a trifling loss; less than half of the bed-linen was burnt, but the +blankets were entirely consumed. On the first alarm the flames burnt out +twice or thrice with little smoke, and caused scarcely any damage. The +second time the fire and the mishap forced me to rise just before dawn, +the fire lasting altogether about seven hours." + +There was naturally a warning sign to be found in this accident.[221] The +smoke, Cardan said, denoted disgrace; the fire, peril and fear; the flame, +a grave and pressing danger to his life. The smouldering fire signified +secret plots which were to be put into execution against him by his +servants while he lay in bed. And the fact that he set fire to the bed +himself, denoted that he would be able to meet any coming danger alone and +without assistance. The indictment against him was foreshadowed by the +fire and the flames and the smoke. Poison and assault were not to be +feared. Men might indeed ask questions as to what kind of danger it could +be which only arose from those about him, and fell short of poison and +violence. The fire, he goes on to say, signifies the Magistrate. More than +once it seemed to be extinct, but it always revived. Danger seemed to +threaten him less from open hostility than from the cunning flattery of +foes, and from over-confidence on his own part. His books, which he had +lately caused to be printed, appeared to be in grave peril, but a graver +one overhung his life. He deemed that he would quit the tribunal condemned +by the empty scandal of the crowd, suffering no slight loss, and worsted +chiefly through putting faith in false friends, and through his own +instability. On the whole, the loss would prove inconsiderable; the danger +moderate, but the vexation exceedingly heavy. These results might have +sprung from causes other than natural ones; but, on the other hand, such +things often come about through chance. They might prove to be a warning +to him to keep clear of hostile prejudice, and to make friends of those +in authority, care being taken not to let himself become involved in their +private affairs, and not to seek too close an acquaintance.[222] + +Up to this date, Cardan, when he visited his patients, had either walked +or ridden a mule. In 1562 he began to use a carriage, but this change of +habit brought ill luck with it, for, in this same year, his horses ran +away; he was thrown out of the vehicle, and sustained an injury to one of +the fingers of his right hand, and to the right arm as well.[223] The +finger soon healed, but the damage to the right arm shifted itself over to +the left side, leaving the right arm sound. The foregoing details, taken +chiefly from the _Paralipomena_ (Book III. ch. xii.), are somewhat +significant in respect to the serious trouble which came upon him soon +afterwards. + +Though he had now secured a class-room for himself, the malice of his +enemies was not yet abated. Just before the end of his term, certain of +them went to Cardinal Morone and told him that it would be inexpedient to +allow Cardan to retain his Professorship any longer, seeing that scarcely +any pupils went to listen to him. The terms Cardan used in describing this +hostile movement against him,[224] rouse a suspicion that there may have +been some ground for the assertion of his adversaries; but he declares +that, at any rate, he had a good many pupils from the beginning of the +session up to the time of Lent. He gives no clue whereby the date of this +intrigue may be exactly ascertained, but it probably happened near the end +of his sojourn at Bologna, because in his account of it he describes +likewise the cessation of his public teaching, and makes no mention of any +resumption of the same. He declares that he was at last overborne by the +multitude of his foes, and their cunning plots. Under the pretence that, +in seeking Cardan's removal, they were really acting for his benefit, they +succeeded in bringing Cardinal Morone round to their views. Cardan's final +words in dealing with this matter help to fix the date of this episode as +some time in 1570. Speaking of his enemies, he writes: "Nay indeed they +have given me greater leisure for the codification of my books, they have +lengthened my days, they have increased my fame, and, by procuring my +removal from the work which was too laborious for me, they secured for me +the pleasure I now enjoy in the discovery and investigation of divers of +the secrets of Nature. Therefore I constantly tell myself that I do not +hate these men, nor deem them blameworthy, because they wrought me an ill +turn, but because of the malignancy they had in their hearts."[225] + +It is almost certain that this removal of Cardan from his office of +teacher was part and parcel of a carefully-devised plot against him, and a +prelude to more serious trouble in the near future. Early in April 1570 he +had occasion to put into writing a certain medical opinion which was to be +sent to Cardinal Morone. He describes the episode: "It chanced that one of +the sheets of my manuscript fell from the table down upon the floor, and +then flew by itself up to the cornice of the room, where it hung, fixed to +the woodwork. Greatly amazed, I called for Rodolfo, and pointed out to him +this marvel. He did not indeed see it fly up, and at that time I was +ignorant as to what it might foretell, for I had no foreboding of the many +ills which were about to molest me. But now I see that the meaning of this +portent must have been that, after the approaching shipwreck of my +fortunes, my bark would be sped along with a more favouring breeze. It was +during the month following, unless I am mistaken, that, when I was once +more writing a letter to Cardinal Morone, I looked for a certain +powder-box which had been missing for some long time, and, when I lifted +up a sheet of paper in order to powder it with dust gathered up from the +floor of the room, there was the powder-box, hidden beneath the sheet. How +could it have come there on the level writing-desk? This sign confirmed +the hope I had already conceived of the Cardinal's wisdom and humanity; +that he would plead with the Pope, the best of men, in such wise that I +should find a prosperous end to my toilsome life."[226] + +The blow thus foreshadowed fell on October 6, 1570, when he was suddenly +arrested and put under restraint. He speaks of a bond which he gave for +eighteen hundred gold crowns; and says that, while he was in hold, all his +estate was administered by the civil authorities. Rodolfo Sylvestro was +constantly with him during his incarceration, and on January 1, 1571, he +was released, just at nightfall, and allowed to return to his own house. +While he was in prison in the month of October some mysterious knockings +at the door supplied him with a fulfilment and explanation of the +portents lately chronicled. The knockings appeared furthermore to warn him +of approaching death, and he began to bewail his misery; but, having +gathered courage, he heartened himself to face his doom, which could be +nothing worse than death. Young men, leaders of armies, courted death in +battle to win the favour of their sovereigns; wherefore he, a decrepit old +man, might surely await his end with calmness. He then wanders off into a +long disquisition on the philosophy of Polybius, and forgets entirely to +set down further details of his imprisonment, or to explain the cause +thereof. + +Pius IV. had died at the end of 1565, and had been succeeded by Michele +Ghislieri, the Cardinal of Alessandria, as Pius V. Like his predecessor, +the new Pope was a Milanese by birth, but in character and aims the two +Popes were entirely different. Pius. V. identified himself completely with +the work of the Holy Office, and straightway set in operation all its +powers for the extirpation of the heretical opinions which, on account of +the easy-going character of the late Pope, had made much progress in +Italy, and nowhere more than in Bologna. Von Ranke, in the _History of the +Popes_, gives an extract (vol. i. p. 97) from the compendium of the +Inquisitors, which sets forth that "Bologna was in a very perilous state, +because there the heretics were especially numerous; amongst them was a +certain Gian Battista Rotto, who enjoyed the friendship and support of +many persons of weight, such as Morone, Pole, and the Marchesa Pescara +(Vittoria Colonna). Rotto made himself very active in collecting money, +which he distributed amongst the poor folk of Bologna who were heretics." + +It will be remembered that in 1562, while he was waiting in Milan for the +appointment as Professor at Bologna, Cardan submitted his books to the +Congregation of the Index for approval. He was known to be a +fellow-citizen and friend of the reigning Pope: the _corpus_ of his work +had by that time reached a portentous size, wherefore it is quite possible +that the official readers may have been lenient, or cursory, over their +work; but when Pius V., the strenuous ascetic foe of heresy, stepped into +the place of the indolent Pius IV., jurist and politician rather than +Churchman, it is more than probable that certain amateur inquisitors at +Bologna, fully as anxious to work Cardan's ruin as to safeguard the faith, +may have busied themselves in hunting through his various works for +passages upon which to base a charge of unorthodoxy. Such passages were +not hard to find. There was the horoscope of Jesus Christ, which +subsequently affronted the piety of De Thou. There was the passage already +noticed in which he said such hard things of the Dominicans (_De Varietate +Rerum_, 1557, p. 572). He had indeed disclaimed it, but there it stood +unexpunged in the subsequent editions of the book; and, while considering +this detail, it may be remarked that Pius V. began his career as a member +of the Dominican Order, the practices of which Cardan had impugned. In the +first and second editions of the _De Subtilitate_ was another passage in +which the tenets of Islam and the circumstances of the birth of Christ +were handled in a way which caused grave scandal and offence.[227] This +passage indeed was expunged in the edition of 1560. The _Paralipomena_ +were not in print and available, but what can be read in them to-day +doubtless reflects with accuracy the attitude of Cardan's mind towards +religious matters in 1570. Though the _Paralipomena_ were locked in his +desk, it is almost certain that the spirit with which they were inspired +would have infected Cardan's brain, and prompted him to repeat in words +the views on religion and a future state which he had already put on +paper, for he rarely let discretion interfere with the enunciation of any +opinion he favoured. In the _Paralipomena_ are many passages written in +the spirit of universalism, and treating of the divine principle as +something which animates wise men alone, wise men and philosophers of +every age and every clime, Aristotle being the head and chief. Plato and +Socrates and the Seven Sages adorn this illustrious circle, which includes +likewise the philosophers of Chaldea and Egypt. Opinions like these were +no longer the passport to Papal favour or even toleration. The age of the +humanist Popes was past, and the Puritan movement, stimulated into life by +the active competition of the Reformers, was beginning to show its +strength, so that a man who spoke in terms of respect or reverence +concerning Averroes or Plato would put himself in no light peril. Thus for +those of Cardan's enemies who were minded to search and listen it must +have been an easy task to formulate against him a charge of heresy, +specious enough to carry conviction to such a burning zealot as Pius V. +This Pope, in his new regulations for the maintenance of Church +discipline, requisitioned the services of physicians in the detection of +laxity of religious practices, or of unsoundness. "We forbid," he says in +one of his bulls, "every physician, who may be called to the bedside of a +patient, to visit for more than three days, unless he receives an +attestation that the sick man has made fresh confession of his sins."[228] +Cardan, with his irritable temper, may very likely have treated this +regulation as an unwarrantable interference with his profession, and have +paid no attention to it. Again, he evidently followed Hippocrates in +rejecting the supernatural origin of disease; a position greatly in +advance of that held by certain of the leading physiologists of the +time.[229] Thus in more ways than one he may have laid himself open to +some charge of disrespect shown to religion or to the spiritual powers. +The absence of any other specific accusation and the circumstances of his +incarceration, taken in conjunction with the foregoing considerations, +almost compel the conclusion that his arrest and imprisonment in 1570 were +brought about by a charge of impiety whispered by some envious tongue +which will never now be identified. The sanction given by the authorities +of the Church to his writings in 1562, operated without doubt to mitigate +the punishment which fell upon him, and suffered him, after due purgation +of his offences, to enjoy for the residue of his days a life comparatively +quiet and prosperous under the patronage of Pius V. + +Though he was let out of prison he was not yet a free man. For some twelve +weeks longer he remained a prisoner in his own house, the bond for +eighteen hundred gold crowns having doubtless been given on this account. +Almost his last reflection about his life at Bologna is one in which he +records his satisfaction that all the men who plotted against him there +met their death soon after their attempt, thus sharing the fate of his +enemies at Milan and Pavia. If he is to be believed in this matter, the +Fates, though they might not shield him from attack, proved themselves to +be diligent and remorseless avengers of his wrongs. At the end of +September he turned his back upon Bologna and the cold hospitality it had +given him, and set forth on his last journey. He travelled by easy stages, +and entered Rome on October 7, 1571, the day upon which Don John of +Austria annihilated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto. + +There are evidences in his later writings beyond those already cited, that +Cardan's views on religion had undergone change during his sojourn at +Bologna. It was the custom, even with theologians of the time, to +illustrate freely from the classics, wherefore the spectacle of the names +of the great men of Greek and Roman letters, scattered thickly about the +pages of any book, would not prove or even suggest unorthodoxy. Cardan +quotes Plato or Aristotle or Plotinus twenty times for any saint in the +Calendar. He does not mention the Virgin more than once or twice in the +whole of the _De Vita Propria_; and, in discoursing on the immortality of +the soul, he cites the opinion of Avicenna, but makes no mention of either +saint or father.[230] The world of classic thought was immeasurably nearer +and more real to Cardan than it can be to any modern dweller beyond the +Alps: to him there had been no solution of continuity between classic +times and his own. When he sat down to write in the _Theonoston_ his +meditations on the death of his son, in the vain hope of reaping +consolation therefrom, he invoked the golden rule of Plotinus, which lays +down that the future is foreseen and arranged by the gods. Being thus +arranged, it must needs be just, for God is the highest expression of +justice. Against a fate thus settled for us we have no right to complain, +lest we should seem to be setting ourselves into opposition to God's will. +Here, although he writes in the spirit of a Christian, the authority cited +is that of a heathen philosopher, and the form of his meditations is taken +rather from Seneca than from father or schoolman. The devotional bias of +Cardan's nature seems to have been strengthened temporarily by the +terrible experiences of Gian Battista's trial and death; but in the course +of his residence at Bologna a marked reaction set in, and the fervent +religious outburst, in which he sought consolation during his intolerable +sorrow, was succeeded by a calmer mood which regarded the necessary evils +of life as transitory accidents, and death as the one and certain end of +sorrow, and perhaps of consciousness as well. What he wrote during his +residence in Rome he kept in manuscript; his recent experience at Bologna +warned him that, living under the shadow of the Vatican with Pius V. as +the ruler thereof, it behoved him to walk as an obedient son of the +Church. + +Cardan went first to live in the Piazza di San Girolamo, not far from the +Porto del Popolo, but subsequently he lived in a house in the Via Giulia +near the church of Santa Maria di Monserrato, where probably he died. He +had not long been settled in Rome before he was able to add a fresh +supernatural experience to his already overburdened list. In the month of +August 1572 he was lying awake one night with a lamp burning, when +suddenly he heard a loud noise to the right of the chamber, as if a cart +laden with planks was being unloaded. He looked up, and, the door being +open at the time, he perceived a peasant entering the room. Just as he +was on the threshold the intruder uttered the words, "_Te sin casa_," and +straightway vanished. This apparition puzzled him greatly, and he alludes +to it again in chapter xlvii. of the _De Vita Propria_. Ultimately he +dismisses it with the remark that the explanation of such phenomena is +rather the duty of theologians than of philosophers. + +With regard to matters of religious belief he seems to have taken as a +rule of conduct the remark above written, and left them to the care of +professional experts, for very few of his recorded opinions throw any +light upon his views of the dogmas and doctrines of the Church. Whatever +the tenor of these opinions may have been, he never proclaimed them +definitely. Probably they interested him little, for he was not the man to +keep silent over a subject which he had greatly at heart. He gave a +general assent to the teaching of the Church, taking up the mental +attitude of the vast majority of the learned men of his time, and expected +that the Church would do all that was necessary for him in its own +particular province. If he regarded Erasmus and Luther as disturbers of +the faith and heretics, he did not say so, nor did he censure their +activity. (Erasmus he praises highly in the opening words of the horoscope +which he drew for him.--_Gen. Ex.,_ p. 496.) But he had certainly no +desire to emulate them or give them his support. The world of letters and +science was wide enough even for his active spirit; the world lying behind +the veil he left to the exploration of those inquirers who might have a +taste for such a venture. Still every page of his life's record shows how +strong was his bent towards the supernatural; but the phase of the +supernatural which he chose for study was one which Churchmen, as a rule, +had let alone. Spirits wandering about this world were of greater moment +to him than spirits fixed in beatitude or bane in the next; and +accordingly, whenever he finds an opportunity, he discourses of +apparitions, lamiae, incubi, succubi, malignant and beneficent genii, and +the methods of invoking them. Now that old age was pressing heavily upon +him and he began to yearn for support, he sought consolation not in the +ecstatic vision of the fervent Catholic, but in fostering the belief that +he was in sooth under the protection of some guardian spirit like that +which had attended his father and divers of the sages of old. Although he +had in his earlier days treated his father's belief with a certain degree +of respect and credence,[231] there is no evidence that he was possessed +with the notion that any such supernatural guardian attended his own +footsteps at the time when he put together the _De Varietate_; indeed it +would seem that his belief was exactly the opposite. He writes as follows: +"It is first of all necessary to know that there is one God, the Author of +all good, by whose power all things were made, and in whose name all good +things are brought to pass; also, that if a man shall err he need not be +guilty of sin. That there is no other to whom we owe anything or whom we +are bound to worship or serve. If we keep these sayings with a pure mind +we shall be kept pure ourselves and free from sin. What a demon may be I +know not, these beings I neither recognize nor love. I worship one God, +and Him alone I serve. And in truth these things ought not to be published +in the hearing of unlearned folk; for, if once this belief in spirits be +taken up, it may easily come to pass that they who apply themselves to +such arts will attribute God's work to the devil."[232] And in another +place: "I of a truth know of no spirit or genius which attends me; but +should one come to me, after being warned of the same in dreams, if it +should be given to me by God, I will still reverence God alone; to Him +alone will I give thanks, for any benefit which may befall me, as the +bountiful source and principle of all good. And, in sooth, the spirit may +rest untroubled if I repay my debt to our common Master. I know full well +that He has given to me, for my good genius, reason, patience in trouble, +a good disposition, a disregard of money and dignities, which gifts I use +to the full, and deem them better and greater possessions than the Demon +of Socrates."[233] + +About the Demon of Socrates Cardan has much to say in the _De Varietate_. +He never even hints a doubt as to the veracity and sincerity of Socrates. +He is quite sure that Socrates was fully persuaded of the reality of his +attendant genius, and favours the view that this belief may have been well +founded. He takes an agnostic position,[234] confining his positive +statement to an assertion of his own inability to realize the presence of +any ghostly minister attendant upon himself. In the _De Subtilitate_ he +tells an experience of his own by way of suggesting that some of the +demons spoken of by the retailers of marvels might be figments of the +brain. In 1550 Cardan was called in to see a certain woman who had long +been troubled with an obscure disease of the bladder. Every known remedy +was tried in vain, when one day a certain Josephus Niger,[235] a +distinguished Greek scholar, went to see the patient. Niger, according to +Cardan's account, was quite ignorant of medicine, but he was reputed to be +a skilled master of magic arts. The woman had a son, a boy about ten years +old, and Josephus having handed him a three-cornered crystal, which he had +with him, bade the youth secretly to look into it, and then declare, in +his mother's hearing, that he could see in the crystal three very terrible +demons going on foot. Then, after Josephus had whispered certain other +words in the boy's ear, the boy went on to say that he beheld another +demon, vastly bigger than the first, riding on horseback and bearing in +his hand a three-tined fork. This monster overthrew the other demons, and +led them away captive, bound with chains to his saddlebow. After listening +to these words the woman rapidly got well, and Cardan, in commenting on +the event, declares that she must have been cured either by the agency of +the demons or by the force of the imagination, inasmuch as it would be +difficult, if not impossible, to invent any other reason of her +recovery.[236] In another passage of the _De Subtilitate_ he displays +judicious reserve in writing of Demons in general.[237] + +During those terrible days, when his son had just died a felon's death, +and when he himself was haunted by the real dangers which beset him, and +almost maddened by the signs and tokens which seemed to tell of others to +come, the belief which Fazio his father had nourished easily found a +lodgment in his shaken and bewildered brain. In the _Dialogus de Humanis +Consiliis_, one of the speakers tells of a certain man who is clearly +meant to be Cardan himself. The speaker goes on to say that he is sure +this man is attended by a genius, which manifested itself to him somewhat +late in his life. "Aforetime, indeed, it had been wont to convey to him +warnings in dreams and by certain noises. What greater proof of his power +could there be than the cure of this man, without the use of drugs, of an +intestinal rupture on the right side? If indeed it had not fared with him +thus, after his son's death, he would at once have passed out of this +life, whereby many and great evils might have come to pass. He was freed +also from another troublesome ailment. In sooth, so many and so mighty are +the wonderful things which had befallen him, that I, who am very intimate +with him (and he himself thinks the same), am constrained to believe that +he is attended by a genius, great and powerful and rare, and that he is +not the master of his own actions. What he would have, he has not; and +what he has, he would not have chosen, or even wished for. This thing +causes him much trouble, but he submits when he reflects that all things +are God's handiwork." The speaker ends by saying that he never heard of +any others thus attended, save this man, and his father before him, and +Socrates.[238] + +But it is in chapter xlvii. of the _De Vita Propria_, which must have been +written shortly before his death, that he lets the reader see most plainly +how strong was the hold which this belief in a guardian spirit of his own +had taken upon him. "It is an admitted truth," he writes, "that attendant +spirits have protected certain men, to wit, Socrates, Plotinus, Synesius, +Dion, Flavius Josephus, and myself. All of these have enjoyed prosperous +lives except Socrates and me, and I, as I have said before, was at one +time offered many and favourable opportunities for the achievement of +happiness. But C. Caesar the dictator, Cicero, Antony, Brutus, and Cassius +were also attended by mighty spirits, albeit malignant. For a long time I +have been persuaded that I too had one, but by what method it gave me +intelligence as to events about to happen, I could not exactly ascertain +until I reached the seventy-fourth year of my age, the season when I began +to write this record of my life. I now perceive that when I was in Milan +in 1557, when my genius perceived what was hanging over me--how that my +son on that same evening had promised to marry Brandonia Seroni, and that +he would complete the nuptials the following day--it produced in me that +palpitation of the heart of which I have already made mention, a weakness +known to my genius alone, a manifestation which served to simulate a +trembling of the bed." + +Cardan writes at length to show that the mysterious knocking which he and +Rodolfo Sylvestro had heard during his imprisonment at Bologna, the +peasant who entered his bed-chamber saying "_Te sin casa_," and divers +other manifestations, going back as far as 1531--croaking of ravens, +barking of dogs, and the ignition of fire-wood--must all have been brought +about by the working of this powerful spirit. In 1570 there happened to +him one of his everyday experiences of the presence of supernatural +powers. In the middle of the night he was conscious of some presence +walking about the room. It sat down beside him, and at the same time a +loud noise arose from a chest which stood near. This phenomenon, he +admits, might well have been the figment of a brain overburdened with +thought; but suddenly his memory flies back to an experience of his +twentieth year, upon which he proceeds to build a story, wild and fanciful +even for his powers of imagination. "What man was it," he asks, "who sold +me that copy of Apuleius when I was in my twentieth year, and forthwith +went away? I indeed, at that time, had made only one essay in the literary +arena, and had no knowledge of the Latin tongue; but in spite of this, and +because the book had a gilded cover, I was imprudent enough to buy it. The +very next day I found myself just as well versed in Latin as I am now. +Moreover, almost at the same time I acquired knowledge of Greek and +Spanish and French, sufficient for reading books written in these +languages." + +Cardan was by this time completely possessed by the belief in his +attendant genius, and the flash of memory which recalled the purchase of +some book or other in his youth, suggested likewise the attribution of +certain mystic powers to this guardian genius, and conjured up some +fanciful explanation as to the way these powers had been exercised upon +himself; he, the person most closely concerned, being entirely unconscious +of their operation at the time when they first affected him. This recorded +belief in a gift of tongues is one of the most convincing bits of evidence +to be gleaned from Cardan's writings of the insanity which undoubtedly +afflicted him, at least periodically, at this crisis of his life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[221] He mentions this matter briefly in the _De Vita Propria_: "Bis +arsisset lectus, praedixi me non permansurum Bononiae, et prima vice +restiti, secunda non potui."--ch. xli. p. 151. A fuller account of it is +in _Opera_, tom. x. p. 464. + +[222] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 464. + +[223] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 80. He seems to have had many +untoward experiences in driving. He tells of another mishap (_Opera_, tom. +i. p. 472) in June 1570; how a fellow, some tipstaff of the courts, jumped +into his carriage and frightened the mares Cardan was driving, jeering at +them likewise because they were rather bare of flesh. + +[224] "Demum sub conductionis fine, voces sparserunt, et maxime apud +Moronum Cardinalem, me exiguo auditorio profiteri, quod quanquam non +omnino verum esset, quinimo ab initio Academiae multos, et usque ad dies +jejunii haberem auditores."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56. + +[225] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 57. + +[226] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 163. + +[227] "Alii multis diebus abstinent cibo, alii igne uruntur, ac ferro +secantur, nullum doloris vestigium preferentes; multi sunt vocem e pectore +mittentes, qui olim engastrimuthi dicebantur; hoc autem maxime eis +contingit cum orgia quaedam exercent, atque circumferuntur in orbem. Quae +tria ut verissima sunt et naturali ratione mira tamen constant, cujus +superius mentionem fecimus, ita illud confictum nasci pueros e mulieribus +absque concubitu."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 353. + +[228] Ranke, _History of the Popes_, vol. i. p. 246. + +[229] Mr. Stephen Paget in his life of Ambroise Pare, the great +contemporary French surgeon, gives an interesting account of Pare's +beliefs on the divine cause of the plague, p. 269. + +[230] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxii. p. 63. + +[231] "Multa de daemonibus narrabat, quae quam vera essent nescio."--_De +Utilitate_, p. 348. + +[232] _De Varietate_, p. 351. + +[233] _Ibid.,_ p. 658. + +[234] In his counsel to his children, he writes: "Do not believe that you +hear demons speak to you, or that you behold the dead. Seek not to learn +the truth of these things, for they are amongst the things which are +hidden from us." + +[235] Cardan alludes to Niger in _De Varietate_, p. 641: "Referebat +aliquando Josephus Niger harum rerum maxime peritus, daemonem pueris se sub +forma Christi ostendisse, petiisseque ut adoraretur." + +[236] _De Subtilitate_, p. 530. + +[237] "Nolim ego ad trutinam haec sectari, velut Porphyrius, Psellus, +Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblicus, qui copiose de his quae non videre, velut +historiam natae rei scripserunt."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 540. + +[238] _Opera_, tom. i. 672. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +AFTER the accusation brought against him at Milan in 1562, Cardan had been +prohibited from teaching or lecturing in that city, and similar +disabilities had followed his recent imprisonment at Bologna. At Rome no +duties of this kind awaited him, so he had full time to follow his +physician's calling after taking up his residence there. He records the +cure of a noble matron, Clementina Massa, and of Cesare Buontempo, a +jurisconsult, both of whom had been suffering for nearly two years. The +circumstances of his retirement from Bologna would not affect his +reputation as a physician, and he seems to have had in Rome as many or +even more patients than he cared to treat; and in writing in general terms +concerning his successes as a healer, he says: "In all, I restored to +health more than a hundred patients, given up as incurable in Milan, in +Bologna, and in Rome." Of all the friends Cardan had in this closing +period of his life, none was more useful or benevolent than Cardinal +Alciati, who, although he had been secretary to Pius IV., contrived to +retain the favour of his successor. This piece of good fortune Alciati +owed to the protection of Carlo Borromeo, who had been his pupil at Pavia, +and had procured for him from Pius IV. a bishopric, a cardinal's hat, and +the secretaryship of Dataria. Another of Cardan's powerful friends was the +Prince of Matellica, of whom he speaks in terms of praise inflated enough +to be ridiculous, were it not for the accompanying note of pathos. After +celebrating the almost divine character of this nobleman, his munificence +and his superhuman abilities, he goes on: "What could there be in me to +win the kindly notice of such a patron? Certainly I had done him no +service, nor could he hope I should ever do him any in the future, I, an +old man, an outcast of fortune, and prostrated by calamity. In sooth, +there was naught about me to attract him; if indeed he found any merit in +me, it must have been my uprightness." + +Powerful friends are never superfluous, and Cardan seems to have needed +them in Rome as much as in Bologna. In 1573 he again hints at plots +against his life, but almost immediately after recording his suspicions he +goes on to suggest that his danger had arisen chiefly from his ignorance +of the streets of Rome, and from the uncouth manners of the populace. +"Many physicians, more cautious than myself, and better versed in the +customs of the place, have come by their death from similar cause." The +danger, whatever its nature, seems to have threatened him as a member of +the practising faculty at Rome rather than as the persecuted ex-teacher of +Pavia and Bologna. Rodolfo Sylvestro was not the only one of his former +associates near him in his old age, for he notes that Simone Sosia, who +had been his _famulus_ at Pavia in 1562, was still in his service at Rome. + +In reviewing the machinations of his enemies to bring about his dismissal +from the Professorship at Bologna, Cardan indulges in the reflection that +these men unwillingly did him good service, that is, they procured him +leisure which he might use in the completion of his unfinished works, and +in the construction of fresh monuments which he proposed to build up out +of the vast store of material accumulated in his industrious brain. The +literary record of his life in Rome shows that this was no vain saying. He +was at work on the later chapters of the _De Vita Propria_ up to the last +weeks of his life; and, scattered about these, there are records of his +work of correction and revising. While telling of the books he has lately +been engaged with, he wanders off in the same sentence to talk of the +dream which urged him to write the _De Subtilitate_, and of the execution +of the _Commentarii in Ptolomaeum_, during his voyage down the Loire. In +1573 he seems to have found the mass of undigested work more than he could +bear to behold; for, after making extracts of such matter as he deemed +worth keeping, he consigned to the flames no less than a hundred and +twenty of his manuscripts.[239] Before leaving Bologna he had put into +shape the _Proxenata_, a lengthy collection of hints, maxims, and +reflections as to everyday life; he had re-edited the _Liber Artis Magnae_, +and had added thereto the treatise _De Proportionibus_, and the _Regula +Aliza_. He also took in hand two books on Geometry, and one on Music, and +this last he completed in 1574. On November 16, 1574, he records that he +is at that moment writing an explanation of the more abstruse works of +Hippocrates, but that he is yet far from the end of his task. + +In the _De Libris Propriis_ he gives a list of all his published works, +and likewise a table of the same arranged in the order in which they ought +to be read. He apologizes for the imperfect state in which some of them +are left, and declares that the sight of his unfinished tasks never fails +to awaken in his breast a bitter sense of resentment over that loss which +he had never ceased to mourn. "At one time I hoped," he writes, "that +these works would be corrected by my son, but this favour you see has been +denied to me. The desire of my enemies was not to make an end of him, but +of me; not by gentle means, in sooth, but by cruel open murder; to let me +fall in the very blood of my son." It is somewhat remarkable that in this +matter Cardan was destined to suffer a disappointment similar to that +which he himself brought upon his own father by refusing to qualify +himself to become the commentator on Archbishop Peckham's _Perspectiva_. +He next gives the names of all those who had commended him in their works, +and finds a special cause for gratification in the fact that, out of the +long list set down, only four or five were known to him personally, and +these not intimately. There is, however, another short list of censors; +and of these he affirms that a certain Brodeus alone is worthy of respect. +Of Buteon, who criticized the treatise on _Arithmetic_, he says: "_Est +plane stultus et elleboro indiget._" Tartaglia's name is there, and he, +according to Cardan, was forced to eat his words; "but he was ashamed to +do what he promised, and unwilling to blot out what he had written. He +went on in his wrong-headed course, living upon the labour of other men +like a greedy crow, a manifest robber of other men's wealth of study; so +impudent that he published as his own, in the Italian tongue, that +invention for the raising of sunken ships which I had made known four +years before. This he did, understanding the subject only imperfectly, +and making no mention of my name. But men of real learning also attacked +me: Rondeletius, and Julius Scaliger; and Fuchsius, in the proem of his +book, says that my work _Medicinae Contradictiones_ should be avoided like +deadly poison. Julius Scaliger has been fully answered in the _Apologia_ +in the Books on Subtlety."[240] + +There is a passage from De Thou's _History of his Own Times_, affixed to +all editions of the _De Vita Propria_,[241] in which is given a +contemporary sketch of Cardan during his residence at Rome. "His whole +life," De Thou writes, "has been as strange as his present manners, and +he, in sooth, out of singleness of mind or frankness, has written about +himself certain statements, the like of which have never before been heard +of a man of letters, and these I do not feel bound to unfold to any one, +let him be ever so curious. I, myself, happening to be in Rome a few years +before his death, often spoke to him and observed him with astonishment as +he took his walks about the city clad in strange garb. When I considered +the many writings of this famous man, I could perceive in him nothing to +justify his great renown. Wherefore I am all the more inclined to turn to +that very acute criticism of Julius Caesar Scaliger, who exercised his +extraordinary genius in making a special examination of the treatise _De +Subtilitate Rerum_. He, having carefully noted everywhere the unequal +powers of this writer, decided that he was one who, in certain subjects, +knew more than a man could know, while in others he seemed more simple +than a child. In the science of Arithmetic he worked hard and made many +discoveries; but he was subject to strange and excessive aberration of +mind, and was guilty of the most impudent blasphemy, in that he was minded +to subject to the artificial laws of the stars the Ruler of the stars +Himself, for this thing he did in the horoscope of our Saviour which he +drew." + +Another witness of his life in Rome is Francois d'Amboise, a young French +nobleman, who was engaged on his book _De Symbolis Heroicis_. He says that +he saw Cardan, who was living in a spacious house, on the walls of which, +in place of elegant paintings or vari-coloured tapestries, were written +the words, "_Tempus mea possessio_." + +In his later writings there are farther indications that he was wont to +conjure up omens and portents chiefly at those times when he was in danger +and mental distress. In the case which is given below, the omen showed +itself in a season of trouble, but Cardan, in describing it later, treats +it as if he were a modern scientist. The distressing memories of the +imprisonment had faded, and writing in ease and security at Rome he begins +to rationalize. In the dialogue between himself and his father, written +shortly before his death, Fazio calls his son's attention to certain of +the omens and portents already noticed; and, after discussing these, +Jerome goes on to tell for the first time of another boding event which, +as he affirms, distressed him even more than the loss of his office and +the prohibition to publish his books. On the day of his incarceration, on +two different occasions, he met a cow being driven to the slaughter-house, +with much shouting and beating with sticks and barking of dogs. The +explanation of this event which he puts in Fazio's mouth is entirely +conceived in the spirit of rationalism. What was there to wonder at? There +was a butcher's shop in the street, and animals going to slaughter would +naturally be met there. Why should a man fear to meet a cow? If it had +been a bull there might have been something in it. Then with regard to the +shaking of a window-casement; this might easily have been occasioned by +the flight of a bird.[242] He was certainly less inclined to put faith in +the warnings of the stars and in the lines of his hand. His line of life +was very short and irregular, intersected and bifurcated, while the rest +of the lines were little thicker than hairs. In his horoscope was a +certain malefic influence which threatened that his life would be cut +short before his forty-fifth year. "But," he writes in the year before his +death, "here I am, living at the age of seventy-five."[243] The one +supernatural idea which seems to have deepened with old age and remained +undisturbed to the end was his belief in his attendant genius. In what he +wrote during his last years his mood was almost entirely introspective, +contemplative, and didactic, yet here and there he introduces a sentence +which lets in a little light from his way of life and personal affairs, +and helps to show how he occupied himself, and what his humour was. He +tells how one day, in 1576, he was writing about the fennel plant in his +treatise _De Tuenda Sanitate_, a plant which he praised highly because it +pleased his palate. But shortly afterwards, when he was walking one day in +the Roman vegetable market, an old man, shabbily dressed, met him and +dissuaded him from the use of the plant aforesaid, saying: "In Galen's +opinion you may as readily meet your death thereby as by eating hemlock." +"I answered that I knew well enough the difference between hemlock and +fennel, but the old man said, 'Take care, I know what I am saying,' and +went on murmuring something about Galen. Whereupon I went home and found +in Galen a passage I had not hitherto noticed, and, having changed my +former views, I added many fresh excerpts to my treatise." + +Although his faith may have been shaken in the ability of the stars to +govern his own fortunes, he records a case in which he himself filled the +post of _vates_, and which came to a sudden and terrible issue. Cardan was +present at a supper-party, and in the course of conversation let fall the +remark, "I should like to say something, were I not afraid that my words +would disturb the company," to which one of the guests replied, "You mean +that you would prophesy death to one of us here present." Cardan replied, +"Yes, within the present year," and in the next sentence he tells how on +the first day of December in that same year a certain young man, named +Virgilius, who had been present at the gathering aforesaid, died, and he +sets down this event as a fulfilment of his prophecy. + +But in the same chapter he lets the reader into the secret of his system +of prophecy, and displays it as simply an affair of common-sense, one +recommended by Aristotle as the only trustworthy method of divining future +events. Cardan writes: "I used to inquire what might be the exact nature +of the business in hand, and began by making myself acquainted with the +character of the locality, the ways of the people, and the quality of the +chief actors. I unfolded a vast number of historical instances, leading +events and secret transactions as well, and then, when I had confirmed the +facts set forth by my method of art, I gave my judgment thereupon."[244] + +In his latter years Cardan must have been in easy circumstances. The +pension from the Pope--no mention is made of its amount--and the fees he +received from his patients allowed him to keep a carriage; and writing in +his seventy-fifth year, he says that no fees would tempt him to join any +consultation unless he should be well assured what sort of men he was +expected to meet.[245] + +In the _Norma Vitae Consarcinata_[246] he relates how in April 1576 there +were two inmates of the Xenodochium at Rome, Troilus and Dominicus. It +seemed that Troilus exercised some strange and malefic influence over his +companion, who was taken with fever. He got well of this, but only to fall +into a dropsy, which despatched him in a week. Shortly before his death, +at the seventh hour, he cried out to two Spaniards who were standing by +the bed that he had suffered such great torture from the working of +Troilus, and that he was dying therefrom. "Therefore," he cried, "in your +presence I summon him with my dying words to appear before God's tribunal, +that he may give an account of all the evil he has wrought against me." On +the following day there came a messenger from Corneto, a few miles from +Rome, saying that Troilus, who was sojourning there, had fallen sick. The +physician inquired at what hour, and the messenger said it was at seven +o'clock, a day or two ago. He lay ill some days, an unfavourable case, but +not a desperate one, and one night shortly afterwards at seven o'clock, +the top of the mosquito curtains fell, and he died at exactly the same +hour as Dominicus. + +He tells another long story of an adventure which befell him in May 1576. +One day he was driving in his carriage in the Forum, when he remembered +that he wanted to see a certain jeweller who lived in a narrow alley close +by. Wherefore he told his coachman, a stupid fellow, to go to the Campo +Altoviti, and await him there. The coachman drove off apparently +understanding the order; but, instead of going to the place designated, +went somewhere else; so Cardan, when he set about to find his carriage, +sought in vain. He had a notion that the man had gone to a spot near the +citadel, so he walked thither, encumbered with the thick garments he had +put on as necessary for riding in the carriage. Just then he met a friend +of his, Vincenzio, a Bolognese musician, who remarked that Cardan was not +in his carriage as usual. The old man went on towards the citadel, but saw +nothing of the carriage; and now he began to be seriously troubled, for +there was naught else to be done but to go back over the bridge, and he +was wearied with long fasting and his heavy clothes. He might indeed have +asked for the loan of a carriage from the Governor of the castle; but he +was unwilling to do this, so having commended himself to God, he resolved +to use all his patience and prudence in finding his way back. He set out, +and when he had crossed the bridge, he entered the banking-house of the +Altoviti to inquire as to the alteration in the rate of exchange on +Naples, and there sat down to rest. While the banker was giving him this +information, the Governor entered the place, whereupon Cardan went out and +there he found his carriage, the driver having been informed by Vincenzio, +whom he had met, of the mistake he had made. Cardan got into the carriage, +and while he was wondering whether or not he had better go home and break +his fast, he found three raisins in his pocket, and thus made a fortunate +ending of all his difficulties. + +All this reads like a commonplace chapter of accidents; but the events +recorded did not present themselves to Cardan in this guise. He sits down +to moralize over the succession of momentary events: his meeting with +Vincenzio; Vincenzio's meeting with the driver, and directions given to +the man to drive to the money-changers'; the presence of the Governor, his +exit from the bank, his consequent meeting with the carriage, and his +discovery of the raisins, seven occurrences in all, any one of which, if +it had happened a little sooner or a little later, would have brought +about great inconvenience, or even worse. He does not deny that other men +may not now and then encounter like experiences, but the experiences of +other men were not fraught with such momentous crises, nor did they +foreshadow so many or grave dangers. + +The chronicling of this episode and the fanciful coincidence of the deaths +of Dominicus and Troilus may be taken as evidence that his idiosyncrasies +were becoming aggravated by the decay of his faculties. Writing on October +1, 1576, he makes mention of the various testaments he had already made, +and goes on to say that he had resolved to make a new and final +disposition of his goods. He would fain have let his property descend to +his immediate offspring, but with a son like Aldo this was impossible, so +he left all to Gian Battista's son, who would now be a youth about +eighteen years of age, Aldo getting nothing. He desired, for reasons best +known to himself, that all his descendants should remain _in curatela_ as +long as possible, and that all his property should be held on trust; if +the issue of his body should fail, then the succession should pass in +perpetuity to his kinsfolk on the father's side. He desired that his works +should be corrected and printed, and that, if heirs failed entirely, his +house at Bologna should pass to the University, and be styled, after his +family, _Collegium Cardanorum_. + +There is no authentic record of the exact date of Cardan's death. De Thou, +in writing the record of 1576, says that if Cardan's life had been +prolonged by three days he would have completed his seventy-fifth year. As +Cardan's birthday was September 24, 1501, this would fix his death on +September 21, 1576. The exact figures given by De Thou are: "eodem, quo +praedixerat, anno et die, videlicet XI. Kalend. VIII.," and he adds by way +of information that a belief was current at the time that Cardan, who had +foretold how he would die on this day and in this year, had abstained from +food for some days previous to his death in order to make the fatal day +square with the prophecy. + +But the details which Cardan himself has set down concerning the last few +weeks of his life are inconsistent with the facts chronicled by De Thou. +In the _De Vita Propria_, chapter xxxvi., Cardan records how on October 1, +1576, he set to work to make his last will and testament, wherefore if +credit is to be given to his version rather than to that of De Thou, he +was alive and active some days after the date of his death as fixed by the +chronicler. In cases where the record of an event of his early life given +in the _De Vita Propria_ differs from an account of the same in some +contemporary writing, the testimony of the _De Vita Propria_ may justly be +put aside; but in this instance he was writing of something which could +only have happened a few days past, and the balance of probability is that +he was right and De Thou wrong. Bayle notices this discrepancy, and in +the same paragraph taxes De Thou with a mistake of which he is innocent. +He states that De Thou placed the date of Cardan's death in 1575, whereas +the excerpt cited above runs: "Thuanus ad annum MDLXXVI., p. 136, lib. +lxii. tom. 4. Romae magni nominis sive Mathematicus, sive Medicus +Hieronymus Cardanus Mediol. natus hoc anno itidem obiit." + +No mention is made of the disease to which Cardan finally succumbed. Had +his frame not been of the strongest and most wiry, it must have gone to +pieces long before through the havoc wrought by the severe and continuous +series of ailments with which it was afflicted; so it seems permissible to +assume that he died of natural decay. His body was interred in the church +of Sant Andrea at Rome, and was subsequently transferred to Milan to be +deposited finally under the stone which covered the bones of his father in +the church of San Marco. This tomb, which Jerome had erected after Fazio's +death, bore the following inscription: + + FACIO CARDANO + + 1.C. + + Mors fuit id quod vixi: vitam mors dedit ipsa, + Mens aeterna manet, gloria tuta quies. + + Obiit anno MDXXIV. IV. Kalend. Sept. anno AEtatis LXXX. + Hieronymus Cardanus Medicus Parenti posterisque V.P.[247] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[239] "Qua causa permotus sim ad scribendum, superius intellexisse te +existimo, quippe somnio monitus, inde bis, terque, ac quater, ac pluries, +ut alias testatus sum; sed et desiderio perpetuandi nominis. Bis autem +magnam copiam ac numerum eorum perdidi; primum circa XXXVII annum, cum +circiter IX. libros exussi, quod vanos ac nullius utilitatis futuros esse +intelligerem; anno autem MDLXXIII alios CXX libros, cum jam calamitas illa +cessasset cremavi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. pp. 174, 175. + +[240] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 122. + +[241] _De Vita Propria_, p. 232. + +[242] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 639. In the _De Varietate_ he says that natural +causes may in most cases be found for seeming marvels. "Ecce auditur +strepitus in domo, potest esse mus, felis, ericius, aut quod tigna +subsidant blatta."--p. 624. + +[243] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xli. p. 152. + +[244] _De Vita Propria_, chapter xlii., _passim_. + +[245] _Ibid.,_ p. 66. + +[246] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 339. + +[247] Tomasinus, _Gymnasium Patavinum_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE estimates hitherto made concerning Cardan's character appear to have +been influenced too completely, one way or the other, by the judgment +pronounced upon him by Gabriel Naude, and prefixed to all editions of the +_De Vita Propria_. Some writers have been disposed to treat Naude as a +hide-bound pedant, insensible to the charm of genius, and the last man who +ought to be trusted as the valuator of a nature so richly gifted, +original, and erratic as was Cardan's. Such critics are content to regard +as black anything which Naude calls white and _vice versa_. Others accept +him as a witness entirely trustworthy, and adopt as a true description of +Cardan the paragraphs made up of uncomplimentary adjectives--applied by +Cardan to himself--which Naude has transferred from the _De Vita Propria_ +and the _Geniturarum Exempla_ to his _Judicium de Cardano_. + +It may be conceded at once that the impression received from a perusal of +this criticism is in the main an unfavourable one of Cardan as a man, +although Naude shows himself no niggard of praise when he deals with +Cardan's achievements in Medicine and Mathematics. But in appraising the +qualifications of Naude to act as a judge in this case, it will be +necessary to bear in mind the fact that he was in his day a leading +exponent of liberal opinions, the author of a treatise exposing the +mummeries and sham mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and of an "Apologie pour +les Grands Hommes soupconnez de Magie," and a disbeliever in supernatural +manifestations of every kind. With a mind thus attuned it is no matter of +surprise that Naude should have been led to speak somewhat severely when +called upon to give judgment on a man saturated as Cardan was with the +belief in sorcery, witches, and attendant demons. + +If Naude indeed set to work with the intention of drawing a figure of +Cardan which should stand out a sinister apparition in the eyes of +posterity, his task was an easy one. All he had to do was to place Jerome +Cardan himself in the witness-box. Reference to the passages already +quoted will show that, in the whole _corpus_ of autobiographic literature, +there does not exist a volume in which the work of self-dissection has +been so ruthlessly and completely undertaken and executed as in Cardan's +memoirs. It has all the vices of an old man's book; it is garrulous, +vain-glorious, and full of needless repetition; but, whatever portion of +his life may be under consideration, the author never shrinks from holding +up to the world's gaze the result of his searches in the deepest abysses +of his conscience. Autobiographers, as a rule, do not feel themselves +subject to a responsibility so deep as this. Memory turns back to the +contemplation of certain springs of action, certain achievements in the +past, making a judicious selection from these, and excerpting only such as +promise to furnish the possible reader with a pleasing impression of the +personality of the subject. With material of this sort at hand, the +autobiographer sets to work to construct a fair and gracious monument, +being easily persuaded that it would be a barbarous act to mar its +symmetry by the introduction of loathly and misshapen blocks like those +which Cardan, had he been the artist, would have chosen first of all. + +Naude, after he has recorded the fact that, from his first essay in +letters, he had been a zealous and appreciative student of Cardan's works, +sets down Cardan's picture of himself, taken from his own Horoscope in the +_Geniturarum Exempla_, "nugacem, religionis contemptorem, injuriae illatae +memorem, invidum, tristem, insidiatorem, proditorem, magum, incantatorem, +frequentibus calamitatibus obnoxium, suorum osor[e=], turpi libidini +deditum, solitarium, inamoenum, austerum, sponte etiam divinantem, +zelotypum, lascivum, obscoenum, maledicum, obsequiosum, senum +conversatione se delectantem, varium, ancipitem, impur[u=], et dolis +mulierum obnoxium, calumniatorem, et omnino incognitum propter naturae et +morum repugnantiam, etiam his cum quibus assidue versor." The critic at +once goes on to state that in his opinion this description, drawn by the +person who ought to know best, is, in the main, a correct one. What better +account could you expect, he asks, of a man who put faith in dreams and +portents and auguries; who believed fully in the utterances of crazy +beldames, who saw ghosts, and who believed he was attended by a familiar +demon? Then follows a catalogue of moral offences and defects of +character, all taken from Cardan's own confessions, and a pronunciation by +Naude that the man who says he never lies, must be of all liars the +greatest; the charge of mendacity being driven home by references to +Cardan's alleged miraculous comprehension of the classic tongues in a +single night, and his pretended knowledge of a cure for phthisis. There is +no need to follow Naude farther in his diatribe against the faults and +imperfections, real and apparent, of Cardan's character; these must be +visible enough to the most cursory student. Passages like these arouse +the suspicion that Naude knew books better than men, that at any rate he +did not realize that men are to be found, and not seldom, who take +pleasure in magnifying their foibles into gigantic follies, and their +peccadilloes into atrocious crimes; while the rarity is to come across one +who will set down these details with the circumstantiality used by Cardan. +There is one defect in the _De Vita Propria_--an artistic one--which Naude +does not notice, namely, that in his narrative of his early days Cardan +often over-reaches himself. His show of extreme accuracy destroys the +perspective of the story, and, in his anxiety to be minute over the +sequence of his childish ailments, the most trivial details of his uneasy +dreams, and the cuffs he got from his father and his Aunt Margaret, he +confuses the reader with multitudinous particulars and ceases to be +dramatic. But the hallucinations which he nourished about himself were not +all the outcome of senility. In the _De Varietate_, the work upon which he +spent the greatest care, and the product moreover of his golden prime, he +gives an account of four marvellous properties with which he was +gifted.[248] The first of these was the power to pass, whenever the whim +seized him, from sense into a kind of ecstasy. While he was in this state +he could hear but faintly the sound of voices, and could not distinguish +spoken words. Whether he would be sensitive to any great pain he could not +say, but twitchings and the sharpest attacks of gout affected him not. +When he fell into this state he felt a certain separation about the heart, +as if his soul were departing from that region and taking possession of +his whole body, a door being opened for the passage of the same. The +sensation would begin in the cerebellum, and thence would be diffused +along the spine. The one thing of which he was fully conscious, was that +he had passed out of himself. The second property was that, when he would, +he could conjure up any images he liked before his eyes, real [Greek: +eidola], and not at all to be compared with the blurred processions of +phantoms which he was wont to see when he was a child. At the time when he +wrote, perhaps by reason of his busy life, he no longer saw them +whensoever he would, nor so perfectly expressed, nor for so long at a +time. These images constantly gave place one to another, and he would +behold groves, and animals, and orbs, and whatever he was fain to see. +This property he attributed to the force of his imaginative power, and his +clearness of vision. The third property was that he never failed to be +warned in dreams of things about to happen to him; and the fourth was that +premonitory signs of coming events would display themselves in the form of +spots on his nails. The signs of evil were black or livid, and appeared on +the middle finger; white spots on the same nail portending good fortune. +Honours were indicated on the thumb, riches on the fore-finger, matters +relating to his studies and of grave import on the third finger, and minor +affairs on the little finger. + +In putting together the record of his life, Cardan eschewed the narrative +form and followed a method of his own. He collected the details of his +qualities, habits, and adventures in separate chapters; his birth and +lineage, his physical stature, his diet, his rule of life, his +imperfections, his poverty, the misfortunes of his sons, his masters and +pupils, his travels, his experiences of things beyond nature, his cures, +the persecutions of his foes, and divers other categories being grouped +together to make up the _De Vita Propria_, which, though it is the most +interesting book he has left behind him, is certainly the most clumsy and +chaotic from a literary point of view. The chapters for the most part +begin with his early years, and end with some detail as to his life in +Rome, each one being a categorical survey of a certain side of his life; +but remarks as to his personal peculiarities are scattered about from +beginning to end. He tells how he could always see the moon in broad +daylight;[249] of his passion for wandering about the city by night +carrying arms forbidden by the law; of his practice of self-torture, +beating his legs with a switch, twisting his fingers, pinching his flesh, +and biting his left arm; and of going about within doors with naked legs; +how at one time he was possessed with the desire, _heroica passio_, of +suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts--kids, +lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks. The chapter in which he records all the +maladies which afflicted him, puts upon the reader's credulity a burden +almost as heavy as is the catalogue given by another philosopher of the +number of authors he mastered before his twelfth year. Two attacks of the +plague, agues, tertian and quotidian, malignant ulcers, hernia, +haemorrhoids, varicose veins, palpitation of the heart, gout, indigestion, +the itch, and foulness of skin. Relief in the second attack of plague came +from a sweat so copious that it soaked the bed and ran in streams down to +the floor; and, in a case of continuous fever, from voiding a hundred and +twenty ounces of urine. As a boy he was a sleep-walker, and he never +became warm below the knees till he had been in bed six hours, a +circumstance which led his mother to predict that his time on earth would +be brief. + +Cardan lived an abstemious life. He broke his fast on bread-and-water and +a few grapes. He sometimes dined off bread, the yolk of an egg, and a +little wine, and would take for supper a mess of beetroot and rice and a +chicory salad. The catalogue of his favourite dishes seems to exhaust +every known edible, and it will suffice to remark that he was specially +inclined to sound and well-stewed wild boar, the wings of young cockerels +and the livers of pullets, oysters, mussels, fresh-water crayfish because +his mother ate greedily thereof when she was pregnant with him; but of all +dishes he rates the best a carp from three pounds weight to seven, taken +from a good feeding-ground. He praises all sweet fruit, oil, olives, and +finds in rue an antidote to poison. Ten o'clock was his hour for going to +bed, and he allowed himself eight hours' sleep. When wakeful he would walk +about the room and repeat the multiplication table. As a further remedy +for sleeplessness he would reduce his food by half, and would anoint his +thighs, the soles of his feet, the neck, the elbows, the carpal bones, the +temples, the jugulars, the region of the heart and of the liver, and the +upper lip with ointment of poplars, or the fat of bear, or the oil of +water-lilies. + +These few extracts will show that an intelligible narrative could scarcely +be produced by the methods Cardan used. The book is a collection of facts, +classified as a scientific writer would arrange the sections and +subsections of his subject. In gathering together and grouping the leading +points of his life, a method somewhat similar to his own will suffice, but +there will be no need to descend to a subdivision so minute as his own. A +task of this sort is never an easy one, and in this instance the +difficulties are increased by the diffuse and complicated nature of the +subject matter; and because, owing to Cardan's wayward mental habit, +there is no saying in what corner of the ten large folios which contain +his writings some pregnant and characteristic sentence, picturing +effectively some aspect of his nature or perhaps exhibiting the man at a +glance, may not be hidden away. + +It must not be inferred, because Cardan himself and his critics after him, +have laid such great stress upon his vices and imperfections, that he was +devoid of virtues. The most striking and remarkable of his merits was his +industry, but even in this particular instance, where his excellence is +most clearly manifest, he is constantly lamenting his waste of time and +idleness. Again and again he mourns over the precious hours he has spent +over chess and dice and games of chance. In his counsels to his children, +he compares a gambler to a sink of all the vices, and in writing of his +early life at Sacco he describes himself as an idle profligate, and tells +how he entirely neglected his profession. If indeed such monstrous cantles +were cut out of his time through idleness he must, though his life proved +a long one, have possessed extraordinary power of rapid production; for +the huge mass of his published work, without taking any account of the +many manuscripts he burned from time to time, would, in the case of most +men, represent the ceaseless labour of a long life. And the _corpus_ is +not great by reason of haste or want of finish. He has recorded more than +once how it was ever his habit to let his work be polished to the utmost +before putting it in type. The citations with which his pages bristle +proclaim him to be a reader almost as voracious and catholic as Burton; +and Naude, with the watchfulness of the hostile critic in his heart and +the bookworm's knowledge in his brain, would have been ready and able to +convict him of quoting authors he had not read, if the least handle for +this charge should have been given, but no accusation of the kind is +preferred. The story of his life shows him to be full of rough candour and +honesty, and unlikely to descend to subterfuge, while his great love of +reading and his accurate retentive memory would make easy for him a task +which ordinary mortals might well regard as hopeless. + +Those critics who pass judgment on Cardan, taken solely as a Physician or +as a Mathematician, will give a presentment more fallacious than imperfect +generalizations usually furnish, for in Cardan's case the man, taken as a +whole, was incomparably greater than the sum of his parts. Naude remarks +that a man who knows a little of everything, and that little imperfectly, +deserves small respect as a citizen of the republic of letters, but Cardan +did not belong to this category, as Julius Caesar Scaliger found to his +cost. He was not like the bookmen of the revival of learning--Poliziano, +Valla, or Alberti may stand as examples--who after putting on the armour +of the learned language and saturating themselves with the _literae +humaniores_, made excursions into some domain of science for the sake of +recreation. Cardan might rather be compared with Varro or Theophrastus in +classic, and with Erasmus, Pico, Grotius, or Casaubon in modern times. On +this point Naude indulges in something approaching panegyric. He +writes--"Investigation will show us that many excelled him in the +humanities or in Theology, some even in Mathematics, some in Medicine and +in the knowledge of Philosophy, some in Oriental tongues and in either +side of Jurisprudence, but where shall we find any one who had mastered so +many sciences by himself, who had plumbed so deeply the abysses of +learning and had written such ample commentaries on the subjects he +studied? Assuredly in Philosophy, in Metaphysics, in History, in Politics, +in Morals, as well as in the more abstruse fields of learning, nothing +that was worth consideration escaped his notice." + +The foregoing eulogy from the pen of an adverse critic gives eloquent +testimony to Cardan's industry and the catholicity of his knowledge. As to +his industry, the record of his literary production, chronicled +incidentally in the course of the preceding pages, will be evidence +enough, seeing that, from the time when he "commenced author," scarcely a +year went by when he did not print a volume of some sort or other; to say +nothing of the production of those multitudinous unpublished MSS., of +which some went to build up the pile he burnt in his latter years in Rome, +while others, perhaps, are still mouldering in the presses of university +or city libraries of Italy. Frequent reference has been made to the more +noteworthy of his works. Books like the _De Vita Propria_, the _De Libris +Propriis_, the _De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda_, the _Geniturarum +Exempla_, the _Theonoston_, the _Consilia Medica_, the dialogues _Tetim_ +and _De Morte_, have necessarily been drawn upon for biographical facts. +The _De Subtilitate_ and the _De Varietate Rerum_; the _Liber Artis +Magnae_, the _Practica Arithmeticae_, have been noticed as the most enduring +portions of his legacy to posterity; wherefore, before saying the final +word as to his literary achievement, it may not be superfluous to give a +brief glance at those of his books which, although of minor importance to +those already cited, engaged considerable attention in the lifetime of the +writer. + +The work upon which Cardan founded his chief hope of immortality was his +_Commentary on Hippocrates_. In bulk it ranks first easily, filling as it +does one of the large folios of the edition of 1663. Curiously enough, in +addition to a permanent place in the annals of medicine, Cardan +anticipated for this forgotten mass of type a general and immediate +popularity; wider than any which his technical works could possibly enjoy, +seeing that it dealt with the preservation of health, the greatest mortal +blessing, and must on this account be of interest to all men. It will be +enough to remark of these commentaries that no portion of Cardan's work +yields less information as to the author's life and personality; to dilate +upon them, ever so superficially, from a scientific point of view, would +be waste of time and paper. Another of his works, which he rated highly, +was his treatise on Music. It was begun during his tenure of office at +Pavia, _circa_ 1547, and he was still at work upon it two years before his +death.[250] It is not difficult to realize, even at this interval of time, +that this book at the date of its publication must have been welcomed by +all musical students as a valuable contribution to the literature of their +subject. It is strongly marked by Cardan's particular touch, that +formative faculty by which he almost always succeeded in stimulating fresh +interest in the reader, and exhibiting fresh aspects of whatever subject +he might be treating. This work begins by laying down at length the +general rules and principles of the art, and then goes on to treat of +ancient music in all its forms; of music as Cardan knew and enjoyed it; of +the system of counterpoint and composition, and of the construction of +musical instruments. + +The Commentary on _Ptolemaei de Astrorum Judiciis_, the writing of which +beguiled the tedium of his voyage down the Loire on his journey to Paris +in 1552, is a book upon which he spent great care, and is certainly worthy +of notice. Cardan's gratitude to Archbishop Hamilton for the liberal +treatment and gracious reception he had recently encountered in Scotland, +prompted him to dedicate this volume to his late patient. He writes in the +preface how he had expected to find the Scots a pack of barbarians, but +their country, he affirms, is cultivated and humanized beyond +belief,--"and you yourself reflect such splendour upon your nation that +now, by the very lustre of your name, it must needs appear to the world +more noble and illustrious than at any time heretofore. What need is there +for me to speak of the school founded by you at St. Andrews, of sedition +quelled, of your country delivered, of the authority of your brother the +Regent vindicated? These are merely the indications of your power, and not +the source thereof." In the preface he also writes at length, concerning +the horoscope of Christ,[251] in a strain of apology, as if he scented +already the scandal which the publication of this injudicious performance +was destined to raise. In estimating the influence of comets he sets down +several instances which had evidently been brought to his notice during +his sojourn in Scotland: how in 1165, within fourteen days of the +appearance of a great comet, Malcolm IV., known on account of his +continence as the virgin king, fell sick and died. Again, in 1214 two +comets, one preceding and the other following the sun, appeared as +fore-runners of the death of King William after a reign of forty-nine +years. Perhaps the most interesting of his comments on Ptolemy's text are +those which estimate the power of the stellar influences on the human +frame, an aspect of the question which, by reason of his knowledge of +medicine and surgery, would naturally engage his more serious attention. +He tells of the birth of a monstrous child--a most loathsome +malformation--at Middleton Stoney, near Oxford, during his stay in +England,[252] and gives many other instances of the disastrous effects of +untoward conjunction of the planets upon infants born under the influence +of the same. He accuses monks and nuns of detestable vices in the plainest +words, words which were probably read by the emissaries of the spiritual +authority when the charge of impiety was being got up against him. In the +_Geniturarum Exempla_ the horoscopes of Edward VI., Archbishop Hamilton, +and Cardan himself have been already noticed; that of Sir John Cheke comes +next in interest to these, and, it must be admitted, is no more +trustworthy. It declares that Cheke would attain the age of sixty-one +years, that he would be most fortunate in gathering wealth and friends +around him, that he would die finally of lingering disease, and involve +many in misfortune by his death--a faulty guess, indeed, as to the future +of a man who died at forty-three, borne down by the weight of his +misfortunes, neglected and forgotten by his former adherents, stripped of +his wealth and covered with shame, in that he had abjured his faith to +save a life which was so little worth preserving. + +Naude does not neglect to censure Cardan for his maladroit attempts to +read the future. He writes:--"This matter, forsooth, gave a ready handle +to Cardan's rivals, and especially to those who were sworn foes of +astrology; so that they were able to jibe at him freely because, neither +in his own horoscope, nor in that of his son Giovanni Battista, nor in +that of Aymer Ranconet, nor in that of Edward VI., king of England, nor +in any other of the schemes that he drew, did he rightly foresee any of +the events which followed. He did not divine that he himself was doomed to +imprisonment, his son to the halter, Ranconet to a violent death, and +Edward to a brief term of life, but predicted for each one of these some +future directly contrary."[253] + +The treatise _De Consolatione_, probably the best known of Cardan's +ethical works, was first published at Venice in 1542 by Girolamo Scoto, +but it failed at first to please the public taste. It was not until 1544, +when it was re-issued bound up with the _De Sapientia_ and the first +version of the _De Libris Propriis_ from the press of Petreius at +Nuremberg, that it met with any success. Perhaps the sober tone and +didactic method of this treatise appealed more readily to the mood of the +German than of the Italian reader. From internal evidence it is obvious +that Cardan was urged to write it by the desire of making known to the +world the bitter experience of his early literary and professional +struggles. In the opening paragraph he lets it be seen that he intends to +follow a Ciceronian model, and records his regret that the lament of +Cicero over his daughter's death should have perished in the barbarian +wars. The original title of the book was _The Accuser_, to wit, something +which might censure the vain passions and erring tendencies of mankind, +"at post mutato nomine, et in tres libellos diviso, de Consolatione eum +inscripsimus, quod longe magis infelices consolatione, quam fortunati +reprehensione, indigere viderentur." The subsequent success of the book +was probably due to this change of name, though the author himself +preferred to have discovered a special reason for its early failure.[254] +The plan of the treatise is the same as that of a dozen others of the same +nature: an effort to persuade men in evil case that they may find relief +by regarding the misfortunes they suffer as transitory accidents in no way +affecting the chief end of life, and by seeking happiness alone in +trafficking with the riches of the mind. + +It is doubtful whether any of the books written with this object have ever +served their purpose, save in the case of their originators. Cardan may +have found the burden of his failure and poverty grow lighter as he set +down his woes on paper, but the rest of the world must have read the book +for some other reason than the hope of consolation. Read to-day in +Bedingfield's quaint English, the book is full of charm and interest. It +is filled with apt illustration from Greek philosophy and from Holy Writ +as well, and lighted up by spaces of lively wit. It was accepted by the +public taste for reasons akin to those which would secure popularity for a +clever volume of essays at the present time, and was translated into more +than one foreign language, Bedingfield's translation being published some +thirty years after its first appearance. + +The _De Sapientia_, with which it is generally classed, is of far less +interest. It is a series of ethical discourses, lengthy and discursive, +which must have seemed dull enough to contemporary students: to read it +through now would be a task almost impossible. It is only remembered +because Cardan has inserted therein, somewhat incongruously, that account +of his asserted cures of phthisis which Cassanate quoted when he wrote to +Cardan about Archbishop Hamilton's asthma, and which were afterwards +seized upon by hostile critics as evidence of his disregard of truth. + +Another of his minor works highly characteristic of the author is the +_Somniorum Synesiorum_, a collection of all the remarkable dreams he ever +dreamt, many of which have been already noticed. To judge from what +specimens of his epistles are extant, Cardan seems to have been a good +letter-writer. One of the most noteworthy is that which he addressed to +Gian Battista after his marriage. It shows Cardan to have been a loving +father and a master of sapient exhortation, while the son's fate gives +melancholy testimony of the futility of good counsel unaided by direction +and example. He tells of his grief at seeing the evil case into which his +son had fallen, vexed by poverty, disgrace, and loss of health, how he +would gladly even now receive the prodigal into his house (he says nothing +about the wife), did he not fear that such a step would lead to his own +ruin rather than to his son's restoration. After showing that any fresh +misfortune to himself must needs cut away the last hope for Gian Battista, +he sketches out a line of conduct for the ill-starred youth which he +declared, if rightly pursued, might re-establish his fortunes. + +He begins by advising his son to read and lay to heart the contents of the +_De Consolatione_ and the _De Utilitate_, and then, somewhat more to the +purpose, promises him half his earnings of the present and the coming +year. Beyond this Gian Battista should have half the salary of any office +which his father might get for himself, and half of the piece of silk +which he had received from the Venetian Ambassador, supposing that the +young man should not be able to get a like piece for himself from the same +source. + +He next cites the _De Consolatione_ to demonstrate the futility of +lamentation over misfortune past or present, or indeed over any decree of +fate. He bids Gian Battista reflect that he is human not a brute, a man +not a woman, a Christian not a Moslem or Jew, an Italian not a barbarian, +sprung from a worthy city and family, and from a father whose name by +itself will prove a title to fame. His only real troubles are a weak body +and infirm health--one a gift of heredity, the other aggravated by +dissolute habits. It may be a vain thing for men to congratulate +themselves over their happiness, but it is vainer for them to cry out for +solace over past calamity. Contempt of money is foolish, but contempt of +God is ten times worse. Cardan concludes this part of his letter by +reciting two maxims given him by his father--one, to have daily +remembrance of God and of His vast bounty, the other, to pursue with the +utmost diligence any task taken in hand. + +Cardan then treats the scapegrace to a string of maxims from the _De +Utilitate_, maxims which a model son might have read, but which Gian +Battista would certainly put aside unnoticed, and finishes with some +serviceable practical counsel: "Keep your mind calm, go early to bed, for +ours is a hot-blooded race and predisposed to suffer from stone. Take nine +hours' sleep, rise at six and visit your patients, being careful to use no +speech unconnected with the case before you. Avoid heating your body to +perspiration; go forth on horseback, come back on foot; and on your return +put on warm clothes. Drink little, break your fast on bread, dried fish, +and meat, and then give four hours to study, for studies bring pleasure, +relief from care, and mental riches; they are the foundations of renown, +and enable a man to do his duty with credit. See your patients again; and, +before you sup, take exercise in the woods and fields adjacent. Should +you become over-heated or wet with rain, cast off and dry your damp +clothes, and don dry ones. Sup heartily, and go to bed at eight; and when, +by the brevity of the night, this is not convenient, take a corresponding +rest during the day. Abstain from summer fruit, from black wine, from vain +overflow of talk, from falsehood and gaming, from trusting a woman or +over-indulging her, for she is a foolish animal and full of deceit. +Over-fondness towards a woman will surely bring evil upon you. Bleed and +purge yourself as little as possible; learn by experience of other men's +faults and misfortunes; live frugally; bear yourself suavely to all men; +and let study be your main end. All this and more have I set forth in the +books I have named. Trust neither promises nor hopes, for these may be +vain and delusive; and reckon your own only that which you hold in your +hand. Farewell." + +From the fact that Cardan took part in an unofficial medical conference in +Paris, that he afterwards superseded Cassanate as the Archbishop of St. +Andrews' physician, and did not find himself with a dozen or so quarrels +on his hands, it may be assumed that he was laudably free from the +jealousy attributed by tradition to his profession. This instance becomes +all the more noteworthy when his natural irascibility, and the character +of the learned controversy of the times comes to be considered. He does +not spare his censure in remarking on the too frequent quarrels of men of +letters,[255] albeit these quarrels must have lent no little gaiety to the +literary world. No one who reads the account of Gian Battista's fate can +doubt the sincerity of Cardan's remorse for that neglect of the boy's +youthful training which helped to bring him to ruin, and the care which he +bestowed upon his grandson Fazio proved that his regret was not of that +sort which exhales itself in empty words. The zeal with which he threw +himself into the struggle for his son's life, and his readiness to strip +himself of his last coin as the fight went on, show that he was capable of +warm-hearted affection, and afraid of no sacrifice in the cause of duty. + +The brutal candour which Cardan used in probing the weaknesses of his own +nature and in displaying them to the world, he used likewise in his +dealings with others. If he detected Branda Porro or Camutio in a blunder +he would inform them they were blockheads without hesitation, and plume +himself afterwards on the score of his blunt honesty. Veracity was not a +common virtue in those days, but Cardan laid claim to it with a display of +insistence which was not, perhaps, in the best taste. Over and over again +he writes that he never told a lie;[256] a contention which seems to have +roused especially the bile of Naude, and to have spurred him on to make +his somewhat clumsy assault on Cardan's veracity.[257] His citation of the +case of the stranger who came with the volume of Apuleius for sale, and of +the miraculous gift of classic tongues, has already been referred to; but +these may surely be attributed to an exaggerated activity of that +particular side of Cardan's imagination which was specially prone to +seize upon some figment of the brain, and some imperfectly apprehended +sensation of the optic nerve, and fashion from these materials a tale of +marvel. Delusions of this sort were common in reputed witches, as Reginald +Scot writes--"They learne strange toongs with small industrie (as +Aristotle and others affirme)."[258] The other charge preferred by Naude +as to the pretended cure of consumption, and the consequent quibbling and +tergiversation, is a more valid one. It has been noted how Cardan, +previous to his journey to Scotland, had posed as the discoverer of a cure +for this malady. In the list of his cures successfully treated he includes +several in which he restored patients suffering from blood-spitting, +fever, and extreme emaciation to sound health, the most noteworthy of +these being that of Girolamo Tiboldo, a sea-captain. When the sick man had +risen from his bed and had become fat and healthy, Cardan deemed that the +occasion justified a certain amount of self-gratulation, but the +physicians, out of envy, declared that Tiboldo had never suffered from +true phthisis. In his account of the case Cardan says that he, and the +physicians as well, were indeed untruthful over the matter, his own +falsehood having been the result of over-sanguine hope, and theirs the +outcome of spiteful envy. Tiboldo died after all of chest disease, but not +till five years later, and then from a chill caught through sitting in wet +garments.[259] The term consumption has always been applied somewhat +loosely, and Cardan probably would have been allowed the benefit of this +usage if he had not, in an excess of candour, set down the workings of his +mind and conscience with regard to this matter. Writing of his treatment +of Archbishop Hamilton, he says: "And in truth I cured scarcely any +patients of phthisic disease, though I did find a remedy for many who were +suffering from similar maladies, wherefore that boast of mine, that +proclamation of merit to which I had no right, worked no small profit to +me, a man very little given to lying. For the people about the Archbishop, +urged on by these and other considerations, persuaded him that he had no +chance of regaining his health except by putting himself under my care, +and that he should fly to me as his last hope."[260] It has already been +noted that Cardan's claim to some past knowledge in the successful +treatment of chest diseases had weight with the Archbishop and Cassanate, +and the result of his visit surely proved that their confidence was not +ill-placed; his boasting may have been a trifle excessive, but it was +based on hope rather than achievement; and if proof can be adduced that it +was not prompted by any greed of illegitimate fame or profit, it may +justly be ranked as a weakness rather than as a serious offence. To these +two instances of falsehood Naude adds a third, to wit, Cardan's claim to +the guidance of a familiar spirit. He refuses to let this rank as a +delusion; and, urged no doubt by righteous indignation against the ills +springing from kindred superstitions, he writes down as a liar rather than +a dupe the man who, after mastering the whole world of science, could +profess such folly. + +Considering the catholicity of Cardan's achievements, and the eager spirit +of inquiry he displayed in fields of learning remote from his own +particular one, it is worthy of notice that he did not allow this +discursive humour, which is not seldom a token of instability, to hold him +back from pursuing the supreme aim of his life, that is, eminence in the +art of Medicine. In his youth the threats and persuasions of his father +could not induce him to take up Jurisprudence with an assured income and +abandon Medicine. At Sacco, at Gallarate, and afterwards in Milan he was +forced by the necessity of bread-winning to use his pen in all sorts of +minor subjects that had no real fascination for him, but all his leisure +was devoted to the acquisition of Medical knowledge. Prudence as well as +inclination had a share in directing his energies into this channel, for a +report, for which no doubt there was some warrant, was spread abroad that +what skill he had lay entirely in the knowledge of Astrology; and, as this +rumour operated greatly to his prejudice,[261] he resolved to perfect +himself in Medicine and free his reputation from this aspersion. He had +quarrelled violently with the physicians over the case of Count Borromeo's +child which died, and with Borromeo himself, and, almost immediately after +this, he published his book, _De Astrorum Judiciis_, a step which tended +to identify him yet more closely with Astrology, and to raise a cry +against him in Milan, which he declares to be the most scandal-mongering +city in the Universe. But it is clear that in this instance scandal was +not far wrong, and that Cardan himself was right in purging himself of the +quasi science he ought never to have taken up. + +Medicine, when Cardan began his studies, was beginning to feel the effects +of the revival of Greek learning. With the restored knowledge of the +language of Greece there arose a desire to investigate the storehouses of +science, as well as those of literature, and the extravagant assumption +of the dogmatists, and the eccentricities of the Arabic school gave +additional cogency to the cry for more light. The sects which Galen had +endeavoured to unite sprang into new activity within a century after his +death. The Arabian physicians, acute and curious as they were, had +exercised but a very transient influence upon the real progress of the +art, the chief cause of their non-success being their adhesion to +arbitrary and empirical tradition. At the end of the fifteenth century, +Leonicinus, a professor at Ferrara, recalled the allegiance of his pupils +to the authority of Hippocrates by the ability and eloquence of his +teaching; and, by his translation of Galen's works into Latin, he helped +still farther to confirm the ascendency of the fathers of Medicine. The +Arabians, sprung from the East, the storehouse of drugs and simples, and +skilled in Chemistry, were the founders of the Pharmacopoeia,[262] but +with this exception they did nothing to advance Medicine beyond the point +where the Greeks had left it. The treatises of Haly, Avicenna, and +Maimonides were little better than faint transcriptions of the writings of +the great forerunners. Their teaching was random and spasmodic, whereas +the system of Hippocrates was conceived in the spirit of Greek philosophy, +moving on by select experience, always observant and cautious, and +ascending by slow and certain steps to the generalities of Theory. Indeed +the science of Medicine in the hands of Hippocrates and his school seems, +more than any other, to have presented to the world a rudimentary essay, a +faint foreshadowing of the great fabric of inductive process, subsequently +formulated by the genius of Bacon. At various epochs Medicine had been +specially stimulated by the vivifying spirit of Greek science; in the +Roman school in the days of Celsus, and in the Arabian teaching likewise. +Fuller acknowledgment of the authority of Greek Medicine came with the +Renaissance,[263] but even this long step in advance did not immediately +liberate the art from bondage. A new generation of professors arose who +added fresh material to the storehouses, already overflowing, of pedantic +erudition, and showed the utmost contempt for any fruit of other men's +labour which might not square exactly with the utterances of the founders. +This attitude rendered these professors of Medicine the legitimate objects +of ridicule, as soon as the leaven of the revival began to work, and the +darts of satire still fly, now and then, at the same quarry. Paracelsus, +disfigured as his teaching was by mysticism, the arts of the charlatan, +and by his ignorant repudiation of the service of Anatomy, struck the +first damaging blows at this illegitimate ascendency, by the frequent +success of his empirical treatment, by the contempt he heaped upon the +scholastic authorities, and by the boldness with which he assailed every +thesis which they maintained. Men of more sober intellect and weighty +learning soon followed in his track. Fernelius, one of the physicians +Cardan met in Paris, boldly rejected what he could not approve by +experience in the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, and stood forth as +the advocate for free inquiry, and Joubert of Montpelier, Argentier of +Turin, and Botal of Asti subsequently took a similar course. + +When Cardan went to study at Pavia in 1519 this tradition was unshaken. It +was not until the advent of Vesalius that the doom of the ancient system +was sounded. Then, when Anatomy sprang to the front as the potent ally of +Medicine, the science of healing entered upon a fresh stage, but this new +force did not make itself felt soon enough to seduce Cardan from the +altars of the ancients to the worship of new gods. As long as he lived he +was a follower of the great masters, though at the same time his +admiration of the teaching of Vesalius was enthusiastic and profound. His +love of truth and sound learning forbade him to give unreflecting adhesion +to the precepts of any man, however eminent, and when he found that Galen +was a careless commentator on Hippocrates,[264] and failed to elucidate +the difficulties with which he professed to deal, he did not spare his +censure.[265] In the _De Subtilitate_ he speaks of him as "Verbosus et +studio contradicendi taedulus ut alterum vix ferre queas, in reliquo gravis +jactura artium posita sit, quam nostrae aetatis viri restituere conati +sunt."[266] But as Galen's name is quoted as an authority on almost every +page of the _Consilia Medica_, it may be assumed that Cardan's faith in +his primary theories was unshaken. In his Commentaries on Hippocrates, +Galen professes a profound respect for his master, but the two great men +must be regarded as the leaders of rival schools; indeed it could hardly +be otherwise, seeing how vast was the mass of knowledge which Galen added +to the art during his lifetime. + +Hippocrates, by denying the supernatural origin of disease, by his method +of diagnosis, by the importance he attached to air and diet, by his +discriminating use of drugs, and by the simplicity of his system +generally, had placed Medicine on a rational basis. In the six hundred +years' space which elapsed before the appearance of Galen, Medicine was +broken up into many rival schools. The Dogmatici and the Empirici for many +years wrangled undisturbed, but shortly after the Christian era the +Methodici entered the field, to be followed later on by the Eclectici and +a troop of other sects, whose wranglings, and whose very names, are now +forgotten. In his _History of Medicine_, Dr. Bostock gives a sketch of the +attitude of Galen towards the rival schools. "In his general principles he +may be considered as belonging to the Dogmatic sect, for his method was to +reduce all his knowledge, as acquired by the observation of facts, to +general theoretical principles. These principles he indeed professed to +deduce from experience and observation,[267] and we have abundant proofs +of his diligence in collecting experience and his accuracy in making +observations; but still, in a certain sense at least, he regards +individual facts and the details of experience as of little value, +unconnected with the principles which he laid down as the basis of all +medical reasoning. In this fundamental point, therefore, the method +pursued by Galen appears to have been directly the reverse of that which +we now consider as the correct method of scientific investigation; and +yet, such is the force of actual genius, that in most instances he +attained the ultimate object in view, although by an indirect path. He was +an admirer of Hippocrates, and always speaks of him with the most profound +respect, professing to act upon his principles, and to do little more +than expound his doctrines and support them by new facts and observations. +Yet in reality we have few writers whose works, both as to substance and +manner, are more different from each other than those of Hippocrates and +Galen, the simplicity of the former being strongly contrasted with the +abstruseness and refinement of the latter." + +The antagonism between these two great men was not perhaps more marked +than might have been expected, considering that an interval of six hundred +years lay between them. However loyal he may have been to his master, +Galen, with his keen, catholic, and subtle intellect, was bound to fall +under the sway of Alexandrian influence while he studied in Alexandria as +the pupil of Heraclianus. The methods of the contemporary school of +philosophy fascinated him; and, in his endeavour to bring Medicine out of +the chaotic welter in which he found it, he attempted--unhappily for the +future of science--to use the hyper-idealistic Platonism then dominant in +Alexandria, rather than the gradual and orderly induction of Hippocrates, +as a bond of union between professional and scientific medicine; a false +step for which not even his great services to anatomy and physiology can +altogether atone. Yet most likely it was this same error, an error which +practically led to the enslavement of Medicine till the seventeenth +century, which caused Cardan to regard him, and not Hippocrates, as his +master. The vastness and catholicity of Galen's scheme of Medicine must +have been peculiarly attractive to a man of Cardan's temper; and that +Galen attempted to reconcile the incongruous in the teleological system +which he devised, would not have been rated as a fault by his Milanese +disciple. + +Galen taught as a cardinal truth the doctrine of the Hippocratic +elements, heat, cold, moisture, and dryness, and a glance at the Consilium +which Cardan wrote out on Archbishop Hamilton's illness, will show how +completely he was under the sway of this same teaching. The genius of +Hippocrates was perhaps too sober and orderly to win his entire sympathy; +the encyclopaedic knowledge, the literary grace, and the more daring +flights of Galen's intellect attracted him much more strongly. Hippocrates +scoffed at charms and amulets, while Galen commended them, and is said to +have invented the anodyne necklace which was long known and worn in +England. There is no need to specify which of the masters Cardan would +swear by in this matter. The choice which Cardan made, albeit it was +exactly what might have been anticipated, was in every respect an +unfortunate one. He put himself under a master whose teaching could have +no other effect than to accentuate the failings of the pupil, whereas had +he let his mind come under the more regular discipline of Hippocrates' +method, it is almost certain that the mass of his work, now shut in dusty +folios which stand undisturbed on the shelves for decade after decade, +would have been immeasurably more fruitful of good. With all his industry +in collecting, and his care in verifying, his medical work remains a heap +of material, and nothing more valuable. Learning and science would have +profited much had he put himself under the standard of the Father of +Medicine, and still more if fate had sent him into being at some period +after the world of letters had learned to realize the capabilities of the +inductive system of Philosophy. + +It may readily be conceded that Cardan during his career turned to good +account the medical knowledge which he had gathered from the best +attainable sources, and that he was on the whole the most skilful +physician of his age. He likewise foreshadowed the system of deaf mute +instruction. A certain Georgius Agricola, a physician of Heidelberg who +died in 1485, makes mention of a deaf mute who had learnt to read and +write, but this statement was received with incredulity. Cardan, taking a +more philosophic view, declared that people thus afflicted might easily be +taught to hear by reading, and to speak by writing; writing was associated +with speech, and speech with thought, but written characters and ideas +might be connected without the intervention of sounds.[268] This view, put +forward with all the authority of Cardan's name, would certainly rouse +fresh interest in the question, and, whether stimulated by his words or +not, an attempt to teach deaf mutes was made by Pedro de Ponce, a Spanish +Dominican, about 1560. But it would not be permissible to claim for Cardan +any share in the epoch-making discoveries in Medicine. Galen as an +experimental physiologist had brought diagnosis to a level unattained +before. His methods had been abandoned by his successors, and practice had +in consequence suffered deterioration, but Cardan, studying under the +revived Galenism, called into life by the teaching of Vesalius, went to +deal with his cures under conditions more favourable than those offered by +any previous period of the world's history. His cure of Archbishop +Hamilton's asthma, over which Cassanate and the other doctors had failed, +was due to a more careful diagnosis and a more judicious application of +existing rules, rather than to the working of any new discoveries of his +own. Viewed as a soldier in the service of Hygeia, how transient and +slender is the fame of Cardan compared with that of Linacre, Vesalius, or +Harvey! Were his claims to immortality to rest entirely on his +contribution to Medicine, his name would have gone down to oblivion along +with that of Cavenago, Camutio, Della Croce, and the multitude of jealous +rivals who, according to his account, were ever plotting his downfall. But +it was rescued from this fate by his excellence as a mathematician, by the +interest clinging to his personality, by the enormous range of his +learning, by his picturesque reputation as a dreamer of dreams, and a +searcher into the secrets of the hidden world. In an age when books were +few and ill-composed, his works became widely popular; because, although +he dealt with abstruse subjects, he wrote--as even Naude admits--in a +passably good style, and handled his subject with a lightness of touch +which was then very rare. This was the reason why men went on reading him +long after his works had ceased to have any scientific value; which +induced writers like Burton and Sir Thomas Browne to embroider their pages +freely with quotations from his works, and thus make his name familiar to +many who have never handled a single one of his volumes. + +It is somewhat strange to find running through the complex web of Cardan's +character a well-defined thread of worldly wisdom and common-sense; to +find that a man, described by almost every one who has dealt with his +character as a credulous simpleton, one with disordered wits, or a +down-right madman, should, when occasion demanded, prove himself to be a +sharp man of business. When Fazio died he left his son with a number of +unsettled law-suits on hand, concerning which he writes: "From my father's +death until I was forty-six, that is to say for a space of twenty-three +years, I was almost continually involved in law-suits. First with +Alessandro Castillione, surnamed Gatico, with respect to certain +plantations, and afterwards with his kinsfolk. Next with the Counts of +Barbiani, next with the college, next with the heirs of Dominico de +Tortis, who had held me in his arms when I was baptized. Out of all these +suits I came victorious. It was indeed a matter for surprise that I should +have got the better of Alessandro Castillione, seeing that his uncle sat +as judge. Moreover, he had already got a decision against me, a decision +which, as the jurisconsults declared, helped my case as the trial went on, +and I was able to force him to pay me all the money which was in dispute. +A like good fortune attended me while my claims were considered by the +heads of the Milanese College, and finally rejected by several votes. Then +afterwards, when they had decided to admit me, and when they tried to +subject me to certain rules which placed me on a footing inferior to their +own, I compelled them to grant me full membership. In the case of the +Barbiani, after long litigation and many angry words and much trouble, I +came to terms with them; and, having received the sum of money covenanted +by agreement, I was entirely freed from vexation of the law."[269] Writing +generally of his monetary dealings, Cardan says: "Whenever I may have +incurred a loss, I have never been content merely to retrieve the same, I +have always contrived to seize upon something extra."[270] Or again: "If +at any time I have lost twenty crowns, I have never rested until I have +succeeded in getting back these and twenty more in addition."[271] + +Cardan left in his _Dicta Familiaria_ and _Praeceptorum ad filios +Libellus_ a long list of aphorisms and counsels, many of which give +evidence of keen insight and busy observation of mankind, while some are +distinguished by a touch of humour rare in his other writings. He bids his +children to be careful how they offend princes, and, offence being given, +never to flatter themselves that it has been pardoned; to live joyfully as +long as they can, for men are for the most part worn out by care; never to +take a wife from a witless stock or one tainted with hereditary disease; +to refrain from deliberating when the mind is disturbed; to learn how to +be worsted and suffer loss; and to trust a school-master to teach +children, but not to feed them. One of the dicta is a gem of quaint +wisdom. "Before you begin to wash your face, see that you have a towel +handy to dry the same." If all the instances of prodigies, portents, +visions, and mysterious warnings which Cardan has left on record were set +down in order, a perusal of this catalogue would justify, if it did not +compel, the belief that he was little better than a credulous fool, and +raise doubts whether such a man could have written such orderly and +coherent works as the treatise on Arithmetic, or the book of the Great +Art. But Cardan was beyond all else a man of moods, and it would be unfair +to figure as his normal mental condition those periods of overwrought +nervousness and the hallucinations they brought with them. In his old age +the nearness of the inevitable stroke, and the severance of all earthly +ties, led him to discipline his mind into a calmer mood, but early and +late during his season of work his nature was singularly sensitive to the +wearing assaults of cares and calamities. In crises of this kind his mind +would be brought into so morbid a condition, that it would fall entirely +under the sway of any single idea then dominant; such idea would master +him entirely, or even haunt him like one of those unclean spectres he +describes with such gusto in the _De Varietate_. What he may have uttered +when these moods were upon him must not be taken seriously; these are the +moments to which the major part of his experiences of things _supra +naturam_ may be referred. But there are numerous instances in which he +describes marvellous phenomena with philosophic calm, and examines them in +the true spirit of scepticism. In his account of the trembling of the bed +on which he lay the night before he heard of Gian Battista's marriage, he +goes on to say that a few nights after the first manifestation, he was +once more conscious of a strange movement; and, having put his hand to his +breast, found that his heart was palpitating violently because he had been +lying on his left side. Then he remembered that a similar physical trouble +had accompanied the first trembling of the bed, and admits that this +manifestation may be referred to a natural cause, _i.e._ the palpitation. +He tells also how he found amongst his father's papers a record of a cure +of the gout by a prayer offered to the Virgin at eight in the morning on +the first of April, and how he duly put up the prayer and was cured of the +gout, but he adds: "Sed in hoc, auxiliis etiam artis usus sum."[272] Again +with regard to the episode of the ignition of his bed twice in the same +night, without visible cause, he says that this portent may have come +about by some supernatural working; but that, on the other hand, it may +have been the result of mere chance. He tells another story of an +experience which befell him when he was in Belgium.[273] He was aroused +early in the morning by the noise made outside his door by a dog catching +fleas. Having got out of bed to see to this, he heard the sound as of a +key being softly put into the lock. He told this fact to the servants, who +at once took up the tale, and persuaded themselves that they had heard +many noises of the same kind, and others vastly more wonderful; in short, +the whole house was swarming with apparitions. The next night the noise +was repeated, and a second observation laid bare the real cause thereof. +The scratching of the dog had caused the bolt to fall into the socket, and +this produced the noise which had disquieted him. He writes in conclusion: +"Thus many events which seem to defy all explanation have really come to +pass by accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such manifestations +as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the timorous, and the +over-hasty make for themselves miracles."[274] Again, after telling a +strange story of a boy who beheld the image of a thief in the neck of a +phial, and of some incantations of Josephus Niger, he concludes: +"Nevertheless I am of opinion that all these things were fables, and that +no one could have had any real knowledge thereof, seeing that they were +nothing else than vain triflings."[275] + +In a nature so complex and many-sided as Cardan's, strange resemblances +may be sought for and discovered, and it certainly is an unexpected +revelation to find a mental attitude common to Cardan, a man tied and +bound by authority and the traditions of antiquity, and such a daring +assailant of the schools and of Aristotle as Doctor Joseph Glanvil. The +conclusions of Cardan as to certain obscure phenomena recently cited show +that, in matters lying beyond sensual cognition, he kept an open mind. In +summing up the case of the woman said to have been cured by the +incantations of Josephus Niger, he says that she must have been cured +either by the power of the imagination, or by the agency of the demons. +Here he anticipates the arguments which Glanvil sets forth in _Sadducismus +Triumphatus_. Writing on the belief in witchcraft Glanvil says, "We have +the attestation of thousands of eye and ear witnesses, and these not of +the easily-deceivable vulgar only, but of wise and grave discerners; and +that when no interest could oblige them to agree together in a common Lye. +I say, we have the light of all these circumstances to confirm us in the +belief of things done by persons of despicable power and knowledge, beyond +the reach of Art and ordinary Nature. Standing public Records have been +kept of these well-attested Relations, and Epochas made of those unwonted +events. Laws in many Nations have been enacted against those vile +practices; those amongst the Jews and our own are notorious; such cases +have often been determined near us by wise and reverend Judges, upon clear +and convictive Evidence; and thousands of our own Nation have suffered +death for their vile compacts with Apostate spirits. All these I might +largely prove in their particular instances, but that 'tis not needful +since these did deny the being of Witches, so it was not out of ignorance +of these heads of Argument, of which probably they have heard a thousand +times; but from an apprehension that such a belief is absurd, and the +things impossible. And upon these presumptions they condemn all +demonstrations of this nature, and are hardened against conviction. And I +think those that can believe all Histories and Romances; That all the +wiser would have agreed together to juggle mankind into a common belief of +ungrounded fables, that the sound senses of multitudes together may +deceive them, and Laws are built upon Chimeras; That the greatest and +wisest Judges have been Murderers, and the sagest persons Fools, or +designing Impostors; I say those that can believe this heap of +absurdities, are either more credulous than those whose credulity they +reprehend; or else have some extraordinary evidence of their perswasion, +viz.: That it is absurd and impossible that there should be a Witch or +Apparition."[276] Cardan's argument in the case of the sick woman, that it +would be difficult if not impossible to invent cause for her cure, other +than the power of imagination or Demoniac agency, if less emphatic and +lengthy than Glanvil's, certainly runs upon parallel lines therewith, and +suggests, if it does not proclaim, the existence of such a thing as the +credulity of unbelief; in other words that those who were disposed to +brush aside the alternative causes of the cure as set down by him, and +search for others, and put faith in them, would be fully as credulous as +those who held the belief which he recorded as his own. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[248] _De Varietate_, p. 314. + +[249] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 115. + +[250] "Musicam, sed hanc anno post VI. scilicet MDLXXIV. correxi et +transcribi curavi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 176. + +[251] This is on p. 164. + +[252] Page 266. + +[253] _Judicium de Cardano_. + +[254] Page 57. + +[255] "Ita nostra aetate, lapsi sunt clarissimi alioqui viri in hoc genere. +Budaeus adversus Erasmum, Fuchsius adversus Cornarium, Silvius adversus +Vesalium, Nizolius adversus Maioragium: non tam credo justis contentionum +causis, quam vanitate quadam et spe augendae opinionis in +hominibus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 135. + +[256] He writes in this strain in _De Vita Propria_, ch. xiv. p. 49, in +_De Varietate Rerum_, p. 626, and in _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 431. + +[257] On the subject of dissimulation Cardan writes: "Assuevi vultum in +contrarium semper efformare; ideo simulare possum, dissimulare +nescio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xiii. p. 42. Again in _Libellus +Praeceptorum ad filios_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 481), "Nolite unquam mentiri, +sed circumvenire [circumvenite?]." + +[258] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, ch. xi. + +[259] Donato Lanza, the druggist, who had been his first introducer to +Sfondrato, was equally perverse. After Cardan had cured him of phthisis, +he jumped out of a window to avoid arrest, and fell into a fish-pond, and +died of the cold he took.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 83. + +[260] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 136. + +[261] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 32. + +[262] The Materia Medica of Mesua, dating from the eleventh century, was +used by the London College of Physicians in framing their Pharmacopoeia in +1618. + +[263] In 1443 a copy of Celsus was found at Milan; Paulus AEgineta was +discovered a little later. + +[264] _Opera_, tom. ix. p. 1. + +[265] _De Immortalitate Animorum_ (Lyons, 1545), p. 73. _De Varietate_, p. +77. _Opera_, tom. i. p. 135. + +[266] _De Subtilitate_, p. 445. + +[267] "Galen's great complaint against the Peripatetics or Aristotelians, +was that while they discoursed about Anatomy they could not dissect. He +met an argument with a dissection or an experiment. Come and see for +yourselves, was his constant cry."--_Harveian Oration_, Dr. J.F. Payne, +1896. + +[268] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462. + +[269] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxviii. p. 73. + +[270] _Ibid.,_ ch. xxiii. p. 64. + +[271] _De Utilitate_, p. 309. He also writes at length in the Proxenata on +Domestic Economy.--Chapter xxxvii. _et seq. Opera_, tom. i. p. 377. + +[272] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvii. p. 118. + +[273] _De Varietate_, p. 589. + +[274] _De Varietate_, p. 589. + +[275] _Ibid.,_ p. 640. + +[276] _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (Ed. 1682), p. 4. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +WHEN dealing with Cardan's sudden incarceration in 1570, in the chronicle +of his life, it was assumed that his offence must have been some spoken or +written words upon which a charge of impiety might have been fastened. +Leaving out of consideration the fiery zeal of the reigning Pope Pius V., +it is hard to determine what plea could have been found for a serious +charge of this nature. Cardan's work had indeed passed the ecclesiastical +censors in 1562; but in the estimation of Pius V. the smallest lapse from +the letter of orthodoxy would have seemed grave enough to send to prison, +and perhaps to death, a man as deeply penetrated with the spirit of +religion as Cardan assuredly was. One of his chief reasons for refusing +the King of Denmark's generous offer was the necessity involved of having +to live amongst a people hostile to the Catholic religion; and, in writing +of his visit to the English Court, he declares that he was unwilling to +recognize the title of King Edward VI., inasmuch as by so doing he might +seem to prejudice the rights of the Pope.[277] In spite of this positive +testimony, and the absence of any utterances of manifest heresy, divers +writers in the succeeding century classed him with the unbelievers. Dr. +Samuel Parker in his _Tractatus de Deo_, published in 1678, includes him +amongst the atheistical philosophers; but a perusal of the Doctor's +remarks leaves the reader unconvinced as to the justice of such a charge. +The term Atheism, however, was at this time used in the very loosest +sense, and was even applied to disbelievers in the apostolical +succession.[278] Dr. Parker writes, "Another cause which acted, together +with the natural disposition of Cardan, to produce that odd mixture of +folly and wisdom in him, was his habit of continual thinking by which the +bile was absorbed and burnt up; he suffered neither eating, pleasure, nor +pain to interrupt the course of his thoughts. He was well acquainted with +the writings of all the ancients--nor did he just skim over the heads and +contents of books as some do who ought not to be called learned men, but +skilful bookmongers. Every author that Cardan read (and he read nearly +all) he became intimately acquainted with, so that if any one disputing +with him, quoted the authority of the ancients, and made any the least +slip or mistake, he would instantly set them right." Dr. Parker is as +greatly amazed at the mass of work he produced, as at his powers of +accumulation, and maintains that Cardan believed he was endowed with a +faculty which he calls _repraesentatio_, through which he was able to +apprehend things without study, "by means of an interior light shining +within him. From which you may learn the fact that he had studied with +such enduring obstinacy that he began to persuade himself that the visions +which appeared before him in these fits and transports of the mind, were +the genuine inspirations of the Deity." This is evidently Dr. Parker's +explanation of the attendant demon, and he ends by declaring that Cardan +was rather fanatic than infidel. + +Mention has been made of the list of his vices and imperfections which +Cardan wrote down with his own hand. Out of such a heap of self-accusation +it would have been an easy task for some meddlesome enemy to gather up a +plentiful selection of isolated facts which by artful combination might be +so arranged as to justify a formal charge of impiety. The most definite of +these charges were made by Martin del Rio,[279] who declares that Cardan +once wrote a book on the Mortality of the Soul which he was wont to +exhibit to his intimate friends. He did not think it prudent to print this +work, but wrote another, taking a more orthodox view, called _De +Immortalitate Animorum_. Another assailant, Theophile Raynaud, asserts +that certain passages in this book suggest, if they do not prove, that +Cardan did not set down his real opinions on the subject in hand. Raynaud +ends by forbidding the faithful to read any of Cardan's books, and +describes him as "Homo nullius religionis ac fidei, et inter clancularios +atheos secundi ordinis aevo suo facile princeps." Of all Cardan's books the +_De Immortalitate Animorum_ is the one in which materials for a charge of +impiety might most easily be found. It was put together at a time when he +had had very little practice in the Greek tongue, and it is possible that +many of his conclusions may be drawn from premises only imperfectly +apprehended. Scaliger in his Exercitations seizes upon one passage[280] +which, according to his rendering, implied that Cardan reckoned the +intelligence of men and beasts to be the same in essence, the variety of +operation being produced by the fact that the apprehensive faculty was +inherent in the one, and only operative upon the other from without. But +all through this book it is very difficult to determine whether the +propositions advanced are Cardan's own, or those of the Greek and Arabian +writers he quotes so freely: and this charge of Scaliger, which is the +best supported of all, goes very little way to convict him of impiety. In +the _De Vita Propria_ there are several passages[281] which suggest a +belief akin to that of the Anima Mundi; he had without doubt made up his +mind that this work should not see the light till he was beyond the reach +of Pope or Council. The origin of this charge of impiety may be referred +with the best show of probability to his attempt to cast the horoscope of +Jesus Christ.[282] This, together with a diagram, is given in the +Commentaries on Ptolemy, and soon after it appeared it was made the +occasion of a fierce attack by Julius Caesar Scaliger, who declared that +such a scheme must be flat blasphemy, inasmuch as the author proved that +all the actions of Christ necessarily followed the position of the stars +at the time of His nativity. If Scaliger had taken the trouble to glance +at the Commentary he would have discovered that Cardan especially guarded +himself against any accusation of this sort, by setting down that no one +was to believe he had any intention of asserting that Christ's divinity, +or His miracles, or His holy life, or the promulgation of His laws were in +any way influenced by the stars.[283] Naude, in recording the censures of +De Thou, "Verum extremae amentiae fuit, imo impiae audaciae, astrorum +commentitiis legibus verum astrorum dominum velle subjicere. Quod ille +tamen exarata Servatoris nostri genitura fecit," and of Joseph Scaliger, +"impiam dicam magis, an jocularem audaciam quae et dominum stellarum +stellis subjecerit, et natum eo tempore putarit, quod adhuc in lite +positum est, ut vanitas cum impietate certaret,"[284] declares that it was +chiefly from the publication of this horoscope that Cardan incurred the +suspicion of blasphemy; but, with his free-thinking bias, abstains from +adding his own censure. He rates Scaliger for ignorance because he was +evidently under the impression that Cardan was the first to draw a +horoscope of Christ, and attacks Cardan chiefly on the score of plagiary. +He records how divers writers in past times had done the same thing. +Albumasar, one of the most learned of the Arabs, whose _thema natalium_ is +quoted by Roger Bacon in one of his epistles to Clement V., Albertus +Magnus, Peter d'Ailly the Cardinal of Cambrai, and Tiberius Russilanus who +lived in the time of Leo X., all constructed nativities of Christ, but +Cardan makes no mention of these horoscopists, and, according to the view +of Naude, poses as the inventor of this form of impiety, and is +consequently guilty of literary dishonesty, a worse sin, in his critics' +eyes, than the framing of the horoscope itself. + +That there was in Cardan's practice enough of curiosity and independence +to provoke suspicion of his orthodoxy in the minds of the leaders of the +post-Tridentine revival, is abundantly possible; but there is nothing in +all his life and works to show that he was, according to the standard of +every age, anything else than a spiritually-minded man.[285] It would be +hard to find words more instinct with the true feeling of piety, than the +following taken from the fifty-third chapter of the _De Vita Propria_,--"I +love solitude, for I never seem to be so entirely with those who are +especially dear to me as when I am alone. I love God and the spirit of +good, and when I am by myself I let my thoughts dwell on these, their +immeasurable beneficence; the eternal wisdom, the source and origin of +clearest light, that true joy within us which never fears that God will +forsake us; that groundwork of truth; that willing love; and the Maker of +us all, who is blessed in Himself, and likewise the desire and safeguard +of all the blessed. Ah, what depth and what height of righteousness, +mindful of the dead and not forgetting the living. He is the Spirit who +protects me by His commands, my good and merciful counsellor, my helper +and consoler in misfortune." + +Two or three of Cardan's treatises are in the _materna lingua_, but he +wrote almost entirely in Latin, using a style which was emphatically +literary.[286] His Latin is probably above the average excellence of the +age, and if the classic writers held the first place in his estimation--as +naturally they would--he assuredly did not neglect the firstfruits of +modern literature. Pulci was his favourite poet. He evidently knew Dante +and Boccaccio well, and his literary insight was clear enough to perceive +that the future belonged to those who should write in the vulgar tongue of +the lands which produced them.[287] + +Perhaps it was impossible that a man endowed with so catholic a spirit and +with such earnest desire for knowledge, should sink into the mere pedant +with whom later ages have been made acquainted through the farther +specialization of science. At all events Cardan is an instance that the +man of liberal education need not be killed by the man of science. For him +the path of learning was not an easy one to tread, and, as it not seldom +happens, opposition and coldness drove him on at a pace rarely attained by +those for whom the royal road to learning is smoothed and prepared. For a +long time his father refused to give him instruction in Latin, or to let +him be taught by any one else, and up to his twentieth year he seems to +have known next to nothing of this language which held the keys both of +letters and science. He began to learn Greek when he was about +thirty-five, but it was not till he had turned forty that he took up the +study of it in real earnest;[288] and, writing some years later, he gives +quotations from a Latin version of Aristotle.[289] In his commentaries on +Hippocrates he used a Latin text, presumably the translation of Calvus +printed in Rome in 1525, and quotes Epicurus in Latin in the _De +Subtilitate_ (p. 347), but in works like the _De Sapientia_ and the _De +Consolatione_ he quotes Greek freely, supplying in nearly every case a +Latin version of the passages cited. These treatises bristle with +quotations, Horace being his favourite author. "Vir in omni sapientiae +genere admirandus."[290] As with many moderns his love for Horace did not +grow less as old age crept on, for the _De Vita Propria_ is perhaps fuller +of Horatian tags than any other of his works. It would seem somewhat of a +paradox that a sombre and earnest nature like Cardan's should find so +great pleasure in reading the elegant _poco curante_ triflings of the +Augustan singer, were it not a recognized fact that Horace has always been +a greater favourite with serious practical Englishmen than with the +descendants of those for whom he wrote his verses. + +It was a habit with Cardan to apologize in the prefaces of his scientific +works for the want of elegance in his Latin, explaining that the baldness +and simplicity of his periods arose from his determination to make his +meaning plain, and to trouble nothing about style for the time being; but +the following passage shows that he had a just and adequate conception of +the necessary laws of literary art. "That book is perfect which goes +straight to its point in one single line of argument, which neither leaves +out aught that is necessary, nor brings in aught that is superfluous: +which observes the rule of correct division; which explains what is +obscure; and shows plainly the groundwork upon which it is based."[291] + +The _De Vita Propria_ from which this extract comes is in point of style +one of his weakest books, but even in this volume passages may here and +there be found of considerable merit, and Cardan was evidently studious to +let his ideas be presented in intelligible form, for he records that in +1535 he read through the whole of Cicero, for the sake of improving his +Latin. His style, according to Naude, held a middle place between the +high-flown and the pedestrian, and of all his books the _De Utilitate ex +Adversis Capienda_, which was begun in 1557, shows the nearest approach to +elegance, but even this is not free from diffuseness, the fault which +Naude finds in all his writings. Long dissertations entirely alien from +the subject in hand are constantly interpolated. In the Practice of +Arithmetic he turns aside to treat of the marvellous properties of certain +numbers, of the motion of the planets, and of the Tower of Babel; and in +the treatise on Dialectic he gives an estimate of the historians and +letter-writers of the past. But here Cardan did not sin in ignorance; his +poverty and not his will consented to these literary outrages. He was paid +for his work by the sheet, and the thicker the volume the higher the +pay.[292] + +When he made a beginning of the _De Utilitate_ Cardan was at the zenith of +his fortunes. He had lately returned from his journey to Scotland, having +made a triumphant progress through the cities of Western Europe. Thus, +with his mind well stored with experience of divers lands, his wits +sharpened by intercourse with the _elite_ of the learned world, and his +hand nerved by the magnetic stimulant of success, he sat down to write as +the philosopher and man of the world, rather than as the man of science. +He was, in spite of his prosperity, inclined to deal with the more sombre +side of life. He seems to have been specially drawn to write of death, +disease, and of the peculiar physical misfortune which befell him in early +manhood. Like Cicero he goes on to treat of Old Age, but in a spirit so +widely different that a brief comparison of the conclusions of the two +philosophers will not be without interest. Old age, Cardan declares to be +the most cruel and irreparable evil with which man is cursed, and to talk +of old age is to talk of the crowning misfortune of humanity. Old men are +made wretched by avarice, by dejection, and by terror. He bids men not to +be deceived by the flowery words of Cicero,[293] when he describes Cato as +an old man, like to a fair statue of Polycleitus, with faculties +unimpaired and memory fresh and green. He next goes on to catalogue the +numerous vices and deformities of old age, and instances from Aristotle +what he considers to be the worst of all its misfortunes, to wit that an +old man is well-nigh cut off from hope; and by way of comment grimly adds, +"If any man be plagued by the ills of old age he should blame no one but +himself, for it is by his own choice that his life has run on so long." He +vouchsafes a few words of counsel as to how this hateful season may be +robbed of some of its horror. Our bodies grow old first, then our senses, +then our minds. Therefore let us store our treasures in that part of us +which will hold out longest, as men in a beleaguered city are wont to +collect their resources in the citadel, which, albeit it must in the end +be taken, will nevertheless be the last to fall into the foeman's hands. +Old men should avoid society, seeing that they can bring nothing thereto +worth having: whether they speak or keep silent they are in the way, and +they are as irksome to themselves when they are silent, as they are to +others when they speak. The old man should take a lesson from the lower +animals, which are wont to defend themselves with the best arms given them +by nature: bulls with their horns, horses with their hoofs, and cats with +their claws; wherefore an old man should at least show himself to be as +wise as the brutes and maintain his position by his wisdom and knowledge, +seeing that all the grace and power of his manhood must needs have +fled.[294] + +In another of his moral treatises he has formulated a long indictment +against old age, that hateful state with its savourless joys and sleepless +nights. Did not Zeno the philosopher strangle himself when he found that +time refused to do its work. The happiest are those who earliest lay down +the burden of existence, and the Law itself causes these offenders who are +least guilty to die first, letting the more nefarious and hardened +criminals stand by and witness the death of their fellows. There can be no +evil worse than the daily expectation of the blow that is inevitable, and +old age, when it comes, must make every man regret that he did not die in +infancy. "When I was a boy," he writes, "I remember one day to have heard +my mother, Chiara Micheria--herself a young woman--cry out that she wished +it had been God's will to let her die when she was a child. I asked her +why, and she answered: 'Because I know I must soon die, to the great peril +of my soul, and besides this, if we shall diligently weigh and examine all +our experiences of life, we shall not light upon a single one which will +not have brought us more sorrow than joy. For afflictions when they come +mar the recollection of our pleasures, and with just cause; for what is +there in life worthy the name of delight, the ever-present burden of +existence, the task of dressing and undressing every day, hunger, thirst, +evil dreams? What more profit and ease have we than the dead? We must +endure the heat of summer, the cold of winter, the confusion of the times, +the dread of war, the stern rule of parents, the anxious care of our +children, the weariness of domestic life, the ill carriage of servants, +lawsuits, and, what is worst of all, the state of the public mind which +holds probity as silliness; which practises deceit and calls it prudence. +Craftsmen are counted excellent, not by their skill in their art, but by +reason of their garish work and of the valueless approbation of the mob. +Wherefore one must needs either incur God's displeasure or live in misery, +despised and persecuted by men.'"[295] These words, though put into his +mother's mouth, are manifestly an expression of Cardan's own feelings. + +Cardan was the product of an age to which there had recently been revealed +the august sources from which knowledge, as we understand the term, has +flowed without haste or rest since the unsealing of the fountain. He +counts it rare fortune to have been born in such an age, and rhapsodizes +over the flowery meadow of knowledge in which his generation rejoices, and +over the vast Western world recently made known. Are not the artificial +thunderbolts of man far more destructive than those of heaven? What praise +is too high for the magnet which leads men safely over perilous seas, or +for the art of printing? Indeed it needs but little more to enable man to +scale the very heavens. With his mind thus set upon the exploration of +these new fields of knowledge; with the full realization how vast was the +treasure lying hid therein; it was only natural that a spirit so curious +and greedy of fresh mental food should have fretted at the piteous brevity +of the earthly term allowed to man, and have rated as a supreme evil that +old age which brought with it decay of the faculties and foreshadowed the +speedy and inevitable fall of the curtain. Cicero on the other hand had +been nurtured in a creed and philosophy alike outworn. The blight of +finality had fallen upon the moral world, and the physical universe still +guarded jealously her mighty secrets. To the eyes of Cicero the mirror of +nature was blank void and darkness, while Cardan, gazing into the same +glass, must have been embarrassed with the number and variety of the +subjects offered, and may well have felt that the longest life of man ten +times prolonged would rank but as a moment in that Titanic spell of work +necessary to bring to the birth the teeming burden with which the universe +lay in travail. Here is one and perhaps the strongest reason of his hatred +of old age; because through the shortness of his span of time he could +only deal with a grain or two of the sand lying upon the shores of +knowledge. Cicero, with his more limited vision, conscious that sixty +years or so of life would exhaust every physical delight, and blunt and +mar the intellectual; ignorant both of the world of new light lying beyond +the void, and of the rapture which the conquering investigator of the same +must feel in wringing forth its secrets, welcomed the gathering shades as +friendly visitants, a mood which has asserted itself in later times with +certain weary spirits, sated with knowledge as Vitellius was sated with +his banquets of nightingales' tongues. + +Cardan with all his curiosity and restless mental activity was hampered +and restrained in his explorations by the bonds which had been imposed +upon thought during the rule of authority. These bonds held him +back--acting imperceptibly--as they held back Abelard and many other +daring spirits trained in the methods of the schoolmen, and allowed him to +do little more than range at large over the fields of fresh knowledge +which were destined to be reaped by later workers trained in other schools +and under different masters. Learning was still subject to authority, +though in milder degree, than when Thomas of Aquino dominated the mental +outlook of Europe, and the great majority of the men who posed as +Freethinkers, and sincerely believed themselves to be Freethinkers, were +unconsciously swayed by the associations of the method of teaching they +professed to despise. Their progress for the most part resembled the +movement of a squirrel in a rotatory cage, but though their efforts to +conquer the new world of knowledge were vain, it cannot be questioned that +the restrictions placed around them, while nullifying the result of their +investigations, stimulated enormously the activity of the brain and gave +it a formal discipline which proved of the highest value when the real +literary work of Modern Europe began. The futilities of the problems upon +which the scholastic thinkers exercised themselves gave occasion for the +satiric onslaught both of Rabelais and Erasmus. "Quaestio subtilissima, +utrum Chimaera in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones; et +fuit debatuta per decem hebdomadas in Consilio Constantiensi," and "Quid +consecrasset Petrus, si consecrasset eo tempore, quo corpus Christi +pendebet in cruce?" are samples which will be generally familiar, but the +very absurdity of these exercitations serves to prove how strenuous must +have been the temper of the times which preferred to exhaust itself over +such banalities as are typified by the extracts above written, rather than +remain inactive. The dogmas in learning were fixed as definitely as in +religion, and the solution of every question was found and duly recorded. +The Philosopher was allowed to strike out a new track, but if he valued +his life or his ease, he would take care to arrive finally at the +conclusion favoured by authority. + +Cardan may with justice be classed both with men of science and men of +letters. In spite of the limitations just referred to it is certain that +as he surveyed the broadening horizon of the world of knowledge, he must +have felt the student's spasm of agony when he first realized the infinity +of research and the awful brevity of time. His reflections on old age give +proof enough of this. If he missed the labour in the full harvest-field, +the glimpse of the distant mountain tops, suffused for the first time by +the new light, he missed likewise the wearing labour which fell upon the +shoulders of those who were compelled by the new philosophy to use new +methods in presenting to the world the results of their midnight research. +Such work as Cardan undertook in the composition of his moral essays, and +in the Commentary on Hippocrates put no heavy tax on the brain or the +vital energies; the Commentary was of portentous length, but it was not +much more than a paraphrase with his own experiences added thereto. +Mathematics were his pastime, to judge by the ease and rapidity with which +he solved the problems sent to him by Francesco Sambo of Ravenna and +others.[296] He worked hard no doubt, but as a rule mere labour inflicts +no heavier penalty than healthy fatigue. The destroyer of vital power and +spring is hard work, combined with that unsleeping diligence which must be +exercised when a man sets himself to undertake something more complex than +the mere accumulation of data, when he is forced to keep his mental powers +on the strain through long hours of selection and co-ordination, and to +fix and concentrate his energies upon the task of compelling into symmetry +the heap of materials lying under his hand. The _De Subtilitate_ and the +_De Varietate_ are standing proofs that Cardan did not overstrain his +powers by exertion of this kind. + +Leaving out of the reckoning his mathematical treatises, the vogue enjoyed +by Cardan's published works must have been a short one. They came to the +birth only to be buried in the yawning graves which lie open in every +library. At the time when Spon brought out his great edition in ten folio +volumes in 1663, the mists of oblivion must have been gathering around the +author's fame, and in a brief space his words ceased to have any weight in +the teaching of that Art he had cultivated with so great zeal and +affection. The mathematician who talked about "Cardan's rule" to his +pupils was most likely ignorant both of his century and his birthplace. +Had it not been for the references made by writers like Burton to his +dabblings in occult learning, his claims to read the stars, and to the +guidance of a peculiar spirit, his name would have been now unknown, save +to a few algebraists; and his desire, expressed in one of the meditative +passages of the _De Vita Propria_, would have been amply fulfilled: "Non +tamen unquam concupivi gloriam aut honores: imo sprevi, cuperem notum esse +quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim."[297] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[277] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 76. + +[278] Dugald Stewart, _Dissertations_, p. 378. + +[279] The writer, a Jesuit, says in _Disquisitionum Magicarum_ (Louvanii, +1599), tom. i.:--"In Cardani de Subtilitate et de Varietate libris passim +latet anguis in herba et indiget expurgatione Ecclesiasticae limae." Del Rio +was a violent assailant of Cornelius Agrippa. + +[280] "Quoniam intellectus intrinsecus est homini, belluis extrinsecus +collucet: unus etiam satisfacere omnibus, quae in una specie sunt potest, +hominibus plures sunt necessarii: tertia est quod hominis anima tanquam +speculum est levigata, splendida, solida, clara: belluarum autem tenebrosa +nec levis; atque ideo in nostra anima lux mentis refulget multipliciter +confracta, inde ipse Intellectus intelligit. Ceteris autem potentiis, ut +diximus, nullus limes prescriptus est: at belluarum internis facultatibus +tantum licet agnoscere, quantum per exteriores sensus accesserit."--_De +Imm. Anim.,_ p. 283. + +[281] "Deum debere dici immensum: omnia quae partes habent diversas +ordinatas animam habere et vitam."--p. 167. + +[282] In the last edition of _De Libris Propriis_ he calls it "Christique +nativitas admirabilis."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110. + +[283] _Ptolemaei de Astrorum Judiciis_, p. 163. + +[284] _Praefatio in Manilium_. + +[285] A proof of his liberal tone of mind is found in his appreciation of +the fine qualities of Edward VI. as a man, although he resented his +encroachments as a king upon the Pope's rights. + +[286] In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxiii. p. 106, he fixes into his +prose an entire line of Horace, "Canidia afflasset pejor serpentibus +Afris." + +[287] "At Boccatii fabulae nunc majus virent quam antea: et Dantis +Petrarchaeque ac Virgilii totque aliorum poemata sunt in maxima +veneratione."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 125. + +[288] _Ibid.,_ tom. i. p. 59. + +[289] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii.-xiii. pp. 39, 44. + +[290] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 505. + +[291] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 72. + +[292] "Eo tantum fine, quemadmodum alicubi fatetur, ut plura folia +Typographis mitteret, quibuscum antea de illorum pretio pepigerat; atque +hoc modo fami, non secus ac famae scriberet."--Naudaeus, _Judicium_. + +[293] In _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 604) he writes:--"Quantum +diligentiae, quantum industriae Cicero adjecit, quo conatu nixus est ut +persuaderet senectutem esse tolerandam." + +[294] _De Utilitate_, book ii. ch. 4. + +[295] _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 605). + +[296] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 113. On the same page he adds:--"Fui autem tam +felix in cito absoluendo, quam infelicissimus in sero inchoando. Coepi +enim illum anno aetatis meae quinquagesimo octavo, absolvi intra septem +dies; pene prodigio similis." + +[297] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ix. p. 30. + + + + +INDEX + + + Adda, battle, 7 + + Alberio, Antonio, 4 + + Alciati, Cardinal, 212, 233 + + Algebra, 65, 73, 98, 235 + + Appearance of Cardan, 19 + + Apuleius, 231, 256, 264 + + Archinto, Filippo, 40, 41, 46, 54 + + Aristotle, 16, 105, 108, 224, 240, 256, 288 + + Arithmetic, 54, 61, 71, 91, 290 + + Astrology, 5, 54, 259 + + Avicenna, 224, 268 + + + Bandarini, Altobello, 35-38, 163 + + Bandarini, Lucia (Cardan's wife), 35, 37, 39, 40, 57, 67, 163 + + Bayle, 1, 154, 245 + + Bologna, 193, 195, 201-205, 207, 212, 220, 224 + + Borgo, Fra Luca da, 76, 92, 96, 97 + + Borromeo, Carlo, 193, 194, 202, 210, 233 + + Borromeo, Count, 55, 259 + + Browne, Sir T., 56, 154, 210, 267 + + Brissac, Marquis, 54, 122, 131 + + + Camutio, 170, 171, 256, 264 + + Cantone, Otto, 9, 11 + + Cardano, Aldo, 164, 165, 170, 172, 203, 212, 243 + + Cardano, Fazio, 1, 2, 10, 15, 22, 68, 69, 162, 238, 245, 267 + + Cardano, Gasparo, 103, 130, 132 + + Cardano, Gian Battista, 40, 102, 103, 164-180, 199, 261 + + Cardano, Niccolo, 21 + + Cassanate, G., 117-122, 126, 225, 266 + + Cavenago, Ambrogio, 58, 59, 60, 266 + + Cheke, Sir J., 139, 258 + + Chiara (Cardan's daughter), 148, 213 + + Chiromancy, 110 + + Cicero, 259, 290-291, 294 + + Colla, Giovanni, 73, 76, 81, 83, 85, 93, 97 + + _Consolatione, De_, 57, 62, 117, 164, 288 + + Croce, Francesco della, 47, 61 + + Croce, Luca della, 58-60, 266 + + + D'Avalos, Alfonso, 57, 61, 63, 84, 85, 88, 89 + + Deaf mutes, 274 + + Demons, 115, 147, 155, 229 + + Denmark, King of, 100, 144, 282 + + Diet, Cardan's, 251: for the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 128 + + Diseases, Cardan's, 5, 7, 31, 33, 251 + + Doctorate of Padua, 23, 30 + + Dreams, Cardan's, 20, 34, 48, 104, 235 + + + Edinburgh, 113, 125, 126 + + Edward VI., 132-139, 282 + + English, the, 141 + + Erasmus, 148, 163, 226, 295 + + + Familiar spirit of Cardan, 227, 229, 258 + + Familiar spirit of Fazio Cardano, 12, 227 + + Ferrari, Ludovico, 54, 73, 94-96, 98, 211 + + Ferreo, Scipio, 54, 73, 76, 77, 97 + + Fioravanti, 189, 190, 192, 197 + + Fiore Antonio, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 97 + + + Gaddi, Franc., 47 + + Galen, 55, 170, 239, 240, 260-268, 270-273 + + Gallarate, 1, 39, 102, 258 + + Gambling, 22, 27, 28, 32, 42, 62, 163 + + _Geniturarum Exempla_, 4, 136 + + Geometry, 70 + + Glanvil, Jos., 279-281 + + Greek, study of, 232, 288 + + + Hamilton, James, Earl of Arran, 120, 121, 124 + + Hippocrates, 59, 223, 255, 260, 268, 270-273, 296 + + Horace, 287, 289 + + Horoscope of Cardan, 5, 248 + + Horoscope of Aldo Cardano, 165 + + Horoscope of Cheke, 258 + + Horoscope of Christ, 55, 221, 257, 285, 286 + + Horoscope of Edward VI., 133, 259 + + Horoscope of Gian Battista Cardano, 258 + + Horoscope of Ranconet, 259 + + Horoscope of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 130, 258 + + + _Immortalitate Animorum, De_, 61, 284 + + Imprisonment of Cardan, 219, 231 + + Index, Congregation of the, 197 + + + Juan Antonio, 79, 81-83 + + + Lanza, Donato, 58, 257 + + Latin, study of, 12, 279, 282 + + Lawsuits, 31, 48, 267, 275 + + Leonardo Pisano, 74-76, 97 + + _Libris Propriis, De_, 160, 213, 235 + + Lyons, 121 + + + Mahomet the Algebraist, 74 + + Mahomet Ben Musa, 75, 98 + + Margarita, 6, 21, 163, 249 + + Medicine, state of, 267 + + Micheria Chiara (Cardan's mother), 1, 3, 27, 39, 41, 42, 46, 292 + + Milan, College of, 31, 38, 41, 47, 52, 57, 61, 62, 145, 276 + + Moroni, Cardinal, 65, 210, 217-220 + + Music, 163, 235, 256 + + + Naude, Gabriel, 96, 155, 156, 165, 246-249, 253, 254, 256, 264, 290 + + Niger, Josephus, 228, 279 + + Northumberland, Duke of, 133, 136, 138, 139 + + + Orontius, 123 + + Osiander, A., 72 + + + Paciolus, Luca, 74 + + Padua, University, 23-30 + + Paracelsus, 163, 269 + + Paris, 119, 121 + + Parker, Dr. S., 282, 283 + + Pavia, University, 18, 22, 53, 63, 65, 100, 116, 170, 183, 195, 269 + + Paul III., Pope, 54, 65, 100 + + Peckham, John, 16, 236 + + Petreius, 65 + + Petrus, 158, 159 + + Pharnelius [Fernel], 123, 260 + + Phthisis, cure of, 118, 256 + + Pius IV., 193, 197, 220, 221, 233 + + Pius V., 220-223, 225, 282 + + Plat Lectureship, 46, 64, 66, 70 + + Porro, Branda, 170, 171, 204, 256, 264 + + Portents, 38, 40, 64, 161, 166, 173, 175, 184, 205-207, 216, 219, 231, + 238, 278 + + Precepts for Children, 164, 276 + + _Ptolemaei de Astrorum Judiciis_, 147, 154, 159, 235, 256, 285 + + + Ranconet, A., 123, 130, 132, 145, 259 + + Ranke, Von, 220, 223 + + Rectorship at Padua, 23, 26-28 + + Rigone, 176, 182 + + Rome, 224, 233, 242 + + Rosso, Galeazzo, 14, 106 + + + Sacco, 10, 30, 32, 67, 110, 258, 267 + + Sacco, Bartolomeo, 172, 174, 176 + + Saint Andrews, Abp. of, 112, 113, 118-122, 124, 126, 131, 146-148, 257, + 265, 257 + + _Sapientia, De_, 57, 117, 260 + + Scaliger, J.C., 61, 148-157, 237 254, 284-286 + + Scot, Reginald, 159, 163, 256, 265 + + Scotland, 111-116, 141 + + Scoto, Ottaviano, 51, 147 + + Scotus, Duns, 113-141 + + Seroni, Brandonia, 168, 170, 172, 176-180, 231 + + Seroni, Evangelista, 168, 177, 182 + + Sessa, Duca di, 175, 182, 199, 200 + + Sfondrato, Francesco, 58, 59, 61 + + Shetlands, 113 + + Socrates, 228, 230 + + _Subtilitate, De_, 104-117, 149, 158, 221, 228 + + Suisset (Swineshead), 113, 141 + + Sylvestro, Rodolfo, 211, 219, 231, 234 + + Sylvius, 123 + + Tartaglia, Niccolo, 73, 75-99, 236 + + Thuanus [de Thou], 155, 221, 237 244, 278 + + Tiboldo, G., 265 + + Troilus and Dominicus, story of, 241, 243 + + + _Utilitate, De_, 4, 184, 290 + + + _Varietate, De_, 104-117, 154, 158, 159, 227, 249 + + Vesalius, 100, 101, 123, 261, 270 + + Vicomercato, Antonio, 62 + + Visconti, Ercole, 183, 188, 192 + + _Vita Propria, De_, 9, 45, 161, 235, 237, 244, 246, 249, 250, 284, 285, + 289 + + + Weir, Johann, 209, 210 + + William, the English boy, 139-141, 186, 187 + + Transcriber's notes + + Page 299 Faizo corrected to Fazio Typographical errors in equations + corrected. + + a with macron [a=] + e with macron [e=] + u with macron [u=] + o with macron [o=] + m with tilde [m~] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome Cardan, by William George Waters + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME CARDAN *** + +***** This file should be named 19600.txt or 19600.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/0/19600/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Christine D. and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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