Cardan (1501-1576), a physician and astrologer, was also a half-crazy magician. He was a skilful physician, and visited King Edward VI. to calculate his nativity, and Cardinal Beaton to cure him in his sickness.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance, who, from a determination to study the universe for himself, threw off the restraints of the Christian religion and revolted against the authority of Aristotle and tradition. His most popular and characteristic work is the Spaccio. He was not an atheist, as has been asserted, but a pantheist. He considered the soul of man as a thinking monad, and as immortal. He was burnt at the stake for his opinions, which, it must be admitted, were in some respects detrimental to morality as well as to faith.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), the sceptical founder of a new philosophy, and one of the most delightful of essayists, anticipated the scientific spirit by his minute and critical observation upon the curious facts connected with human nature.
François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553) entered the faculty of medicine at Montpellier.
Euricus Cordus (1486-1535), who studied medicine at Erfurt, is famous for the following admirable epigram:—
“Three faces wears the doctor: when first sought,
An angel’s—and a God’s, the cure half wrought;
But, when that cure complete, he seeks his fee,
The Devil looks then less terrible than he.”
His son, Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), was the discoverer of sulphuric ether.