[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.