Jerome Cardan: A Biographical Study

by W. G. Waters

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 "ου" 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]