Jerome Cardan | Page 8

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