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.