CARDAN had risen to high and well-deserved fame, and this fact alone might
account for the existence of jealousy and ill-feeling amongst certain of
those whom he had passed in the race. Some men, it is true, rise to
eminence without making more than a few enemies, but Cardan was not one of
these. His foes must have been numerous and truculent, the assault they
delivered must have been deadly and overwhelming to have brought to such
piteous wreck fortunes which seemed to rest upon the solid ground of
desert. The public voice might accuse him of folly, but assuredly not of
crime; he was the victim and not the culprit; his skill as a physician was
as great as ever, but these considerations weighed little with the hounds
who were close upon his traces. Now that the tide of his fortune seemed to
be on the ebb they gathered around him. He writes: "And this, in sooth,
was the chief, the culminating misfortune of my life: forasmuch as I could
not with any show of decency be kept in my office, nor could I be
dismissed without some more valid excuse, I could neither continue to
reside in Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As I walked
about the city men looked askance at me; and whenever I might be forced to
exchange words with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus,
being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I shunned my friends. I
had no notion what I should do, or whither I should go. I cannot say
whether I was more wretched in myself than I was odious to my
fellows."[197]
Cardan gathered a certain amount of consolation from meditating over the
ills which befell all those who were concerned in Gian Battista's fate.
The Senator Falcutius, a man of the highest character in other respects,
died about four months later, exclaiming with his dying breath that he was
undone through the brutal ignorance of a certain man, who had been eager
for the death sentence. One Hala shortly afterwards followed Falcutius to
the grave, having fallen sick with phthisis immediately after the trial.
Rigone, the President of the Court, lost his wife, and gave her burial
bereft of the usual decencies of the last rite, a thing which Cardan says
he could not have believed, had he not been assured of the same by the
testimony of many witnesses. It was reported too, that Rigone himself,
though a man of good reputation, was forced to feign death in order to
escape accusation on some charge or other. His only son had died shortly
before, so it might be said with reason that his house was as it were
thrown under an evil spell by the avenging Furies of the youth whom he had
sent to die in a dungeon. Again, within a few days the prosecutor himself,
Evangelista Seroni, the man who was the direct cause of his son-in-law's
death, was thrown into prison, and, having been deprived of his office of
debt collector, became a beggar. Moreover, the son whom he specially loved
was condemned to death in Sicily, and died on the gallows. Public and
private calamity fell upon the Duca di Sessa,[198] the Governor of Milan,
doubtless because he had allowed the law to take its course. Indeed every
person great or small who had been concerned in Gian Battista's
condemnation, was, by Cardan's showing, overtaken by grave misfortune.
Cardan still held his Professorship at Pavia, and in spite of the
difficulties and embarrassments of his position he went back to resume his
work of teaching a few days after the fatal issue of his son's trial and
condemnation. By the pathetic simplicity of its diction the following
extract gives a vivid and piteous picture of the utter desolation and
misery into which he was cast: it shows likewise that, after a lapse of
fifteen years, the memory of his shame and sorrow was yet green, and that
a powerful stimulus had been given to his superstitious fancies by the
events lately chronicled. "In the month of May, in the year MDLX, a time
when sleep had refused to come to me because of my grief for my son's
death: when I could get no relief from fasting nor from the flagellation I
inflicted upon my legs when I rode abroad, nor from the game of chess
which I then played with Ercole Visconti, a youth very dear to me, and
like myself troubled with sleeplessness, I prayed God to have pity upon
me, because I felt that I must needs die, or lose my wits, or at least
give up my work as Professor, unless I got some sleep, and that soon. Were
I to resign my office, I could find no other means of earning my bread: if
I should go mad I must become a laughing-stock to all. I must in any case
lavish what still remained of my patrimony, for at my advanced age I could
not hope to find fresh employment. Therefore I besought God that He would
send me death, which is the lot of all men. I went to bed: it was already
late, and, as I must needs rise at four in the morning, I should not have
more than two hours' rest. Sleep, however, fell upon me at once, and
meseemed that I heard a voice speaking to me out of the darkness. I could
discern naught, so it was impossible to say what voice it was, or who was
the speaker. It said, 'What would you have?' or 'What are you grieving
over?' and added, 'Is it that you mourn for your son's death?' I replied,
'Can you doubt this?' Then the voice answered, 'Take the stone which is
hanging round your neck and place it to your mouth, and so long as you
hold it there you will not be troubled with thoughts of your son.' Here I
awoke, and at once asked myself what this beryl stone could have to do
with sleep, but after a little, when I found no other means of escape from
my trouble, I called to mind the words spoken of a certain man: 'He hoped
even beyond hope, and it was accounted to him as righteousness' (spoken of
Abraham), and put the stone in my mouth, whereupon a thing beyond belief
came to pass. In a moment all remembrance of my son faded from my mind,
and the same thing happened when I fell asleep a second time after being
aroused."[199]
The record of Cardan's life for the next two years is a meagre one. His
rest was constantly disturbed either by the machinations of his foes or by
the dread thereof, the evil last-named being probably the more noxious of
the two. As long ago as 1557 he had begun the treatise _De Utilitate ex
Adversis Capienda_, a work giving evidence of careful construction, and
one which, as a literary performance, takes the first rank.[200] This book
had been put aside, either through pressure of other work or family
troubles, but now the circumstances in which he found himself seemed
perfectly congenial for the elaboration of a subject of this nature, so he
set to work to finish it, concluding with the chapter _De Luctu_, which
has been used largely as the authority for the foregoing narrative of Gian
Battista's crime and death. At this period, when his mind was fully stored
and his faculties adequately disciplined for the production of the best
work, he seems to have realized with sharp regret that the time before him
was so short, and that whatever fresh fruit of knowledge he might put
forth would prove of very slight profit to him, as author. Writing of his
replies given to certain mathematical professors, who had sent him
problems for solution, he remarks that, although he may have a happy knack
of dispatching with rapidity any work begun, he always begins too late. In
his fifty-eighth year he answered one of these queries, involving three
very difficult problems, within seven days; a feat which he judges to be a
marvel: but what profit will it bring him now? If he had written this
treatise when he was thirty he would straightway have risen to fame and
fortune, in spite of his poverty, his rivals, and his enemies. Then, in
ten years' space, he would have finished and brought out all those books
which were now lying unfinished around him in his old age; and moreover
would have won so great gain and glory, that no farther good fortune
would have remained for him to ask for. Another work which he had begun
about the same time (1558) was the treatise on _Dialectic_, illustrated by
geometrical problems and theorems, and likewise by the well-known logical
catch lines _Barbara Celarent_. During the summer vacation of 1561 he
returned to Milan, and began a _Commentary on the Anatomy of Mundinus_,
the recognized text-book of the schools up to the appearance of Vesalius.
In the preface to this work he puts forward a vigorous plea for the
extended use of anatomy in reaching a diagnosis.[201] He had likewise on
hand the _Theonoston_, a set of essays on Moral subjects written something
in the spirit of Seneca; and, after Gian Battista's death, he wrote the
dialogue _Tetim, seu de Humanis Consiliis_. In the year following, 1561, a
farther sorrow and trouble came upon him by the death of the English
youth, William. If he was guilty of neglect in the case of this young
man--and by his own confession he was--he was certainly profoundly grieved
at his death. In the Argument to the _Dialogus de Morte_ he laments that
he ever let the youth leave his house without sending him back to England,
and tells how he was cozened by Daldo, the crafty tailor, out of a premium
of thirty-one gold crowns, in return for which William was to be taught a
trade. "But during the summer, Daldo, who had a little farm in the
country, took the youth there and let him join in the village games, and
by degrees made him into a vinedresser. But if at any time it chanced that
William's services were also wanted at the tailor's shop, his master would
force him to return thereto in the evening (for the farm was two miles
distant), and sit sewing all the night. Besides this the boy would go
dancing with the villagers, and in the course of their merry-making he
fell in love with a girl. While I was living at Milan he was taken with
fever, and came to me; but, for various reasons, I did not give proper
attention to him, first, because he himself made light of his ailment;
second, because I knew not that his sickness had been brought on by
excessive toil and exposure to the sun; and third, because, when he had
been seized with a similar distemper on two or three occasions before
this, he had always got well within four or five days. Besides this I was
then in trouble owing to the running away of my son Aldo and one of my
servants. What more is there to tell? Four days after I had ordered him to
be bled, messengers came to me in the night and begged me to go and see
him, for he was apparently near his end. He was seized with convulsions
and lost his senses, but I battled with the disease and brought him round.
I was obliged to return to Pavia to resume my teaching, and William, when
he was well enough to get up, was forced to sleep in the workshop by his
master, who had been bidden to a wedding. There he suffered so much from
cold and bad food that, when he was setting out for Pavia to seek me, he
was again taken ill. His unfeeling master caused him to be removed to the
poor-house, and there he died the following morning from the violence of
the distemper, from agony of mind, and from the cold he had suffered.
Indeed I was so heavily stricken by mischance that meseemed I had lost
another son."
It was partly as a consolation in his own grief, and partly as a monument
to the ill-fated youth, that Cardan wrote the _Dialogus de Morte_, a work
which contains little of interest beyond the record of Cardan's
impressions of Englishmen already quoted. But it was beyond hope that he
should find adequate solace for the gnawing grief and remorse which
oppressed him in this, or any other literary work. He was ill looked upon
at Milan, but his position at Pavia seems to have been still more irksome.
He grew nervous as to his standing as a physician, for, with the powerful
prejudice which had been raised against him both as to his public and his
private affairs, he felt that a single slip in his treatment of any
particular case would be fatal to him. In Milan he did meet with a certain
amount of gratitude from the wealthier citizens for the services he had
wrought them; but in Pavia, his birthplace, the public mind was strongly
set against him; indeed in 1562 he was subjected to so much petty
persecution at the hands of the authorities and of his colleagues, that he
determined to give up his Professorship at all cost. He describes at great
length one of the most notable intrigues against him. "Now in dealing with
the deadly snares woven against my life, I will tell you of something
strange which befell me. During my Professorship at Pavia I was in the
habit of reading in my own house. I had in my household at that time a
woman to do occasional work, the youth Ercole Visconti, two boys, and
another servant. Of the two boys, one was my amanuensis and well skilled
in music, and the other was a lackey. It was in 1562 that I made up my
mind to resign my office of teaching and quit Pavia, a resolution which
the Senate took in ill part, and dealt with me as with a man transported
with rage. But there were two doctors of the city who strove with all
their might to drive me away: one a crafty fellow who had formerly been a
pupil of mine; the other was the teacher extraordinary in Medicine, a
simple-minded man, and, as I take it, not evil by nature; but covetous and
ambitious men will stop at nothing, especially when the prize to be won is
an office held in high esteem. Thus, when they despaired of getting rid
of me through the action of the Senate--what though I was petitioning to
be relieved of my duties--they laid a plot to kill me, not by the dagger
for fear of the Senate and of possible scandal, but by malignant craft. My
opponent perceived that he could not be promoted to the post of principal
teacher unless I should leave the place, and for this reason he and his
allies spread their nets from a distance. In the first place, they caused
to be written to me, in the name of my son-in-law[202] and of my daughter
as well, a most vile and filthy letter telling how they were ashamed of
their kinship with me; that they were ashamed likewise for the sake of the
Senate, and of the College; and that the authorities ought to take
cognizance of the matter and pronounce me unworthy of the office of
teacher and cause me to be removed therefrom forthwith. Confounded at
receiving such an impudent and audacious reproof at the hands of my own
kindred, I knew not what to do or say, or what reply I should make; nor
could I divine for what reason this unseemly and grievous affront had been
put upon me. It afterwards came to light that the letter was written in
order to serve as an occasion for fresh attacks; for, before many days had
passed, another letter came to me bearing the name of one Fioravanti,
written in the following strain. This man was likewise shocked for the
sake of the city, the college, and the body of professors, seeing that a
report had been spread abroad that I was guilty of abominable offences
which cannot be named. He would call upon a number of his friends to take
steps to compel me to consider the public scandal I was causing, and would
see that the houses where these offences were committed should be pointed
out. When I read this letter I was as one stupefied, nor could I believe
it was the work of Fioravanti, whom I had hitherto regarded as a man of
seemly carriage and a friend. But this letter and its purport remained
fixed in my mind and prompted me to reply to my son-in-law; for I believed
no longer that he had aught to do with the letter which professed to come
from him; indeed I ought never to have harboured such a suspicion, seeing
that both then and now he has always had the most kindly care for me; nor
has he ever judged ill of me.
"I called for my cloak at once and went to Fioravanti, whom I questioned
about the letter. He admitted that he wrote it, whereupon I was more than
ever astonished, for I was loth to suspect him of crooked dealing, much
more of any premeditated treachery. I began to reason with him, and to
inquire where all these wonderful plans had been concocted, and then he
began to waver, and failed to find an answer. He could only put forward
common report, and the utterances of the Rector of the Gymnasium, as the
source of them."[203]
Cardan goes on to connect the foregoing incident, by reasoning which is
not very clear, with what he maintained to have been a veritable attempt
against his life. "The first act of the tragedy having come to an end, the
second began, and this threw certain light upon the first. My foes made it
their special care that I, whom they held up as a disgrace to my country,
to my family, to the Senate, to the Colleges of Milan and Pavia, to the
Council of Professors, and to the students, should become a member of the
Accademia degli Affidati, a society in which were enrolled divers
illustrious theologians, two Cardinals, and two princes, the Duke of
Mantua, and the Marquis Pescara. When they perceived how loth I was to
take this step they began to threaten. What was I to do, broken down by
the cruel fate of my son, and suffering every possible evil? Finally I
agreed, induced by the promise they made me, that, in the course of a few
days, I should be relieved of my duties as Professor; but I did not then
perceive the snare, or consider how it was that they should now court the
fellowship of one whom, less than fifteen days ago, all ranks of the
College had declared to be a monster not to be tolerated. Alas for faith
in heaven, for the barbarity of men, for the hatred of false friends, for
that shamelessness and cruelty more fell than serpent's bite! What more is
there to tell? The first time I entered the room of the Affidati I saw
that a heavy beam had been poised above in such fashion that it might
easily fall and kill whatsoever person might be passing underneath.
Whether this had been done by accident or design I cannot say. But
hereafter I attended as rarely as possible, making excuses for my absence;
and, when I did go, I went when no one looked for me, and out of season,
taking good heed of this trap the while. Wherefore no evil befell me
thereby, either because my foes deemed it unwise to work such wickedness
in public, or because they had not finally agreed to put their scheme in
operation, or because they were plotting some fresh evil against me.
Another attempt was made a few days later, when I was called to the ailing
son of one Piero Trono, a surgeon; they placed high over the door a leaden
weight which might easily be made to fall, pretending that it had been put
there to hold up the curtain. This weight did fall; and, had it struck me,
it would certainly have killed me: how near I was to death, God knows.
Wherefore I began to be suspicious of something I could not define, so
greatly was my mind upset. Then a third attempt was made, which was
evident enough. A few days later, when they were about to sing a new Mass,
the same rascally crew came to me, asking me whether I would lend them the
services of my two singing boys, for my enemies knew well enough that
these boys acted as my cup-bearers, and over and beyond this they made an
agreement with my hired woman that she should give me poison. They first
went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he,
suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his
fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one
of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on
getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for
we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one
of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' Then
Ercole said somewhat vaguely that he would ask his master. He came to me,
having fathomed and laid bare the whole intention of the plot, so that, if
I had not been stark mad and stupid, I might easily have seen through
their design. Fifteen days or so had passed when the same men once more
sought me out and begged me to let them have the two boys to help them in
the performance of a comedy. Then Ercole came to me and said, 'Now in
sooth the riddle is plain to read; they are planning to get all your
people away from your table, so that they may kill you with poison; nor
are they satisfied with plotting your death merely by tricks of this sort;
they are determined to kill you by any chance which may offer."[204]
How far these plots were real, and how far they sprang from monomania it
is impossible to say. Cardan's relations with his brother physicians had
never been of the happiest, and it is quite possible that a set may have
been made in the Pavian Academy to get rid of a colleague, difficult to
live with at the best, and now cankered still more in temper by
misfortune, and likewise, in a measure, disgraced by the same. Surrounded
by annoyances such as these, and tormented by the intolerable memories and
associations of the last few years, it is not wonderful that he should
seek a way out of his troubles by a change of scene and occupation.
As early as 1536 Cardan had had professional relations with certain
members of the Borromeo family, which was one of the most illustrious in
Milan, and in 1560 Carlo Borromeo was appointed Archbishop of Milan. There
is no record of the date when Cardan first made acquaintance with this
generous patron, who was the nephew of the reigning Pope, Pius IV.,
himself a Milanese, but it is certain that Cardan had at an earlier date
successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,[205] wherefore it
is legitimate to assume that the physician was _persona grata_ to the
whole family. As soon as Cardan had determined to withdraw from Pavia he
applied to the Cardinal, who had just made a magnificent benefaction to
Bologna in the form of the University buildings. He espoused Cardan's
interests at once, and most opportunely, for the protection of a powerful
personage was almost as needful at Bologna, as the sequel shows, as it
would have been at Pavia. It was evident that Cardan had foes elsewhere
than in Pavia; indeed the early stages of the negotiation, which went on
in reference to his transfer to Bologna, suggest a doubt whether the
change would bring him any advantage other than the substitution of one
set of enemies for another. He writes: "When I was about to be summoned
to teach at Bologna, some persons of that place who were envious of my
reputation sent a certain officer (a getter-up of petitions) to Pavia. Now
this fellow, who never once entered the class-room, nor had a word with
any one of my pupils, wrote, on what authority I know not, a report in
these words: 'Concerning Girolamo Cardano, I am told that he taught in
this place, but got no pupils, always lecturing to empty benches: that he
is a man of evil life, ill regarded by all, and little less than a fool,
repulsive in his manners, and entirely unskilled in medicine. After he had
promulgated certain of his opinions he found no one in the city who would
employ him, nor did he practise his art.'
"These words were read to the Senate by the messenger on his return in the
presence of the illustrious Borromeo, the Pope's Legate to the city. The
Senate were upon the point of breaking off all further negotiations, but
while the man was reading his report, some one present heard the words in
which he declared that I did not practise medicine. 'Hui!' he cried, 'I
know that is not true, for I myself have seen divers men of the highest
consideration going to him for help, and I--though I am not to be ranked
with them--have often consulted him myself.' Then the Legate took up the
parole and said, 'I too bear witness that he cured my own mother when she
was given up by every one else.' Then the first speaker suggested that
probably the rest of the tale was just as worthy of belief as this one
statement, the Legate agreeing thereto; whereupon the messenger aforesaid
held his tongue and blushed for shame. Ultimately the Senate determined to
appoint me Professor for one year, 'for,' they said, 'if he should prove
to be the sort of man the officer describes, or if his teaching should
profit us nothing, we can let him go; but if it be otherwise, the
contract may be ratified.' With regard to the salary, over which a dispute
had already arisen, the Legate gave his consent, and the business came to
an end.
"But, disregarding this settlement, my opponents urged one of their number
to wait upon me as a delegate from the Senate, and this man would fain
have added to the terms already sanctioned by the Senate, others which I
could not possibly accept. He offered me a smaller stipend, no teaching
room was assigned to me, and no allowance for travelling expenses. I
refused to treat with him, whereupon he was forced to depart, and to
return to me later on with the terms of my engagement duly set
forth."[206]
It was in June 1562 that Cardan finally resigned his position at Pavia,
but it was not until some months after this date that the final agreement
with the Bolognese Senate, lately referred to, was concluded, and in the
interim he was forced to suffer no slight annoyance and persecution at the
hands of his adversaries in Pavia, in Bologna, and in Milan as well. Just
before he resigned his Professorship he was warned by the portentous
kindling of a fire, seemingly dead,[207] that fresh mischief was afoot,
and he at once determined in his mind that his foes had planned
destruction against him afresh. So impressed was he at this manifestation
that he swore he would not leave home on the day following. "But early in
the morning there came to my house four or five of my pupils bidding me to
a feast, where all the chief Professors of the Gymnasium and the Academy
proposed to be present. I replied that I could not come, whereupon
they, knowing that it was not my wont to dine in the middle of the day,
and deeming that it was on this score that I refused to join them, said,
'Then for your sake we will make the feast a supper.' I answered that I
could not on any account make one of their party, and then they demanded
to know the cause of my refusal. I replied it was because of a strange
event which had befallen me, and of a vow I had made thereanent. At this
they were greatly astonished, and two of them exchanged significant
glances, and they urged me again and again that I should not be so firmly
set upon marring so illustrious a gathering by my absence, but I gave back
the same answer as before."[208] They came a second time, but Cardan was
not to be moved. He records, however, that he did break his vow after all
by going out after dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill.
It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in what seems, by
contemporary daylight, to have been a complimentary invitation to dinner;
but to the old man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this
episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault against his life. He
finds some compensation, however, in once more recording the fact that all
these disturbers of his peace--like the men who were concerned in Gian
Battista's condemnation--came to a bad end. His rival, who had taken his
place as Professor, had not taught in the schools more than three or four
times before he was seized with disease and died after three months'
suffering. "Upon him there lay only the suspicion of the charge, but I
heard afterwards that a friend of his was certainly privy to the deed of
murder which they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup of
poisoned wine at the supper. In the same year died Delfino, and a little
while after Fioravanti."[209]
In July Cardan withdrew to Milan, where, to add to his other troubles, he
was seized with an attack of fever. He was now thoroughly alarmed at the
look of his affairs. Many of his fears may have been imaginary, but the
burden of real trouble which he had to carry was one which might easily
bring him to the ground, and, when once a man is down, the crowd has
little pity or scruple in trampling him to death. He set about to review
his position, and to spy out all possible sources of danger. He writes: "I
called to mind all the books I had written, and, seeing that in them there
were many obscure passages upon which an unfavourable meaning might be put
by the malice of my enemies, I wrote to the Council, submitting all my
writings to its judgment and will and pleasure. By this action I saved
myself from grave danger and disgrace in the future."[210] The Council to
which Cardan here refers was probably the Congregation of the Index
appointed by the Council at Trent for the authoritative examination of all
books before allowing them to be read by the faithful. Before the close of
the Council (1563) these duties had been handed over to the Pope (Pius
IV.), who published the revised and definite Roman Index in 1564.
FOOTNOTES:
[197] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71.
[198] "Quin etiam dominus ac Princeps alioquin generosus et humanus, cum
ipsum ob invidiam meam et accusatorum multitudinem deseruisset, et ipse
multis modis conflictatus est gravibus morbis, cæde propriæ neptis à
conjuge suo, litibus gravibus: tum etiam subsecuta calamitas publica,
Zotophagite insula amissa, classe regia dissipata."--_De Vita Propria_,
ch. xli. p. 153. The island alluded to must have been _Lotophagites
insula_, an island near the Syrtes Minor on the African coast, and the
loss of the same probably refers to some disaster during the Imperialist
wars against the Moors.
[199] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 160.
[200] Cardan rates it as his best work on an ethical subject.--_Opera_,
tom i. p. 146. And on p. 115 he writes: "Utinam contigisset absolvere ante
errorem filii; neque enim ille errasset, nec errandi causam aliquam
habuisset: nec, etiamsi errasset, periisset." He also quotes a letter full
of sound and loving counsels which he had sent to Gian Battista six months
before he fell into the snare.
[201] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 129.
[202] Bartolomeo Sacco was evidently living at Pavia at this date.
[203] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 83.
[204] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 86.
[205] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 55.
[206] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 54.
[207] _Ibid.,_ ch. xxx. p. 88. There is also a long account of this
occurrence in _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459.
[208] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 89.
[209] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 90.
[210] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 460.