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 "[Greek: ou]"
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]
It would appear that the intrigues, of which Cardan gives so many
instances, must have been the work of certain individuals, jealous of his
fame and perhaps smarting under some caustic speech or downright insult,
rather than of the authorities; the Senate of Bologna showed no hostility
to him, but on the other hand procured for him the privileges of
citizenship. While the negotiations were going on at Bologna for the
further regulation of his position as a teacher, he tells a strange story
how, on three or four different occasions, certain men came to him by
night, in the name of the Senate and of the Judicial officers, and tried
to induce him to recommend that a certain woman, who had been condemned
for blasphemy, and for poisoning or witchcraft as well, should be
pardoned, both by the temporal and spiritual authorities, bringing forward
specially the argument that, in the sight of philosophers, such things as
demons and spirits did not exist. They likewise urged him to procure the
release from prison of another woman, who had not yet been condemned,
because a certain sick man had died under the hands of some other doctors.
They brought also a lot of nativities for him to read, as if he had been
a soothsayer, and not a teacher of medicine, but he would have nothing to
say to them.[217]
It is somewhat strange that Cardan should have detected no trace of the
snare of the enemy in this manoeuvre. Bearing in mind the character of the
request made, and the fact that Cardan was by no means a _persona grata_
to the petitioners, it seems highly probable that they might have been
more anxious to draw from Cardan a profession of his disbelief in
witchcraft, than to procure the enlargement of the accused persons whose
cause they had nominally espoused. At this period it was indeed dangerous
to be a wizard, but it was perhaps still more dangerous to pose as an
avowed sceptic of witchcraft. At the end of the fifteenth century the
frequency of executions for sorcery in the north of Italy had provoked a
strong outburst of popular feeling against this wanton bloodshed; but
Spina, writing in the interest of orthodox religion, deplores that
disbelief in the powers of Evil and their manifestations, always
recognized by the Church, should have led men on to profess by their
action any doubt as to the truth of witchcraft. But in spite of the
fulminations of men of this sort, from this time onwards the more
enlightened scholars of Europe began to modify their opinions on the
subject of demoniac possession, and of witchcraft in general. The first
book in which the new views were enunciated was the treatise _De
Præstigiis Dæmonum_, by Johann Wier, a physician of Cleves, published in
1563. The step in advance taken by this reformer was not a revolutionary
one. He simply denied that witches were willing and conscious instruments
of the malefic powers, asserting that what evil they wrought came about by
reason of the delusions with which the evil spirits infected the persons
said to be possessed. The devil afflicted his victims directly, and then
threw the suspicion of the evil deed upon some old woman. Wier's book was
condemned and denounced by the clergy--he himself was a Protestant--but
the most serious counterblast against it came from the pen of Jean Bodin,
the illustrious French philosopher and jurist. He held up Wier to
execration as an impious blasphemer, and asserted that the welfare of
Christendom must needs suffer great injury through the dissemination of
doctrines so detestable as those set forth in his book.[218]
Seeing that such a spirit was dominant in the minds of men like Bodin, it
will be evident that a charge of impiety or atheism might well follow a
profession of disbelief, or even scepticism, as to the powers of witches
or of evil spirits. A maxim familiar as an utterance of Sir Thomas Browne,
"Ubi tres medici duo athei," was, no doubt, in common use in Cardan's
time; and he, as a doctor, would consequently be ill-looked upon by the
champions of orthodoxy, who would certainly not be conciliated by the fact
that he was the friend of Cardinal Morone. This learned and enlightened
prelate had been imprisoned by the savage and fanatical Paul IV., on a
charge of favouring opinions analogous to Protestantism, but Pius IV., the
easy-going Milanese jurisconsult, turned ecclesiastic, enlarged him by one
of the first acts of his Papacy, and restored him to the charge of the
diocese of Modena.
Besides enjoying at Bologna the patronage of princes of the Church like
Borromeo and Morone, Cardan found there an old friend in Ludovico
Ferrari, who was at this time lecturing on mathematics. He also received
into his house a new pupil, a Bolognese youth named Rodolfo Sylvestro, who
was destined hereafter to bring as great credit to his teacher's name in
Medicine as Ferrari had already brought thereto in Mathematics. Rodolfo
proved to be one of the most faithful and devoted of friends; he remained
at Bologna as long as Cardan continued to live there, sharing his master's
ill-fortune, and ultimately accompanied him to Rome in 1571. He gives the
names of two other Bolognese students, Giulio Pozzo and Camillo Zanolino,
but of all his surviving pupils he rates Sylvestro as the most gifted.
The records of Cardan's life at this period are scant and fragmentary, few
events being chronicled except dreams and portents. In giving an account
of one of these manifestations, which happened in September 1563, he
incidentally lets light upon certain changes and vicissitudes in his own
affairs. He was at this time living in an apartment in the house of the
Ranucci, next door to a half-ruined palace of the Ghislieri. One night he
awoke from sleep, and found that the neck-band of his shirt had become
entangled with the cord by which he kept his precious emerald and a
written charm suspended round his neck. He tried to disentangle the knot,
but in vain, so he left the complication as it was, purposing to unravel
it by daylight. He did not fall asleep; but, after lying quiet for a
little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot,
when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit.
"This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty
difficulties, and at the same time proved, as I have often said elsewhere,
that there must have been present something else unperceived by me. For
my affairs were in this condition: my son-in-law at Milan had the
administration of the scant remains of my property, and I received no
rents therefrom for a whole year. My literary work was lying at the
printer's, but it was not printed. Here, at Bologna, I was forced to
lecture without having a fixed hour assigned to me. A crowd of enemies
were intriguing against me. My son Aldo was in prison, and of little
profit to me. But immediately after this portent I learned that my two
chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the
lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to
live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next
describe what came to pass with regard to the others.
"During the next July (1564), through the help of Francesco Alciati,[219]
the secretary of Pope Pius IV., a man to whom I am indebted for almost
every benefit I have received since 1561, I began to enjoy my own again.
On August 26 I received from the printer my books all printed with the
greatest care, and by reason of the dispatch of this business my income
was greatly increased. The next day my chief opponent resigned his office,
and left vacant a salary of seven hundred gold crowns. The only
manifestation of adverse fortune left to trouble me was the conspiracy of
the doctors against me, but there were already signs that this would
disappear before long, and in sooth it came to an end after the lapse of
another year."[220]
During this portion of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived
comparatively alone, and to have spent his weary leisure in brooding over
his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the _De Libris
Propriis_, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over
Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily
come as a friend to those whose lives are wretched, he begins to speculate
whether, after all, he ought not to rejoice rather than mourn over his
son's death. "Certes he is rid of this miserable life of danger and
difficulty, vain, sorrowful, brief, and inconstant; these times in which
the major part of the good things of the world fall to the trickster's
share, and all may be enjoyed by those who are backed up by wealth or
power or favour. Power is good when it is in the hands of those who use it
well, but it is a great evil when murderers and poisoners are allowed to
wield it. To the ill-starred, to the ungodly, and to the foolish, death is
a boon, freeing them from numberless dangers, from heavy griefs, from
fatal troubles, and from infamy; wherefore in such cases it ought not to
be spoken of as something merely good or indifferent, but rated as the
best of fortune. Shall I not declare to God (for He willed the deed), to
myself, and to my surviving family, that my son's death was a thing to be
desired, for God does all justly, wisely, and lovingly? He lets me stand
as an example to show others that a good and upright man cannot be
altogether wretched. I am poor, infirm, and old; bereaved by a cruel wrong
of my best-loved son, a youth of the fairest promise, and left only with
the faintest hope of any ray of future good fortune, or of seeing my race
perpetuated after my death, for my daughter, who has been nine years
married, is barren.
"At one time I was prosperous in every relation of life: in my
friendships, in my children, and in my health. In my youth I seemed to be
one raised up to realize the highest hopes. I was accustomed to all the
good things--nay, to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched,
despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable,
I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I
neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work
as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for
this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs
better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book which I
have lately published with those which I wrote some time ago, he will not
fail to perceive how vastly my intellect has gained in richness, in
vivacity, and in purity."
Though the note of sorrow or even of despair is perceptible in these
sentences, there is no sign that the virile and elastic spirit of the
writer is broken. But there are manifest signs of an increasing tendency
towards mental detachment from the world which had used him so ill. With
the happiest of men the almost certain prospect of extinction at the end
of a dozen years usually tends to foster the growth of a conviction that
the world after all is a poor affair, and that to quit it is no great
evil. How strongly therefore must reflections of a kindred nature have
worked upon a man so cruelly tried as Cardan!
FOOTNOTES:
[211] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462.
[212] "Sed filius minor natu adeò malè se gessit, ut malim transire in
nepotem ex primo filio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvi. p. 112.
[213] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71.
[214] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 40.
[215] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459.
[216] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56.
[217] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxiii. p. 104.
[218] This opinion prevailed with men of learning far into the next
century. Sir Thomas Browne writes: "They that doubt of these, do not only
deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sect not
of infidels, but atheists."--_Religio Medici, Works_, vol. ii. p. 89.
[219] This was the Cardinal, the nephew of Andrea the great jurist, who
was also a good friend of Cardan.
[220] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 463.