Jerome Cardan Part 9

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 p.r.i.c.king 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sociates of Gian Battista, and his fellow-captives as well, urged him to a.s.sert 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.s. 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 a.r.s.enic 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 pa.s.s his lips; and if any large quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 a.s.saults. In his earlier writings he attributes his calamities to evil fate and the influences of the stars; his wit was indeed great, and a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sage in _De Consolatione_ (_Opera_, tom. i.

p. 600) which gives Fazio's view of happiness after death:--"Memineram patrem meum, Facium Cardanum, c.u.m viveret, in ore semper habuisse, se mortem optare, quod nullum suavius tempus experiretur, qu[a=] id in quo profundissime dormiens omnium quae in hac vita fiunt expers esset."

[178] Cardan gives his impressions of musicians:--"Unde nostra aetate neminem ferine music.u.m 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 nostrae aetatis neminem music.u.m agnovimus, Erasmum, Alciatum, Budaeum, Jasonem, Vesalium, Gesnerum. At vero quod domum everterit meam, si dicam, vera fatebor meo more. Nam et pecuniae 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 haec 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 caeteris erit elegans, splendidus, huma.n.u.s, gravis et qui ab omnibus, potentioribusque, praesertim 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 Papiae c.u.m Camutio inst.i.tuta, publicata apud Senatum: ipse primo argumento primae diei siluit."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 37. This does not exactly tally with Camutio's version. With regard to Cardan's a.s.sertion 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 t.i.tle: "Andraeae Camutii disputationes quibus Hieronymi Cardani magni nominis viri conclusiones infirmantur, Galenus ab ejusdem injuria vindicatur, Hippocratis praeterea aliquot loca diligentius multo quam unquam alias explicantur." In his version (_De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 37) Cardan inquires sarcastically: "Habentur ejusdem imagines quaedam typis excusae 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 c.u.m filium spurium convictum haberet de veneficio, in duas sorores legitimas, solum haereditatis consequendae causa, satis habuit d.a.m.na.s.se illum ad triremes."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33.

[194] "Evasit nuper ob constantiam in tormentis famulus filii mei, qui pretio venenum dederat dominae 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. "Haec et alia hujusmodi c.u.m protulissem, non valere, nisi eousque, ut decretum sit, si impetrare pacem potuissem vitae parceretur. Sed non potuit filii stult.i.tia, qui dum jactat opes quae non sunt, illi quod non erat exigunt."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 34.

[196] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x. p. 33.

CHAPTER X

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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sault 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 a.s.suredly 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 a.s.sured 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 embarra.s.sments 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 superst.i.tious 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s. 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 circ.u.mstances 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' s.p.a.ce, 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_, ill.u.s.trated 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 grat.i.tude 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 pet.i.tioning 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 princ.i.p.al 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sing 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, G.o.d 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 Ma.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociations 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sume 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 subst.i.tution 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 pet.i.tions) to Pavia. Now this fellow, who never once entered the cla.s.s-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 ill.u.s.trious 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.