Jerome Cardan: A Biographical Study. W. G. Waters
this region is full of spirits, but these you cannot see, and you must not speak either to me or to them. In this part of heaven you will remain for seven thousand years, and for the same time in certain other stars, until you come to the eighth. After this you shall enter the kingdom of God.' I read this dream as follows. My father's soul is my tutelary spirit. What could be dearer or more delightful? The Moon signifies Grammar; Mercury Geometry and Arithmetic; Venus Music, the Art of Divination, and Poetry; the Sun the Moral, and Jupiter the Natural, World; Mars Medicine; Saturn Agriculture, the knowledge of plants, and other minor arts. The eighth star stands for a gleaning of all mundane things, natural science, and various other studies. After dealing with these I shall at last find my rest with the Prince of Heaven."[66]
FOOTNOTES:
[45] "Nec ullum mihi erat relictum auxilium nisi latrunculorum Ludus."—Opera, tom. i. p. 619.
[46] From the formation of the League of Cambrai in 1508 to the establishment of the Imperial supremacy in Italy in 1530, the whole country was desolated by the marching and counter-marching of the contending forces. Milan, lying directly in the path of the French armies, suffered most of all.
[47] Compare De Vita Propria, chaps. iv. and xxxi. pp. 13 and 92.
[48] De Vita Propria, ch. xxxi. p. 92. In taking the other view he writes: "Vitam ducebam in Saccensi oppido, ut mihi videbar, infelicissime."—Opera, tom. i. p. 97.
[49] De Utilitate, p. 235.
[50] He gives a long and interesting sketch of his father-in-law in De Utilitate, p. 370.
[51] De Vita Propria, ch. xxvi. p. 68; Opera, tom. i. p. 97.
[52] De Vita Propria, ch. xli. p. 149.
[53] De Utilitate, p. 350.
[54] De Utilitate, p. 357: "Nam in urbe nec collegium recipere volebat nec cum aliquo ex illis artem exercere licebat et sine illis difficillimum erat." He writes thus while describing this particular visit to Milan.
[55] Ill fortune seems to have pursued the whole family in their relations with learned societies. "Nam et pater meus ut ab eo accepi, diu in ingressu Collegii Jurisconsultorum laboravit, et ego, ut alias testatus sum, bis a medicorum Patavino, toties filius meus natu major, a Ticinensi, uterque a Mediolanensi rejecti sumus."—Opera, tom. i. p. 94.
[56] De Utilitate, p. 358.
[57] He became a priest, and died Archbishop of Milan in 1552. Cardan dedicated to him his first published book, De Malo Medendi.
[58] De Vita Propria, ch. xxxvii. p. 119.
[59] De Vita Propria, ch. xxv. p. 67.
[60] The Xenodochium, which was originally a stranger's lodging-house. By this time places of this sort had become little else than succursales of some religious house. The Governors of the Milanese Xenodochium were the patrons of the Plat endowment which Cardan afterwards enjoyed.
[61] "Hoc unum sat scio, ab ineunte ætate me inextinguibili nominis immortalis cupiditate flagrasse."—Opera, tom. i. p. 61.
[62] "Minimo tamen honorario, et illud etiam minimum suasu cujusdam amici egregii praefecti Xenodochii imminuerunt; ita cum hujus recordor in mentem venit fabellæ illius Apuleii de annonæ Praefecto."—Opera, tom. i. p. 64.
[63] De Utilitate, p. 351.
[64] The following gives a hint as to the treatment followed: "Referant leprosos balneo ejus aquae in qua cadaver ablutum sit, sanari."—De Varietate, p. 334.
[65] De Vita Propria, ch. xxxvii. p. 121. This dream is also told in De Libris Propriis, Opera, tom. i. p. 64.
[66] De Vita Propria, ch. xxxvii. p. 121.
CHAPTER IV
Jerome Cardan is now standing on the brink of authorship. The very title of his first book, De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum Medendi Usu, gives plain indication of the humour which possessed him, when he formulated his subject and put it in writing. With his temper vexed by the persistent neglect and insult cast upon him by the Milanese doctors he would naturally sit down con amore to compile a list of the errors perpetrated by the ignorance and bungling of the men who affected to despise him, and if his object was to sting the hides of these pundits and arouse them to hostility yet more vehement, he succeeded marvellously well. He was enabled to launch his book rather by the strength of private friendship than by the hope of any commercial success. Whilst at Pavia he had become intimate with Ottaviano Scoto, a fellow-student who came from Venice, and in after times he found Ottaviano's purse very useful to his needs. Since their college days Ottaviano's father had died and had left his son to carry on his calling of printing. In 1536 Jerome bethought him of his friend, and sent him the MS. of the treatise which was to let the world learn with what little wisdom it was being doctored.[67]
Ottaviano seems to have expected no profit from this venture, which was manifestly undertaken out of a genuine desire to help his friend, and he generously bore all the costs. Cardan deemed that, whatever the result of the issue of the book might be, it would surely be to his benefit; he hazarded nothing, and the very publication of his work would give him at least notoriety. It would moreover give him the intense pleasure of knowing that he was repaying in some measure the debt of vengeance owing to his professional foes. The outcome was exactly the opposite of what printer and author had feared and hoped. The success of the book was rapid and great.
Ottaviano must soon have recouped all the cost of publication; and, while he was counting his money, the doctors everywhere were reading Jerome's brochure, and preparing a ruthless attack upon