Jerome Cardan: A Biographical Study. W. G. Waters
its highest point till it came under Venetian rule in 1404. The Venetian government raised the stipends of the professors, and allowed four Paduan citizens to act as Tutores Studii; the election of the professors being vested in the students, which custom obtained until the end of the sixteenth century.[40] The Rector was allowed to wear a robe of purple and gold; and, when he retired, the degree of Doctor was granted to him, together with the right to wear the golden collar of the order of Saint Mark.
Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who possibly were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most dangerous foes.
Such was the University of Padua at the height of its glory, and it will be apparent at once that Padua must have fallen considerably in its fortunes when it installed as its Rector an obscure student, only twenty-four years of age, and of illegitimate birth, and conferred upon him the right to go clad in purple and gold, and to claim, as his retiring gift, the degree of Doctor and the cross of Saint Mark. In 1508 the League of Cambrai had been formed, and Venice, not yet recovered from the effects of its disastrous wars with Bajazet II., was forced to meet the combined assault of the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France. Padua was besieged by the Imperial forces, a motley horde of Germans, Swiss, and Spaniards, and the surrounding country was pillaged and devastated by these savages with a cruelty which recalled the days of Attila. It is not wonderful that the University closed its doors in such a time. When the confederates began to fight amongst themselves the class-rooms were reopened, intermittently at first, but after 1515 the teaching seems to have been continuous. Still the prevalent turmoil and poverty rendered it necessary to curtail all the mere honorary and ornamental adjuncts of the schools, and for several years no Rector was appointed, for the good and sufficient reason that no man of due position and wealth and character could be found to undertake the rectorial duties, with the Academy just emerging from complete disorganization. These duties were many and important, albeit the Rector could, if he willed, appoint a deputy, and the calls upon the purse of the holder must have been very heavy. It would be hard to imagine any one less fitted to fill such a post than Cardan, and assuredly no office could befit him less than this pseudo-rectorship.[41] It must ever remain a mystery why he was preferred, why he was elected, and why he consented to serve: though, as to the last-named matter, he hints in a passage lately cited from De Utilitate, that it was through the persuasions of his mother that he took upon himself this disastrous honour. Many pasages in his writings suggest that Chiara was an indulgent parent. She let Fazio have no peace till he consented to allow the boy to go to college; she paid secretly for music-lessons, so that Jerome was enabled to enjoy the relaxation he loved better than anything else in the world—except gambling; she paid all his charges during his student life at Padua; and now, quite naturally, she would have shed her heart's blood rather than let this son of hers—ugly duckling as he was—miss what she deemed to be the crowning honour of the rectorship; but after all the sacrifices Chiara made, after all the misfortunes which attended Jerome's ill-directed ambition, there is a doubt as to whether he ever was Rector in the full sense of the term. Many times and in divers works he affirms that once upon a time he was Rector, and over and beyond this he sets down in black and white the fact, more than once, that he never told a lie; so it is only polite to accept this legend for what it is worth. But it must likewise be noted that in the extant records of the University there is no mention of his name in the lists of Rectors.[42]
Jerome has left very few details as to his life at Padua. Of those which he notices the following are the most interesting: "In 1525, the year in which I became Rector, I narrowly escaped drowning in the Lago di Garda. I went on board the boat, unwillingly enough, which carried likewise some hired horses; and, as we sailed on, the mast and the rudder, and one of the two oars we had with us, were broken by the wind. The sails, even those on the smaller mast, were split, and the night came on. We landed at last safe and sound at Sirmio, but not before all my companions had given up hope, and I myself was beginning to despair. Indeed, had we been a minute later we must have perished, for the tempest was so violent that the iron hinges of the inn windows were bent thereby. I, though I had been sore afraid ever since the wind began to blow, fell to supper with a good heart when the host set upon the board a mighty pike, but none of the others had any stomach for food, except the one passenger who had advised us to make trial of this perilous adventure, and who had proved to be an able and courageous helper in our hour of distress.
"Again, once when I was in Venice on the birthday of the Virgin, I lost some money at dicing, and on the day following all that was left me went the same way. This happened in the house of the man with whom I was gambling, and in the course of play I noticed that the cards were marked, whereupon I struck him in the face with my dagger, wounding him slightly. Two of his servants were present at the time; some spears hung all ready from the beams of the roof, and besides this the house door was fastened. But when I had taken from him all the money he had about him—his own as well as that which he had won from me by cheating, and my cloak and the rings which I had lost to him the day before—I was satisfied that I had got back all my possessions. The chattels I sent home by my servant at once, but a portion of the money I tossed back to the fellow when I saw that I had drawn blood of him. Then I attacked the servants who were standing by; and, as they knew not how to use their weapons and besought my mercy, I granted this on the condition that they should unlock the door. Their master, taking account of the uproar and confusion, and mistrusting his safety in case the affair should not be settled forthwith (I suspect he was alarmed about the marked cards), commanded the servants to open the door, whereupon I went my way.
"That very same evening, while I was doing my best to escape the notice of the officers of justice on account of the wound I had given to this Senator, I lost my footing and fell into a canal, having arms under my cloak the while. In my fall I did not lose my nerve, but flinging out my right arm, I grasped the thwart of a passing boat and was rescued by those on board. When I had been hauled into the boat I discovered—wonderful to relate—that the man with whom I had lately played cards was likewise on board, with his face bandaged by reason of the wounds I had given him. Now of his own accord he brought out a suit of clothes, fitted for seafaring, and, having clad myself in them, I journeyed with him as far as Padua."[43]
Cardan's life from rise to set cannot be estimated otherwise than an unhappy one, and its least fortunate years were probably those lying between his twenty-first and his thirty-first year of age. During this period he was guilty of that crowning folly, the acceptance of the Rectorship of the Gymnasium at Padua, he felt the sharpest stings of poverty, and his life was overshadowed by dire physical misfortune. He gives a rapid sketch of the year following his father's death. "Then, my father having breathed his last and my term of office come to an end, I went, at the beginning of my twenty-sixth year, to reside at Sacco, a town distant ten miles from Padua and twenty-five from Venice. I fixed on this place by the advice of Francesco Buonafidei, a physician of Padua, who, albeit I brought no profit to him—not even being one of those who attended his public teaching—helped me and took a liking for me, being moved to this benevolence by his exceeding goodness of heart. In this place I lived while our State was being vexed by every sort of calamity. In 1524 by a raging pestilence and by a two-fold change of ruler. In 1526 and 1527 by a destructive scarcity of the fruits of the earth. It was hard to get corn in exchange for money of any kind, and over and beyond this was the intolerable weight of taxation. In 1528 the land was visited by divers diseases and by the plague as well, but these afflictions seemed the easier to bear because all other parts were likewise suffering from the same. In 1529 I ventured to return to Milan—these ill-starred troubles being in some degree abated—but I was refused membership by the College of Physicians there, I was unable to settle my lawsuit with the Barbiani, and I found my mother in a very ill humour, so I went back