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.