Jerome Cardan by William George Waters (ebook reader library TXT) 📖

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