CARDAN.
(His Character and Extravagances.)

Jerome Cardan, a physician of great but

eccentric genius, was born at Pavia, on the 24th September, 1501. His mother, not being married, sought to procure abortion; but the medicines she took had not their desired effect. He was born with a head full of black curled hair, and at four years of age was carried to Milan, where his father was an advocate; and he was eight years of age when, in a dangerous fit of sickness, they devoted him to St Jerome. It was his father who made this vow, choosing rather to have recourse to the assistance of this saint, than to that of a familiar spirit whose attendance he greatly boasted. At twenty years of age he went to study in the university of Pavia, where two years after, he explained Euclid. In 1524 he went to Padua, where he took the degree of master of arts the same year, and towards the end of the year 1525, that of doctor of physic. He married about the latter end of the year 1531: he had been impotent for the space of ten years before, which very much afflicted him. He attributes this to the malignant influences of the constellation under which he was born. The two unlucky planets, and the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, were in the human signs; “ for which reason,” says he, “ I could not but be endued with a human form; and because Jupiter was in the ascendant, and Venus presided over the whole figure, I could be prejudiced no other way. ‘Cum Sol, et maleficæ ambæ, et Venus et Mercurius, essent in signis humanis, ideo non declinavi à forma humanâ: sed cum Jupiter esset in ascendente, et Venus totius figuræ domina, non fui oblæsus nisi in genitalibus, ut à xxi. anno ad xxxi. non potuerim concumbere cum mulicribus; et sæpius deflerem sortem meam, cuique alteri propriam invidens.' ” Upon a review of the heaviest misfortunes that befel him in his life, he reckons up four, whereof the first, according to his account, was his impotence; the second was the tragical end of his eldest son; the third, his imprisonment; and the fourth, the irregular life of his younger son. “ Toti-dem maxima detrimenta et impedimenta, primum concubitus, secundum mortis sævæ filii, tertium carceris, quartum improbitatis filii matu minoris.” He had completed his thirty-third year, when he was made mathematical professor at Milan. Two years after, he was offered a physic-professorship in Pavia, which he refused, from the uncertainty of the payment of his salary. In 1539, he was admitted into the college of physicians at Milan; and in 1543, taught physic publicly in that city. The year following he did the same at Pavia, but left off at the end of the year, because they did not pay him his stipend, and returned to Milan. In 1547, a very advantageous offer was made him by the king of Denmark, which he refused, on account of the air and religion of the country. He made a voyage to Scotland in 1552, and returned to Milan about ten months after, where he continued until the beginning of October 1559, and then went to Pavia, whence he was called to Bologna in 1562. He continued professor in this last place until the year 1570; at which time he was put into prison, but was carried home again some months after. However, this was not absolutely giving him his liberty, for he was kept prisoner in his own house; but this continued not long. He left Bologna in September 1571, and went to Rome, where he lived without any public employment. He was admitted into the college of physicians, and had a pension from the pope. He died at Rome, the twenty-first of September 1575. The account is sufficient to satisfy the reader, that Cardan was of a very inconstant temper; but his fantastical humour will better appear from the relation he has given us himself of his own good and bad qualites: this very ingenuousness is a plain proof that his mind was of a very particular cast. He tells us, that if nature did not give him some painful sensation, he procured it himself by biting his lips and distorting his fingers, until he shed tears; that sometimes he had a mind to kill himself; that he took a delight to ramble all night long in the streets; that he never was immoderate in his amours; that nothing pleased him better than to hold such arguments as were disagreeable to the company; that whatever he knew came out, whether it was proper or improper; that he also was so besotted to gaming as to spend whole days at it, to the no small prejudice of his family and reputation, for he played away his very household goods, and his wife’s jewels. These, and several other things, he relates with the greatest simplicity; however, I make no question that if his life were faithfully written by another hand, we should find a great many more dishonourable particulars than he has given us in that he wrote himself, which yet contains several other more remarkable instances of the singularity of his temper, than those I have mentioned. He speaks of abundance of prodigies, which foretold him, sleeping or waking, what was to befal him; this made him believe that, like Socrates and some other great men, he was under the care of a particular genius. What shall we say of those four extraordinary gifts nature had endowed him with? which were, 1. That he could fall into an ecstasy whenever he pleased.2. That he could see whatever he pleased. 3. That he foresaw in his sleep whatever was to befal him. And 4. That he could also foretell events by certain marks which appeared in his nails. “ Nature,” he observes “ has favoured me with four endowments which I would never reveal; all of them, in my judgment, very extraordinary. Whereof the first is, that whenever I please, I can transport myself out of my senses into an ecstasy; in the doing which I feel near my heart a sort of separation, as if my soul departed; and this affair is communicated to my whole body as it were by the opening of a door. The beginning of it is from my head, principally from the cerebellum, and so diffuses itself all along the spine of my back, and is not stopped without great resistance; all I perceive is, that I am beside myself; and I can just contain myself a little with a certain considerable force. The second is, that I can at any time see whatever I please, with my eyes, not by force of imagination, as those images I have mentioned my seeing when I was a child. I can therefore see groves, animals, worlds, and whatever I please. I take the cause to be the strength of my perceptive faculty, and the quickness of my sight. The third is, that I see in my sleep the representation of all that is to happen to me. And I dare almost say, I am sure I might very truly say, that I never remember any thing happening to me, either good, bad, or indifferent, of which I had not been forewarned in a dream. The fourth is, that whatever is to happen to me is signified by appearances on my nails. Black and livid specks on those of my middle finger signify misfortune; white, the contrary; on my thumb, honours; on my fore-finger, riches; on my ring-finger, study and discoveries of importance; on my little finger, inventions of the lowest class; if the speck is close and even, it betokens lasting good fortune; but if spread, and something like a star, it is a sign of such as will not be very much to be depended on, but rather of more public nature, and consisting of promises/’ We must take notice that, during these voluntary ecstasies, he felt not the most acute fits of the gout; and if any one spoke near him, he could hear a little the sound of the words, but understood not their signification. For the rest, he would never boast of these four singularities: but at last this grand secret was too hard for him, and so he revealed it to the public in one of his works.

Cardan was unfortunate in his family. His eldest

son, who fell in love with a woman without fortune, married her, and repenting when it was too late, poisoned his wife. He was punished according to his deserts; sentence being passed upon him to lose his head, which was executed at midnight in the prison. Cardan’s other son was a rogue and a villain. ' His own father was forced to throw him into gaol more than once, to cut off one of his ears, and at last to turn him out of doors, and disinherit him. His daughter gave only two occasions of uneasiness; the first, when he was obliged to pay her fortune; the second, when he saw she had no children. He was so affected with the unfortunate end of his eldest son, that he almost died with grief. The most extraordinary thing is, that Cardan, who did not deny but that his son had poisoned his wife, which his son confessed at his trial, imagined the divine justice pursued his judges for their unjust sentence, and that many of them came to an unfortunate end. He pretended that his son, being drawn in to marry a wife who, having neither fortune nor honour, made no scruple to dishonour him, was not to blame in murdering her.

Among other extraordinary doings, Cardan calculated the nativity of Jesus Christ; in respect to which fact Naudæus reproves Scaliger for believing that he was the first who attempted any thing of this nature. He observes, “ that such was his vanity that, when prosecuted, he chose rather to pass for the inventor, than to justify himself by the example of others. Naudæus quotes four authors, who loug before Cardan had calculated Christ’s nativity. The most modern was Tiberius Russilianus Sextus of Calabria, who lived under the pontificate of Leo the Tenth. He undertook publicly to maintain 400 pro-positious at Bologna, Florence, and Padua. The monks condemned twelve of them as favouring of heresy, of which this was one of the principal: Christum quoad corporis compagi-nem elementariam astris suppositum, ejusque genituram, & prophetam magnum, et ea quæ circa corpus evenerunt, præsertim violentum ejus mortis genus, nuntiasse non inconvenit. That Christ, as to the elementary composition of his body, was subject to the stars; and that there is no inconvenience in calculating his nativity, and shewing the necessity of his being a great prophet, and of all those things which happened to his body, particularly his violent death. Before this time, Peter d’Ailli, cardinal, and bishop of Cambray, was not content to maintain that judgment was to be made of Christ’s birth by astrological observation, but proposed the very scheme of his nativity. Albertus Magnus, more ancient than Peter d’Ailli, had before him maintained, that the rules of astrology took place even in the nativity of our Saviour. Albumasar, before Albertus, made an observation upon several things relating to Jesus Christ, according to the principles of astrology. These four authors are produced by Naudæus, some of which were quoted before him by Roger Bacon, Picus Mirandulanus, and Holkot; whence he concludes that Mr de Thou and Scaliger were in the wrong for imagining Cardan the original author of this foolish attempt. ⁷⁷

In other respects, his astrological predictions are said to have been frequently confirmed by the event, and Thuanus remarks, that he brought astrology into credit by his horoscopes; but Naudæus quotes Authors to prove that they were quite contrary to the event. Some say, that Cardan having foretold he should die at a certain time, he abstained from nourishment, that his death might verify his prediction, and his life not disgrace the art. He was therefore afraid of surviving the falsity of his prognostics, and so tender of his honour, that he could not endure the reproach of having proved a false prophet, and wronged his profession. Few people in the like case stand up with so much courage and affection for the honour of their art; they take comfort, and are neither ashamed nor discomposed. He wrote a great many books; for the edition of his works at Lyons, in 1663, contains ten volumes in folio. His poverty contributed to this multitude of writings, which frequently puzzle his readers by their

digressions and obscurity. Nor did he write so many volumes without being indebted to others. Cardan’s life of himself supplies a curious account of a gifted, and half enthusiastic, half knavish quack of the period in which he flourished. What might Rousseau have proved in the days of Cardan? The “Confessions” of the one, and the “Life” of the other, are not altogether dissimilar.—Ed. ⁷⁸—Art.Cardan.