IV PREFACE. 



own Life, which is no autobiography , but rather a garrulous 

 disquisition upon himself, written by an old man when his 

 mind was affected by much recent sorrow. 



In that work Cardan reckoned that he had published 

 one hundred and thirty one books, and that he was leaving 

 behind him in manuscript one hundred and eleven. It is 

 only by a steady search among his extant works, and by 

 collecting into a body statements and personal allusions 

 which occur in some of them, assigning to each its due 

 place, and, as far as judgment can be exercised, its due 

 importance, that a complete narrative can be obtained, or 

 a right estimate formed of his Life and Character. Of 

 such collation this work] is the result; and, although it is 

 inevitable that there should be errors and omissions in it, 

 since the ground is new, the labour on it has been great, 

 and I am but a feeble workman, yet, forasmuch as the 

 book is an honest one, in which nothing vital has been held 

 back or wrongly told, except through ignorance, and no 

 pains have been grudged to make the drawback, on ac- 

 count of ignorance, as small as possible, I am not afraid to 

 put my trust in the good-nature of the reader who shall 

 detect some of its omissions and shortcomings. 



The following sentences, from the notice of Cardan in 

 Tiraboschi's History of Italian Literature, fairly represent 



