50 JEROME CARDAN. 



that he regarded his boy with a real affection. It was in 

 the beginning of the year 1524 that Jerome first went to 

 the University of Padua, and early in August of the same 

 year he returned with a fellow- townsman, Gianangelo 

 Corio, to Milan 1 , where the old jurisconsult was languish- 

 ing in mortal illness. Jerome, since he had become a 

 Latin scholar, had acquired social respect among his 

 fellow-townsmen 2 , and his father was then so much in- 

 terested in the progress of his studies that he would not 

 suffer him to wait upon the sick bed. Plague was in the 

 town, and the youth's life was precious 3 . Jerome, he said, 

 was on the point of taking the degree of bachelor in arts 4 , 

 and Fazio, though near death, commanded him to go 

 back ; declaring, indeed, that he should feel the happier if 

 he did not detain him from his studies 5 . The youth, 

 therefore, went back to Padua. He must have gone back 

 to vacation work, for he had remained a month at Padua 

 after the close of the academic session on the 30th of 

 June, and the long vacation did not end until All Saints'- 



1 De Vit. Propr. p. 16. 2 Ibid. p. 138. 



3 De Consol. p. 75. 



4 De Vit, Propr. p. 17. Such a degree was not much favoured in 

 Italy. It was sought in Cardan's time chiefly by those who could not 

 afford much expense or trouble, and in the next century was rarely 

 sought at all in Padua, after the establishment of " the Venetian 

 College," by which the doctorate was made readily accessible to 

 all poor scholars. Gymnasium Patayinum J. P. Tomasini, p. 200 

 and p. 194. 



5 De Vit. Propr. p. 17. 



