LEGACIES AND LAWSUITS. 55 



CHAPTER V. 



JEROME CARDAN. GRADUATE IN MEDICINE HIS LIFE AT SACCO, AND 

 THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OP HIS MARRIAGE. 



FAZIO CARDAN left a house and some provision for 

 his son, although it seems to have been very small, and 

 liable to much dispute 1 . He had been too ready to allow 

 to other men the use of his possessions. Part of his little 

 store, placed in the hands of insolvent people, had been 

 lost; part, supplied to princes and great men, was to be 

 re-demanded only at great risk, and hardly to be recovered 

 after endless labour. When recovered, it was always re- 

 paid without interest 3 . Litigation, however, was then 

 common ; and we are carried back fairly into the spirit of 

 the time when we read that after his father's death Jerome 

 had first a lawsuit with Alessandro Castillione for some 

 woods, afterwards with members of his father's family, 

 and then with the Counts Barbiani. Jerome eventually 

 gained his point against Castillione, who had one of his 



1 " Patrimoniurn quod minimum erat." De Consol. p. 75. De Vita 

 Propr. cap. xxviii. 



2 De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. p. 428. 



