PARENT AND CHILD. 57 



which he seems to have been able to regard his father only. 

 " My tears arise," he says, " when my mind ponders upon 

 his good-will towards me. But, father, I will give what 

 satisfaction I am able to your merits and your piety. 

 And while these leaves are read, your name and virtue 

 shall be honoured. For he was incorruptible and truly 

 holy 1 ." At other times, in softened mood, we find him 

 speaking of his old relation to his father during childhood, 

 as " what I at that time thought to be hard servitude." 

 At other times he writes the simple truth, but not re- 

 sentfully. 



Matthew Curtius, a physician of some note in his day, 

 v> r as professor of the theory of medicine in Padua, be- 

 tween the years 1524 and 1530 3 . He encouraged Car- 

 dan greatly with his kindness, even condescending to hold 

 public disputation with him. A compliment dear to the 



1 De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. pp. 349, 350. 



2 Riccoboni de Gymnas. Patavin. Lib. i. p. 21. Cardan de Vit. Propr. 

 cap. xxxiv. p. 155. Curtius of Pavia taught also at Florence, Bologna, 

 and Pisa. He wrote on Venesection in Pleurisy, on the quality of 

 water, and also, among other things, edited Mundinus, the peg-book 

 upon which anatomists had hung comments for years, until Vesalius 

 achieved a revolution in their science. Curtius was fifty years old, 

 and in the height of his reputation, when Cardan studied under him. 

 His salary at Padua had been twice raised. He died in 1544, aged 

 seventy. Brief details are given concerning him by Tomasini and 

 Papadopoli in their records of the University of Padua, and more by 

 Ghilini, whom I know only as cited in a work invaluable for the infor- 

 mation it gives about forgotten men who were in any degree famous in 

 the sixteenth century, " Zedler's Universal Lexicon aller Wissenschaf- 

 ten und Kiinste." 



