58 JEKOME CARDAN. 



young man at the outset of his medical career, was the 

 exclamation of the president before whom he argued some 

 forgotten thesis against a forgotten doctor. The president, 

 struck by Cardan's acuteness, asked who the youth was, 

 and being told, exclaimed, " Study, O youth, you will 

 excel Curtius 1 ." 



At the close of the year made memorable by his father's 

 death, Jerome Cardan obtained from his university the 

 honour of being appointed Rector of the Gymnasium 2 . 

 He very truly says, that the seeking of that office by him 

 was a most desperately foolish deed 3 . The office was, in 

 fact, the lordship of the university, a post so costly to the 

 holder, that in those days of wars and taxes, and of social 

 disorganisation in North Italy, nobody could be found 

 willing to hold it. It was in abeyance at the time when 

 Jerome Cardan, a clever, penniless, disreputable young 

 scholar of twenty-four, maddened by difficulties, and by 

 a belief that he was impotent for life (his sorest care), 

 plunged desperately into its responsibilities, willing to 

 drown one care in another. 



The University of Padua, founded in the thirteenth 



1 De Libris Propriis : " Stude, o juvenis, Curtium superabis." 

 Stupebant omnes, adds Cardan. 



2 De Libr. Propr. (ed. 1547) p. 11. Lib. Ult. Op. Tom. i. p. 97. 



3 " Stulte vero id egi, quod Rector Gymnasii Patavini effectus sum, 

 turn cum inops essem, et in patria bella maxima vigerent et tributa 

 intollerabilia. . . . Deus! quid te ad hoc compulit? Ira certe et 

 insania . . ." De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. p. 430. 



