72 JEROME CARDAN. 



colleague being Peter Maynard, of Verona. Buonafede 

 next became the second extraordinary professor of Prac- 

 tical Medicine, in which department he became senior 

 professor in 1539 1 . He was a man of great worth, who 

 felt towards the young student disinterested friendship, for 

 Cardan had not attended any of his lectures 2 . Sacco is a 

 small town, about ten miles from Padua and twenty -five 

 from Venice. 



Battle and murder, plague, pestilence, and famine, de- 

 terred Cardan from residence at Milan. During the six 

 or seven years spent by him at Sacco, his own district 

 was devastated by a succession of those evils that charac- 

 terised in most parts of Europe the low social condition 

 of the age. W hile Jerome pursued his studies at the uni- 

 versity, the slaughter committed by the plague in his own 

 district had been merciless. In 1522 fifty thousand of 

 the Milanese died of the plague in four months. In 1524 

 there had been fierce plague, and by the fortune of war 

 Milan had twice bowed to a new master. In 1526 and 

 1527, while Cardan dwelt at Sacco, Milan suffered under 

 scarcity, that was made more distressing by the added 

 burden of intolerable taxes. In 1528 disease and pesti- 

 lence again broke out, and were less fearful in their 

 ravages only because they had already swept off a large 



1 Gyran. Pat. Riccoboni, p. 23. Tomasini, p. 314. 



2 De Vit. Propr. p. 18. The same authority covers the facts stated 

 in the succeeding paragraph. 



