76 JEROME CARDAN. 



one De Re Venerea, the other upon Spittle 1 . The three 

 hundred sheets upon the Method of Healing, Cardan 

 proposed to arrange in four books, putting into the fourth 

 the remedies for the compound diseases. Of the early 

 works of Cardan, and of the teachings found in them, it 

 will be my duty to speak more at large in the succeeding 

 chapter. 



Two persons Jerome names especially as having been his 

 friends while he lived at Sacco. One of these, Paolo Illirico, 

 was a druggist, with whom he came very naturally into con- 

 tact. His other friend was Gian Maria Mauroceno, a Vene- 

 tian noble 2 . This may or may not be the same senator who 

 was concerned in the disreputable quarrel next to be re- 

 lated, but the hero of it was more probably a nobleman 

 named Thomas Lezun, who is elsewhere mentioned 3 . 

 I shall best illustrate the bold way in which the philoso- 

 pher speaks evil of himself, by putting down the worst 

 part of this tale in his own words. They, however, who 

 are familiar with the personal records that have been left 

 to us by men of the world who lived and acted in the 

 spirit of the sixteenth century, will know that the rude 

 passion of Cardan was very little out of harmony with the 

 coarse temper of the times 4 . 



' De Sapientia, &c. p. 422. De Libris Propriis (ed. 1557), p. 13, 

 where he says of the two spoilt treatises, " ambo hi libri corrupt! sunt 

 urin. felis." The same fact he records again elsewhere. 



3 De Propr. Vita Liber, cap. xv. 3 Liber de Ludo Alese. 



4 1 may suggest a recollection of the Memoirs of Cellini. 



