112 JEROME CARDAN. 



when he married the young girl 1 Lucia Bandarini, was 

 extremely poor, yet because he had made a vow upon 

 the subject, he refused to take with her the customary 

 dowry 3 . He was very poor, and there was no hope that 

 in Sacco he would ever become richer, for Sacco was but 

 a small town, and could ill support a doctor of medicine, 

 even though he were dull, bland, and formal enough to 

 impress everybody with a notion of his talent and re- 

 spectability. Jerome had friends at Sacco, but he had 

 spent all his available substance in their company, and 

 since, in spite of the ravens on his house-top and the 

 howling dog under his window, he had taken upon him- 

 self the responsibilities of marriage, it was necessary that 

 he should obtain an income upon which the expenses 

 that would certainly ensue could be supported. 



In what town should he battle for his bread, if not in 

 Milan ? There he was at home; there his relations were, 

 litigious and hostile certainly ; there his friends ought to 

 be ; there only he was not a stranger. The friendship of 

 the physician Buonafide had suggested Sacco to the 

 young Cardan, when the physicians of his own town 

 would not admit him to participation of their privileges. 

 From Sacco he had already made one descent upon the 

 ' capital, where he sought in vain, as we have seen, to 



1 " Duxi uxorem adolescentulam." De Ut. ex Adv. Capiend. p. 431. 

 3 De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. p. 431 and p. 452. 



