THE PLAT ENDOWMENT. 125 



to procure even for the despised Cardan a small appoint- 

 ment. He could not obtain for him authority to prac- 

 tise medicine, but he lost no time in endeavouring to 

 make him independent of the college. Under the will 

 of a deceased citizen named Thomas Plat, a small sum 

 had been left to be applied yearly to the payment of a 

 lecturer on geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy ; the 

 lectures to be delivered upon holidays. The office of 

 lecturer under the endowment of Thomas Plat happened 

 then to be vacant ; and not many days after his return to 

 Milan, the appointment was by Archinto's influence con- 

 ferred upon the learned graduate in medicine, Jerome 

 Cardan 1 . To the same kind friend he was indebted for 

 the introduction to a few other sources of income, very 

 trifling indeed; a deduction had been made from his 

 small salary of seven crowns a year by the prefects of the 

 Xenodochium 2 , in whose gift the office was. His yearly 

 receipts from all sources would not exceed fifty crowns, 

 but he was a philosopher, and he and Lucia were quite 

 able to subsist on that. / 



Not unwilling at the same time to earn, if possible, a 

 better income, the new lecturer endeavoured to increase 

 the fees paid for attendance on his courses, by rendering 



1 De Libris Propriis (1557), p. 23. De Libris Propriis. Lib. ult. 

 Opera, Tom. i. p. 100. 



Ibid. De Ut. ex Adr. Cap. p. 546. 



