148 JEROME CARDAN. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PHYSIC AND PHILOSOPHY. 



A MAGPIE in the court-yard chattered more than 

 usual on the last day of November, 1536. Cardan knew, 

 therefore, that something was about tq happen. He ex- 

 pected news or an arrival, and was not deceived, for on 

 the evening of that day Lodovico Ferrari was brought to 

 his house as a famulus 1 . Lodovico, then a boy of fifteen, 

 was brought by his uncle Vincent from Bologna. The ser- 

 vant, full of talent, soon became a pupil and a friend. He, 

 of all Cardan's pupils, was the one who lived to be after- 

 wards the most distinguished, inasmuch as the natural bent 

 of his mind easily caused him to share Cardan's own very 

 decided taste for mathematics, and he had power enough 

 as he grew older to think onward for himself, and earn 

 for his name though he died young a permanent place 

 in the records of that science. 



Not very long afterwards, it happened that there came 

 to Milan a tall, lean man, with a sallow skin and hollow 

 eyes, awkward in manner, slow in movement, sparing of 



1 De Vita Propria, p. 214. Vita L. Ferrarii Bononiensis, a H. Car- 

 dano Descripta. Op. Tom. ix. p. 568. 



