LODOVICO FERRARI. 149 



his words, a great mathematician. He was a native of 

 Brescia, and his name was Zuanne da Coi 1 . He brought 

 word to Milan that there had been discovered two new 

 algebraic rules, for the solution of problems of a certain 

 kind that concerned cubes and numbers. " I asked," 

 said Cardan, "by whom?" " By Scipio Ferreus of 

 Bologna," he replied. " Who is possessed of them?" He 

 said, "Nicolo Tartaglia and Antonio Maria Fior; but 

 Tartaglia, when he came to Milan, taught them to me, 

 though unwillingly enough." Then Jerome continues, 

 " When I had thoroughly looked into those matters with 

 Lodovico Ferrari, we not only .made out the two new 

 demonstrations, but discovered in addition a great num- 

 ber of others, so that I founded upon them a book on the 

 Great Art." Of his skill in algebra Cardan was justly 

 proud ; it was the department of knowledge in which he 

 displayed perhaps the most remarkable evidences of his 

 intellectual power. One of his processes, upon which we 

 shall hereafter dwell, is still known by his name in mathe- 

 matics. The researches prompted by Zuanne da Coi had 

 some influence, perhaps, upon the character of Jerome's 

 second venture into print, which was a step towards that 

 book of the great art about which much will hereafter be 

 said. 



i De Libris Propriis (ed. 1557), p. 36. De Libr. Prop. Lib. ult. 

 Opera, Tom. i. p. 103. 



