150 JEROME CARDAN. 



His second publication did not, however, follow very 

 rapidly upon his first abortive effort for success. There 

 were other enterprises to engage his mind, and author- 

 ship did not appear to be a happy way of courting 

 fortune. Towards the end of the year 1536 at about 

 the same time when Ferrari came to him he was invited 

 to teach medicine publicly at Pa via, but declined the 

 offer, because he did not clearly see from what source he 

 was to derive a stipend 1 . Soon afterwards, still in the 

 same year, letters from his friend Archinto (to whom, of 

 course, he had dedicated his first book) summoned him to 

 Placentia, where it was hoped that he might find oppor- 

 tunity of pushing his fortunes by acquiring for himself 

 the active good-will of Pope Paul III. 3 Archinto, how- 

 ever, had prepared the way for him in vain. An ungainly 

 and plain-spoken philosopher was not the man to make 

 way at a papal court. 



It is worthy of remark, that those who would have re- 

 coiled most certainly from a mere clumsy cynic, men who 

 had not unlearnt the generosities of youth, who had come 

 newly with fresh hearts and stirring minds into the 

 market of the world, men like Archinto, were almost the 

 only people who held out to the unrecognised philosopher 

 their helping hands. Such a friend Jerome found at 



1 De Vita Propria, p. 19. 2 De Sapientia, &c. p. 425. 



