VICOMERCATO, OR THE GOLDEN GOOSE. 203 



swear by all the gods never to come to him again for 

 the purpose of dice-playing. Jerome took wholly to 

 study, but his golden goose was dead, and his penury was 

 sudden and extreme. He had neglected all legitimate 

 resources. We can scarcely doubt the object of the trip 

 to Florence which immediately followed, since we are told 

 that he went to join the free-handed Marquis d'Avalos. 

 D'Avalos, Marquis del Guasto, was always even more 

 ready to give than Cardan to take; he offered in the 

 course of his intercourse with the philosopher, by whom 

 he had been courted, more than Jerome thought it 

 proper to receive, but he had received from D'Avalos 

 some help, and that not inconsiderable 1 . On his way 

 home he visited his patron Sfondrato, who was then Go- 

 vernor of Sienna. Then he came back to Milan, fortune 

 frowning 2 . 



While matters were in this state with Cardan, fortune 

 was, as usual, frowning upon Italy, and the distracting 

 wars of which the traces lie about this narrative, as they 

 must leave marks on the life of almost every man who 



1 " Sua ecccllentia e di prima di Millano di dottrina, ed il Marchese 

 dal Vasto gli ha dato una gran prorisione per la sua sofficientia," said 

 Cardan's agent to Tartaglia in 1539. Quesiti et Inventione diverse, 

 p. 116. This will be discussed in the next chapter. See also De Vita 

 Propria, cap. iv. 



2 De Libris Propriis. Liber ultimus. Opera, Tom. i. p. 106. 



