LUCA DI BOKGO. 213 



during his student days, was nearly drowned. It will be 

 remembered that Cardan related how, at supper, after 

 their escape, he was the only one who had a ready appe- 

 tite for the fine pike that was brought to table. Fra 

 Luca, with a clerical enjoyment of good living, took so 

 heartily to the fine carp of the lake, that he could not for- 

 bear from making honourable mention of them on his title- 

 page ; indeed, the directing attention to the carp, and the 

 antiquities of the locality, occupies more space there than 

 the actual naming of the book 1 . 



In the time of Luca di Borgo, the great art extended to 



1 The preceding details concerning Luca di Borgo are drawn from 

 Montucla, Hist, des Mathematiques. Paris (an vii.), vol. i, p, 549. The 

 first edition of the book referred to in the text being very scarce, 

 Montucla had not seen it. Copies of both the first and second editions 

 (the latter with its curious title-page deficient) are in the British 

 Museum. The first was printed at Venice in 1494, before Brother 

 Luke had made acquaintance with the carps of the Lago di Guardo. 

 It is entitled simply, " Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportion! 

 e Proportionalita," and has the contents printed on the title-page. The 

 title-page to the second edition is formed in precisely the same way, 

 with this interpolation, " Nouamente impressa in Toscolano su la 

 riua dil Benacense et unico carpionista Laco ; Amenissimo Sito: deli 

 antique ed euidenti ruine di la nobil cita Benaco ditta illustrate : Cum 

 numerosita de Imperatorij epitaphij di antique e perfette littere scul- 

 piti dotato : e cum finissimi e mirabil colone marmorei : innumeri 

 fragment! di alabastro porphidi e serpentini. Cose certo letto mio 

 diletto oculata fide miratu digne sotterra si ritrouano." The date of 

 this second edition is 1523, so that Brother Luke's enthusiasm on the 

 subject of the carp, and of the fine remains of the old city of Benacum 

 on its shores, was being excited at about the same time when Cardan 

 and his companions broke their mast upon the lake, and supped upon a 

 pike at Sermione. Of the imperial inscriptions, the fine marble columns, 



