216 JEROME CARDAN. 



French, under Gaston de Foix, sacked Brescia 1 , the 

 poor widow, with Nicolo and her little daughter, fled for 

 refuge, following a crowd of helpless men, women, and 

 children into the cathedral. There, however, they were 

 not entirely safe; and Nicolo, a boy of twelve, received 

 five sword wounds upon the head that were almost 

 mortal three upon the skull and two upon the face. 

 The stroke upon the face cleft both lips, struck through 

 his upper jaw into the palate, and broke many of his teeth. 

 Having those wounds he could not speak, or take any but 

 liquid food. His mother took him home, and, being much 

 too poor to pay a surgeon or to buy ointments, treated 

 him herself upon a system which she borrowed from the 

 dogs. Knowing that the whole system of canine surgery 

 consisted in incessant licking of all wounds, she supposed 

 that she might heal her son by frequent washing and most 

 scrupulous regard to cleanliness. Under such care from 

 his mother's hands, Nicolo's wounds did really heal in a 

 few months, leaving scars, he tells us, that would after- 

 wards have made a monster of him, if they had not been 

 covered by his beard. The boy, when recovered, was for 

 a long time so hardly able to pronounce his words, that 

 he was called by his young companions " Tartaglia," stut- 

 terer; and as his father had not transmitted to him any 



i The sack, it may be remembered, lasted seven days, during which 

 the French boasted of having slaughtered indiscriminately forty-six 

 thousand inhabitants. 



