218 JEROME CARDAN. 



Tartaglia carried his own tale no further ; others, how- 

 ever, who were his neighbours, hare done that, for him; 

 and, if their report be true, he was not so entirely self-in- 

 structed as he claimed to be. In any case, there can be 

 no doubt that he may still fairly enough be said to have 

 become wholly by his own exertions a distinguished 

 mathematician, as it is also certain that he grew to be like 

 many other self-taught men, rugged and vain. It is said 

 of him, that, in the year 1499, by the earnest entreaties of 

 his mother, who could not support him,, he was taken to 

 study at Padua by Lodovico Balbisonio a noble youth 

 of his own town. That he returned to Brescia with his 

 patron, and there showed himself to be so avaricious, so 

 morose, and rude, that he was hated by his fellow-citizens. 

 That being obliged to quit them and to live elsewhere, he 

 travelled and made money ; thriving especially at Venice. 

 That, he returned to Brescia to teach. Euclid, but that 

 again his fellow-townsmen would not tolerate him, and 

 that thereupon he again went to Venice, prospered, and 

 died old- He did not acquire any command over Latin ; 

 and when he wrote, it was in his own bad Venetian dia- 

 lect. He must, however, have known how to read, 

 although he did not trust himself to write the learned lan- 



which follow, for which lam indebted to Papadopoli, Gymn. Patav, 

 vol. ii. pp. 210, 211. Papadopoli whose little biographic sketches of 

 men who hare been, connected with his university, are by no means 

 always accurate cites Rubeus, one of Tartaglia's contemporaries, a 

 writer very well acquainted with Venetian affairs and people. 



