THE FORTUNES OF A YOUNG MATHEMATICIAN. 267 



scarcely twenty years old when he contested publicly 

 with Zuanne da Coi and Tartalea: Tartalca declares in 

 his own book that he, Tartalea, was left the victor: 

 Cardan states that Ferrari overcame them both, and 

 appeals confidently, in support of his assertion, to the 

 public records then extant, and the common understand- 

 ing in the town. Two years afterwards the brilliant 

 young scholar was held in so much esteem, that the 

 possession of- his services was contended for by the great 

 men around him. He was tempted by simultaneous 

 offers from the gay Brissac, from the emperor himself, 

 who desired him as a teacher for his son, and from the 

 Cardinal of Mantua. An offer of court service did not 

 lure Ferrari, who cared less for nominal honour than for 

 actual profit. The Cardinal's brother, Ferrando Gonzaga, 

 then governor at Milan, having given to the flourishing 

 youth the office of surveyor of the province, with a salary 

 of four hundred gold crowns; and the cardinal himself 

 offering largely, Lodovieo went into. the churchman's train, 

 and was so well rewarded, that in eight years he received 

 nearly four thousand gold crowns, in addition to free 

 entertainment for himself, two servants, and a horse. The , 

 cardinal's good living after a time aggravated a fistula 

 with which Ferrari became troubled, and unreasonably 

 angry with his patron because he was unable to escape the 

 consequences of his own too free indulgence in the plea- 



