CARDAN'S BREACH OP FAITH. 269 



other fruit of his great genius than the formula which 

 Cardan has referred to him, and in connexion with which 

 his name therefore has remained to us. He wrote no 

 books, and engaged himself during his unhappy life in 

 little other literary labour than the collecting of the dicta 

 left by former authors. He had indeed written some 

 comments upon Caesar and Vitruvius, and of those his 

 sister's husband took possession, with all other property. 

 He laid them by, as he himself told Cardan, until his son 

 by a first wife was old enough to receive credit for having 

 written them, as he intended them to have then pub- 

 lished in his name. In every way the enemy resolved to 

 fatten on Ferrari's substance. That is the story of 

 Ferrari; a story of great powers wasted for the want of 

 guiding energy and principle. He was born on the 2nd 

 of February, 1522, and he died on the 5th of October, m 

 the year 1560. 



Cardan, in publishing Ferrari's discovery, attributed it 

 duly to its author - y and in that respect he was not less 

 just to Tartalea, though the secret of the latter was made 

 public by a breach of faith which, says Nonius (Nunez), 

 a contemporary Spanish mathematician, made Tartalea 

 so wild, that he was like one who had gone out of his 

 mind. Jerome's breach of faith I shall not justify. It 

 will shortly be seen that there was no palliating circum- 

 stance possible in such a case which he was not able to 

 urge to himself fairly; the promise he made was ridicu- 



