8 JEROME CARDAN. 



troops in the autumn of the year 1546, the Pope wilfully, and 

 through jealousy, checked the emperor in the full stream 

 of his success against the Protestants. It is enough to add, 

 that his son and family manager, Pier Luigi, was assassi- 

 nated, chiefly at the instigation of Ferrante Gonzaga ; and 

 that he himself being compelled into a policy that for a 

 time was hostile to the interests of his immediate family, 

 the family that he had laboured all his days to aggrandise, 

 his own blood turned against him. After an angry inter- 

 view with the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, in which he 

 had been enraged greatly at his selfishness, the old man 

 died. There were found, it was said, three drops of co- 

 agulated blood in his heart, a fatal distillation caused by 

 the sharp throbs of anger. That is a cause of death that 

 may be questioned, but of the effects of anger, it is certain 

 that the old man died a little more than three years after 

 Cardan had declined to pass into his service. 



On the whole, then, there can be little doubt that the 

 physician, in refusing the Pope's offer, decided prudently. 

 Had he gone to Rome he would have been drawn into the 

 current of political affairs, and have identified himself with 

 one of two contending parties. The Pope, with all his 

 liberality and splendour, was, indeed, no better than a 

 crumbling wall for a philosopher to lean upon. 



Jerome desired, also, to retain the position that he held 

 as a professor in the University of Pavia. It suited his 



