DEATH OF SFONDKATO. 71 



district. The King of France was pressing with war; 

 Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey were convulsed; and while 

 all men were awaiting ruin, he abandoned his professorship, 

 thinking it better so to do, and safer. It proved ,to be well 

 that he did so, for Pavia was in the midst of perils; there 

 were no salaries paid in the year after he left, and moreover, 

 there died out of the senate two presidents one of them 

 the Cardinal Sfondrato who had been friendly to Cardan, 

 and who had been accustomed to watch over his interests. 

 Of the Cardinal Sfondrato, to whose friendship Jerome 

 had been much indebted for the recognition that he ob- 

 tained from the Milanese physicians, and who had assisted 

 in securing for him the professorship at Pavia, Jerome has 

 left a sketch in an essay on his horoscope 1 . The substance 

 of it is here stated. He had begun life as a private man, 

 had been professor of civil law in Pavia at the age of 

 thirty, and after a few years had been called- to the senate 

 by Francisco Sforza, Duke of Milan. He had married, 

 and become the father of two eight-month boys, whose 

 lives were preserved with difficulty. It was by care 

 of one of them that Cardan earned his friendship. They 

 did, after all, together with four girls, survive their 

 father. (One of the boys became a pope.) When 



urgente commotaest Italia, Elvetii, Turcae. Omnibus ergo ad interitum 

 spectantibus deserui legend! munus, melius esse ratus, quod etiam 

 tutius esset." The other considerations connected with the same sub- 

 ject form the continuation of the passage. 

 1 Geniturarum Exemplar, p. 50. 



