96 JEROME CARDAN. 



scholar says, " I knew to have been one of the discove- 

 ries of Archimedes ; he was led thus to show me a printed 

 copy of Archimedes, as translated by Antonius Gogava 

 into Latin. Then, as I looked over the volume, I saw 

 that there were bound into it Ptolemy's Books on Astro- 

 logical Judgments. I asked whether they were to be 

 bought; he urged me to accept them, and I accepted 

 them at length, for it was a saint's day, upon which it is 

 not lawful to buy." Taking this book with him, then, to 

 shorten his journey, he wrote commentaries upon it on 

 the way to Paris, down the river Loire. These com- 

 mentaries, forming a considerable work, were committed 

 to a French printer, who gave Jerome occasion to declare 

 that, of all printers, the French were the most dilatory. 

 They were first printed, with the addition of twelve 

 illustrative horoscopes, in 1555. 



At Paris there was the heartiest reception ready for the 

 Milanese physician. The only surly man among the 

 savants seems to have been the Orontius just mentioned, 

 in whom Jerome felt interest, and whom he says that he 

 saw, but who refused to visit him 1 . M. Fine, who trans- 



i De Vita Propria. " Ubi Orontium videre contigit, sed ille ad nos 

 venire recusavit." A very brief account of his visit to the church of 

 St. Dionysius, and of his dinner with the king's physicians, follows in 

 the same place. The general narrative of these incidents given in the 

 text is amplified by reference to other mention of them in De Libris Pro- 

 priis (ed. 1557), p. 138, and especially in the Geniturarum Exemplar. 



