JEROME ASSAILED. 169 



life as a fighter among soldiers, and closed it as a fighter 

 among scholars. He was born seventeen years before 

 Cardan, on the banks of the same lake of Guard a within 

 which Jerome had once been nearly drowned, and from 

 which Brother Luca had drawn the delicious carp that 

 were to him not less agreeable than mathematics. The 

 birthplace was the castle of Ripa, belonging to his father, 

 Benedict, who had done good service in war to King 

 Mathias Corvinus. Two days after his birth he had felt 

 the pressure of the times; the castle was attacked by the 

 Venetians, taken and plundered, the mother, with the 

 infant just born, and the other children, saving their lives 

 by flight. At twelve years old the future scholar, Julius 

 Cassar Scaliger, became page to the Emperor Maximilian. 

 Him he served for seventeen years, proving himself a fine 

 soldier on all occasions, and particularly at the battle of 

 Ravenna, wherein he lost his father and his elder brother, 

 Titus. He was not then named Scaliger, and it is doubt- 

 ful whether he had at any time a right to take the name. 

 He claimed to be descended from the princely family of 

 La Scala to which Verona had belonged, and considered 

 that Verona was his heritage whenever he could get it. 

 On the other hand, it is declared positively that the Scala 

 family had been extinct for some generations. His father, 

 Boniface, "a- terrible man," the grandson calls him 

 indeed the whole family was terrible Boniface called 



