214 JEROME CARDAN. 



doing that and remain in the world's eye the great man 

 that he had been. 



But he did not go to the prison. He did not visit the 

 offender 1 . His heart reproached him with the memory 

 of his own wrong training of his children, the gamblers 

 and the singing people by whose presence he had suffered 

 them to be defiled. In the midst of such grief Gianbatista 

 lay so callous in his cell that he could mock the old man's 

 heart by sending a special message with a request that he 

 would be bail for him in ten thousand gold crowns, in 

 order that he might go out of his prison for two hours to 

 see a show. There was to be a sham fight under the 

 castle, and he had a great desire to see it. His father, 

 therefore, who was not worth two thousand gold crowns, 

 was to be bail for him in ten, that he might not miss the 

 spectacle 2 . He was a simpleton, said Jerome, always 

 well-disposed, and learned, but his simplicity of character 

 had been his ruin. 



At his first examination Gianbatista kept his counsel, 

 and Cardan was not without hope that he had escaped 

 actual bloodguiltiness. Vincenzio Dinaldo, who had 

 attended his son's wife, said that she died of lipyria 3 . 



1 The chapter De Luctu. 



2 Defensio J. B. C. filii mei. 



3 Kesponsio ad Grim. D. Evang. Seron.; and, for what follows, the 

 Defence, where it is implied that the physicians all gave evidence at 

 the trial. See also the chapter De Luctu. 



