THE REPLY TO SERONI. 233 



Then Jerome pleaded on his own behalf that as a 

 father he might not be bereft. How, he asked, shall I 

 be able to smile upon a grandson whose maternal grand- 

 father thirsted for my son's blood? Will he not, when 

 he becomes my heir, arm himself to avenge his father ? 

 How much discord and future trouble might be sown by 

 Gianbatista's death ? He ended the speech with a por- 

 tent which he held significant of the divine will. The 

 hand of Brandon ia's brother Flavio had been arrested 

 when he rushed forward to slay Cardan's sons. He had 

 fallen in the manner already described. Divine help had 

 been afforded when there was none human near. Then 

 let the august senate next save father and son from the 

 hands of cruel enemies. 



That is a brief outline of Cardan's speech for his son, in 

 which the argument was from time to time applied to 

 his desire that Gianbatista's sentence should be not death, 

 or the galleys, but perpetual exile. Pardon he did not 

 ask. 



In a second shorter address, or probably a document 

 handed into court, Jerome replied to the statements in 

 the formal crimination of Evangelista Seroni 1 . That 

 Seroni's daughter died through no man's crime, that the 

 proximate cause of death was the falling of the nurse over 



1 Responsio ad Criminationem D. Evang. Seroni (published in the 

 same work) for what follows. 



