SENTENCE OF DEATH. 237 



been here sketched, hoping not much from the judicial 

 court, but something from the friendly intervention of the 

 governor, the Duke of Sessa. He rose before the senate, 

 as he tells us 1 , with his heart shocked by the recollection 

 of his son's grief, aghast at the impending peril, enervated 

 by the past course of events, anxious for the future ; but 

 the speech was delivered, the struggle for the life of his 

 first-born son was maintained by Cardan to the end, and 

 in the end was unsuccessful. No man stretched out a 

 hand to rescue the philosopher from an old age of sorrow. 

 Gianbatista was condemned to death. This mercy was 

 shown, that if peace could be made with the prosecutors, 

 the life of the condemned man would be spared. 



No terms could be made. The foolish son had bragged 

 to his wife's relatives of treasures that his father certainly 

 did not possess. The Seroni family, therefore, demanded 

 as the price of their relenting, sums that it was in no way 

 possible to raise. 



The red mark, like a sword 2 , that seemed to be ascend- 

 ing Cardan's finger, on the fifty-third day after his son's 

 capture, seemed to have reached the finger tip, and shine 

 with blood and fire. Jerome was beside himself with 



1 " Ego memoria doloris filii perculsus, imminentium attonitus, 

 praeteritorum enervatus, futurorum anxius, sic tamen exorsus . . . ." 

 De Vita Propria, cap. x. The same chapter contains authority for 

 the statements that occur between this and the next reference, 



2 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxvii. 



