AN AUSTERE POPE. 293 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE END AT ROME. 



" He cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his 

 name shall be covered with darkness." Ecclesiastes vi. 4. 



THIS mournful story of the vanity of wisdom draws 

 now to a close. Cardan's imprisonment at Bologna had 

 taken place under the pontificate of Pius V., a pope of 

 pure but austere life, who had caused the strenuous en- 

 forcement of laws against heresy and blasphemy, and who 

 combined with many noble qualities the character of a 

 most stringent persecutor. He forbad physicians to 

 attend patients who had passed three days without con- 

 fession of their sins ; he expressed disapprobation with his 

 officials in any town that did not yield yearly a large crop 

 of penal sentences. The imprisonment of Jerome at 

 Bologna was a result, I believe, of this activity, and yet 

 it was from Pius V. that Cardan received a pension, and 

 under his wing that he spent his last years safely in Rome 

 as a private person. 



