8 JEROME CARDAN 



my health, I fell down-stairs (we were then living in the 

 Via dei Maini), with a hammer in my hand, and by this 

 accident I hurt the left side of my forehead, injuring the 

 bone and causing a scar which remains to this day. 

 Before I had recovered from this mishap I was sitting 

 on the threshold of the house when a stone, about as 

 long and as broad as a nut, fell down from the top of a 

 high house next door and wounded my head just where 

 my hair grew very thickly on the left side. 



" At the beginning of my tenth year my father changed 

 this house, which had proved a very unlucky one for me, 

 for another in the same street, and there I abode for 

 three whole years. But my ill luck still followed me, 

 for my father once more caused me to go about with 

 him as his famulus, and would never allow me on any 

 pretext to escape this task. I should hesitate to say 

 that he did this through cruelty; for, taking into con- 

 sideration what ensued, you may perchance be brought 

 to see that this action of his came to pass rather through 

 the will of Heaven than through any failing of his own. 

 I must add too that my mother and my aunt were fully 

 in agreement with him in his treatment of me. In after 

 times, however, he dealt with me in much milder fashion, 

 for he took to live with him two of his nephews, where- 

 fore my own labour was lessened by the amount of 

 service he exacted from these. Either I did not go out 

 at all, or if we all went out together the task was less 

 irksome. 



"When I had completed my sixteenth year up to 

 which time I served my father constantly we once more 

 changed our house, and dwelt with Alessandro Cardano 

 next door to the bakery of the Bossi. My father had 

 two other nephews, sons of a sister of his, one named 

 Evangelista, a member of the Franciscan Order, and 



