14 JEROME CARDAN 



spake a word to me concerning this matter, bearing 

 himself always towards me in considerate, kindly, and 

 pious wise. 



" For the residue of his days (and he lived on well-nigh 

 four more years) his life was a sad one, as if he would 

 fain let it be known to the world how much he loved 

 me. 1 Moreover, when by the working of fate I returned 

 home while he lay sick, he besought, he commanded, 

 nay he even forced me, all unwilling, to depart thence, 

 what though he knew his last hour was nigh, for the 

 reason that the plague was in the city, and he was fain 

 that I should put myself beyond danger from the same. 

 Even now my tears rise when I think of his goodwill to- 

 wards me. But, my father, I will do all the justice I can 

 to thy merit and to thy paternal care ; and, as long as 

 these pages may be read, so long shall thy name and thy 

 virtues be celebrated. He was a man not to be cor- 

 rupted by any offering whatsoever, and indeed a saint. 

 But I myself was left after his death involved in many 

 lawsuits, having nothing clearly secured except one small 

 house." 2 



Fazio contracted a close intimacy with a certain 

 Galeazzo Rosso, a man clever as a smith, and endowed 

 with mechanical tastes which no doubt helped to secure 

 him Fazio's friendship. Galeazzo discovered the prin- 

 ciple of the water-screw of Archimedes before the descrip- 

 tion of the same, written in the books of the inventor, 

 had been published. He also made swords which could 

 be bent as if they were of lead, and sharp enough to cut 

 iron like wood. He performed a more wonderful feat 



1 "Inde (desiderium augente absentii) mortuus est, saeviente 

 peste, cum primum me diligere coepisset." De Consolatione, Opera, 

 torn. i. p. 619. 



2 De Utilitate, p. 348. 



