22 JEROME CARDAN 



the various heavenly bodies. 1 But he put his mathe- 

 matical skill to other and more sinister uses than this ; 

 for, having gained practical experience at the gaming- 

 tables, he combined this experience with his knowledge 

 of the properties of numbers, and wrote a tract on games 

 of chance. Afterwards he amplified this into his book, 

 Liber de Ludo Alecs. 



With this equipment and discipline Jerome went to 

 Pavia in 1520. He found lodging in the house of 

 Giovanni Ambrogio Targio, and until the end of his 

 twenty-first year he spent all his time between Pavia 

 and Milan. By this date he had made sufficiently good 

 use of his time to let the world see of what metal he was 

 formed, for in the year following he had advanced far 

 enough in learning to dispute in public, to teach Euclid 

 in the Gymnasium, and to take occasional classes in 

 Dialectics and Elementary Philosophy. At the end of 

 his twenty-second year the country was convulsed by 

 the wars between the Spaniards and the French under 

 Lautrec, which ended in the expulsion of the last-named 

 and the establishment of the Imperial power in Milan. 

 Another result of the war, more germane to this history, 

 was the closing of the University of Pavia through lack 

 of funds. In consequence of this calamity Jerome 

 remained some time in Milan, and during these months 

 he worked hard at mathematics ; but he was not 

 destined to return to Pavia as a student. The schools 

 there remained some long time in confusion, so in 1524 

 he went with his father's consent to Padua. In the 

 autumn of that same year he was summoned back to 

 Milan to find Fazio in the grip of his dying illness. 



1 " Erat liber exiguus, rem tamen probe absolvebat : nam tune 

 forte in manus meas inciderat, Gebri Hispani liber, cujus auxilio 

 non parum adjutus sum." Opera, torn. i. p. 56. 



