JEROME CARDAN 23 



"Whereupon he, careful of my weal rather than his 

 own, bade me return to Padua at once, being well 

 pleased to hear that I had taken at the Venetian 

 College the Baccalaureat of Arts. 1 After my return to 

 Padua, letters were brought to me which told me that he 

 had died on the ninth day after he had refused nourish- 

 ment. He died on the twenty-eighth of August, 

 having last eaten on Sunday the twentieth of the month. 

 Towards the close of my twenty-fourth year I was chosen 

 Rector of the Academy at Padua, 2 and at the end of the 

 next was made Doctor of Medicine. For the first- 

 named office I came out the victor by one vote, the 

 suffrages having to be cast a second time ; and for the 

 Doctorate of Medicine my name had already twice 

 come forth from the ballot with forty-seven votes 

 cast against me (a circumstance which forbade another 

 voting after the third), when, at the third trial, I came 

 out the winner, with only nine votes against me 

 (previously only this same number had been cast for 

 me), and with forty-eight in my favour. 



"Though I know well enough that affairs like these 

 must needs be of small account, I have set them down 

 in the order in which they came to pass for no other 



1 " Initio multi quidem paupertate aliave causa quum se nolunt 

 subjicere rigoroso examini Cl. Collegii in artibus Medicinae vel 

 in Jure, Baccalaureatus, vel Doctoratus gradum a Comitibus Pala- 

 tinis aut Lateranensibus sumebant. Postea vero, sublata hac con- 

 suetudine, Gymnasii Rector, sive substitutus, convocatis duobus 

 professoribus, bina puncta dabantur, iisque recitatis et diligentis [sic] 

 excussis, illis gradus Baccalaureatus conferebatur." Gymnasium 

 Patavinum (1654), p. 200. 



2 He constantly bewails this step as the chief folly of his life : 

 " Stulte vero id egi, quod Rector Gymnasii Patavini effectus sum, 

 turn, cum, inops essem, et in patria maxime bella vigerent, et 

 tributa intolerabilia. Matris tamen solicitudine effectum est, ut 

 pondus impensarum, quamvis aegre, sustinuerim." De Utilitate^ 

 P- 35- 



