CHAPTER III 



DURING his life at Padua it would appear that 

 Cardan, over and above the allowance made to him by 

 his mother, had no other source of income than the 

 gaming-table. 1 However futile and disastrous his sojourn 

 at this University may have been, he at least took away 

 with him one possession of value, to wit his doctorate of 

 medicine, on the strength of which he began to practise 

 as a country physician at Sacco. The record of his 

 life during these years gives the impression that he 

 must have been one of the most wretched of living 

 mortals. The country was vexed by every sort of 

 misfortune, by prolonged warfare, by raging pestilence, 

 by famine, and by intolerable taxation ; 2 but while 

 he paints this picture of misery and desolation in 

 one place, he goes on to declare in another that the 

 time which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever 

 knew. 3 No greater instance of inconsistency is to be 

 found in his pages. He writes : " I gambled, I occupied 

 myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving 



1 "Nee ullum mihi erat relictum auxilium nisi latrunculorum 

 Ludus." Opera, torn. i. p. 619. 



2 From the formation of the League of Cambrai in 1508 to the 

 establishment of the Imperial supremacy in Italy in 1530, the whole 

 country was desolated by the marching and counter-marching of 

 the contending forces. Milan, lying directly in the path of the 

 French armies, suffered most of all. 



3 Compare De Vila Propria, chaps, iv. and xxxi. pp. 1 3 and 92. 



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