JEROME CARDAN 57 



In this same year, 1536, Lucia brought forth another 

 child, a daughter, and it was about this time that Cardan 

 first attracted the attention of Alfonso d'Avalos, the 

 Governor of Milan, and an intimacy began which, albeit 

 fruitless at first, was destined to be of no slight service to 

 Jerome at the crisis of his fortunes. 1 In the following 

 year, in 1537, he made a beginning of two of his books, 

 which were subsequently found worthy of being finished, 

 and which may still be read with a certain interest : the 

 treatises De Sapientia and De Consolatione. Of the last- 

 named, he remarks that it pleased no one, forasmuch as it 

 appealed not to those who were happy, and the wretched 

 rejected it as entirely inadequate to give them solace in 

 their evil case. In this year he made another attempt to 



in De Libris Propriis (Opera, torn. i. p. 65), affirming that the other 

 doctors concerned in the case raised a great prejudice against him 

 on account of his reputation as an astrologer. " Ita tot modis et 

 insanus paupertate, et Astrologus profitendo edendoque libros, et 

 imperitus casu illustris pueri, et modum alium medendi observans 

 ex titulo libri nuper edito, jam prope ab omnibus habebar. Atque 

 haec omniainllrbe omnium nugacissima, et quas calumniis maxime 

 patet." 



1 The founder of this family was Indico d'Avalos, a Spanish 

 gentleman, who was chosen by Alfonso of Naples as a husband for 

 Antonella, the daughter and heiress of the great Marchese Pescara 

 of Aquino. This d'Avalos Marchese dal Guasto was the grandson 

 of Indico. He commanded the advanced guard at the battle of 

 Pavia, and took part in almost every battle between the French and 

 Imperialists, and went with the Emperor to Tunis in 1 535. Though 

 he was a brave soldier and a skilful tactician, he was utterly defeated 

 by d'Enghien at Cerisoles in 1 544. He has been taxed with treachery 

 in the case of the attack upon the messengers Rincon and Fregoso, 

 who were carrying letters from Francis I. to the Sultan during a 

 truce, but he did little more than imitate the tactics used by the 

 French against himself; moreover, neither of the murdered men 

 was a French subject, or had the status of an ambassador. 

 D'Avalos was a liberal patron of letters and arts, and was very 

 popular as Governor of Milan. He was a noted gallant and a 

 great dandy. Brantome writes of him "qu'il dtait si dameret 

 qu'il parfurnait jusqu'aux selles de ses chevaux." He died in 1 546. 



