7 8 JEROME CARDAN 



of the rumours of the Brescian's extraordinary skill, 

 became more anxious than ever to become a sharer in 

 the wonderful secret by means of which he had won 

 his victory. 



Cardan was still engaged in working up his lecture 

 notes on Arithmetic into the Treatise when this contest 

 took place ; but it was not till four years later, in 1539, 

 that he took any steps towards the prosecution of his 

 design. If he knew anything of Tartaglia's character, 

 and it is reasonable to suppose that he did, he would 

 naturally hesitate to make any personal appeal to him, 

 and trust to chance to give him an opportunity of 

 gaining possession of the knowledge aforesaid, rather 

 than seek it at the fountain-head. Tartaglia was of 

 very humble birth, and according to report almost 

 entirely self-educated. Through a physical injury which 

 he met with in childhood his speech was affected ; and, 

 according to the common Italian usage, a nickname 1 

 which pointed to this infirmity was given to him. The 

 blow on the head, dealt to him by some French soldier 

 at the sack of Brescia in 1512, may have made him a 

 stutterer, but it assuredly did not muddle his wits ; never- 

 theless, as the result of this knock, or for some other 

 cause, he grew up into a churlish, uncouth, and ill- 

 mannered man, and, if the report given of him by 

 Papadopoli 2 at the end of his history be worthy of 

 credit, one not to be entirely trusted as an autobiogra- 

 pher in the account he himself gives of his early days in 

 the preface to one of his works. Papadopoli's notice of 

 him states that he was in no sense the self-taught 

 scholar he represented himself to be, but that he was 

 indebted for some portion at least of his training to the 



1 Tartaglia, i. e. the stutterer. 



2 Papadopoli, Hist. Gymn. Pata. (Yen. 1724). 



