JEROME CARDAN 81 



and the cubus equal to the numerus, and that Messer 

 Niccolo had discovered a general rule for such case. 

 Messer Hieronimo now especially desired to be taught 

 this rule. If the inventor should be willing to let this 

 rule be published, it should be published as his own dis- 

 covery ; but, if he were not disposed to let the same be 

 made known to the world, it should be kept a pro- 

 found secret. To this request Tartaglia replied that, if 

 at any time he might publish his rule, he would give it 

 to the world in a work of his own under his own name, 

 whereupon Juan Antonio moderated his demand, and 

 begged to be furnished merely with a copy of the thirty 

 questions preferred by Fiore, and Tartaglia's solutions 

 of the same ; but Messer Niccolo was too wary a bird 

 to be taken with such a lure as this. To grant so 

 much, he replied, would be to tell everything, inasmuch 

 as Cardan could easily find out the rule, if he should 

 be furnished with a single question and its solution, 

 Next Juan Antonio handed to Tartaglia eight alge- 

 braical questions which had been confided to him by 

 Cardan, and asked for answers to them ; but Tartaglia, 

 having glanced at them, declared that they were not 

 framed by Cardan at all, but by Giovanni Colla. Colla, 

 he declared, had sent him one of these questions for 

 solution some two years ago. Another, he (Tartaglia) 

 had given to Colla, together with a solution thereof. 

 Juan Antonio replied by way of contradiction some- 

 what lamely that the questions had been handed over 

 to him by Cardan and no one else, wishing to maintain, 

 apparently, that no one else could possibly have been 

 concerned in them, whereupon Tartaglia replied that, 

 supposing the questions had been given by Cardan to 

 Juan Antonio his messenger, Cardan must have got the 

 questions from Colla, and have sent them on to him 



