102 JEROME CARDAN 



have been a powerful attraction to Cardan, ever greedy 

 as he was of new knowledge, but there was another 

 reason which probably swayed him more strongly still, 

 to wit, the care of his eldest son's education and training. 

 Gian Battista Cardano was now in his fourteenth year, 

 and, according to the usages of the time, old enough to 

 make a beginning of his training in Medicine, the pro- 

 fession he was destined to follow. It is not recorded 

 whether or not he chose this calling for himself; but, 

 taking into account the deep and tender affection 

 Jerome always manifested towards his eldest son, it is 

 not likely that undue compulsion was used in the matter. 

 The youth, according to his father's description, strongly 

 favoured in person his grandfather Fazio. 1 He had 

 come into the world at a time when his parents' fortunes 

 were at their lowest ebb, during those terrible months 

 spent at Gallarate, 2 and in his adolescence he bore 

 divers physical evidences of the ill nurture it would be 

 unjust to call it neglect which he had received. At one 

 time he was indeed put in charge of a good nurse, but 

 he had to be withdrawn from her care almost immedi- 

 ately through her husband's jealousy, and he was next 

 sent to a slattern, who fed him with old milk, and not 

 enough of that ; or more often with chewed bread. 

 His body was swollen and unhealthy, he suffered 

 greatly from an attack of fever, which ultimately left 

 him deaf in one ear. He gave early evidence of a fine 



1 In describing Fazio, Jerome writes: "Erat Euclidis operum 

 studiosus, et humeris incurvis : et films meus natu major ore, oculis, 

 incessu, humeris, illi simillimus." De Vita Propriety ch. iii. p. 8. 

 In the same chapter Fazio is described as " Blaesus in loquendo ; 

 variorum studiorum amator : ruber, oculis albis et quibus noctu 

 videret." 



2 "At uxor mea imaginabatur assidue se videre calvariam 

 patris, qui erat absens dum utero gereret Jo : Baptistam." Parali- 

 potnenon, lib. iii. c. 21. 



