JEROME CARDAN 163 



of rigorous sobriety, and he seems moreover to have 

 atoned for his early irregularities by the practice of that 

 austere piety which Jerome notices more than once as a 

 characteristic of his old age. 1 The discipline was hard, 

 and the life unlovely, but the home was at least decent 

 and orderly, and no opportunities or provocations to 

 loose manners or ill doing existed therein. In Cardan's 

 own case it is to be feared that, after Lucia's death, the 

 affairs of his household fell into dire confusion, in spite 

 of the presence of his mother-in-law, Thadea, who had 

 come to him as housekeeper her husband, Altobello, 

 having died soon after the marriage of his daughter with 

 Cardan. He was an ardent lover of music, and, as a 

 consequence, his house would be constantly filled with 

 singing men and boys, a tribe of somewhat sinister 

 reputation. 2 Then, when he was not engaged with 

 music, he would be gambling in some fashion or other. 



1 " In ore illud semper ei erat : Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum, 

 qui ipse est fons omnium virtutum." De Vita Propria, ch. iii. p. 7. 

 Reginald Scot, in the Discoverie of Witchcraft, says that the 

 aforesaid exclamation of Fazio was the Paracelsian charm to drive 

 away spirits that haunt any house. There is a passage in De 

 Consolatione (Opera, torn. i. p. 600) which gives Fazio's view of 

 happiness after death : " Memineram patrem meum, Facium 

 Cardanum, cum viveret, in ore semper habuisse, se mortem optare, 

 quod nullum suavius tempus experiretur, qua id in quo profundissime 

 dormiens omnium quae in hac vita fiunt expers esset." 



2 Cardan gives his impressions of musicians : " Unde nostra 

 aetate neminem ferme musicum invenias, qui non omni redundat 

 vitiorum genere. Itaque hujusmodi musica maximo impedimento 

 non solum pauperi et negotioso viro est, sed etiam omnibus general- 

 iter. Quin etiam virorum egregiorum nostrae aetatis neminem 

 musicum agnovimus, Erasmum, Alciatum, Budaeum, Jasonem, 

 Vesalium, Gesnerum. At vero quod domum everterit meam, 

 si dicam, vera fatebor meo more. Nam et pecuniae non levem 

 jacturam feci, et quod majus est, filiorum mores corrupi. Sunt 

 enim plerique ebrii, gulosi, procaces, inconstantes, impatientes, 

 stolidi, inertes, omnisque libidinis genere coinquinati. Optimi 

 quique inter illos stulti sunt." De Utilitate, p. 362. 



