1 68 JEROME CARDAN 



that his master had been married that same morning, 1 

 but that he knew not the name of the bride. Cardan 

 now ascertained that Gian Battista's disinclination for 

 matrimony had arisen from the fact that he had been 

 amusing himself with a girl who was nothing else than 

 an attractive and finely-dressed harlot, named Brandonia 

 Seroni, the last woman in all Milan whom he could with 

 decency receive into his house. And the pitiful story 

 was not yet complete. In marrying her the foolish youth 

 had burdened himself with her mother, two or more 

 sisters, and three brothers, the last-named being rough 

 fellows without any calling but that of common soldiers. 

 The character of the girl herself may be judged by the 

 answer given by her father Evangelista Seroni to Cardan 

 during the subsequent trial. When Seroni was asked 

 whether he had given his daughter as a virgin in marriage, 

 he answered frankly in the negative. 



Cardan at once made up his mind to shut his door 

 upon the newly-married pair; but the unconquerable 

 tenderness he felt for Gian Battista urged him on to 

 send to the young man all the ready money he had 

 saved. After two years of married life, two children, a 

 boy and a girl, were born : husband and wife alike were 

 in ill health, and every day brought its domestic quarrel. 

 In the meantime sinister whispers were heard, set going 

 in the first instance by the mother and sister of Bran- 

 donia, that Gian Battista was the father neither of the 

 first nor of the second child. They even went so far as 

 to designate the men to whom they rightly belonged, 



1 This incident is taken from the De Utilitate, which was written 

 soon after the events chronicled. The account given in the De 

 Vita Propria, written twenty years later, differs in some details. 

 " Venio domum, accurrit famulus admodum tristis, nunciat Johannem 

 Baptistam duxisse uxorem Brandoniam Seronam." De Vita 

 Propria, ch. xli. p. 147. 



