JEROME CARDAN 179 



his father and sister sick through eating the cake, he 

 suspected foul play and rushed at Gian Battista and at 

 Aldo who was also there, and threatened them with his 

 sword ; but before he could harm them he fell down in 

 a fit, his hand having been arrested by Providence. Pro- 

 vidence had thus shown pity to this wretched youth, and 

 now Cardan besought the Senate to be equally merciful. 



Cardan's pleas were all rejected; indeed such issue 

 was inevitable from the first, if the Senate of Milan were 

 not determined to abdicate the primary functions of a 

 judicial tribunal. Gian Battista was condemned to 

 death, but a strange condition was annexed to the 

 sentence, to wit that his life would be spared, if the 

 prosecutors, the Seroni family, could be induced to 

 consent. But their consent was only to be gained by the 

 payment of a sum of money entirely beyond Cardan's 

 means, their demand having been stimulated through 

 some foolish boasting of the family wealth by the 

 condemned prisoner. 1 Cardan was powerless to arrest 

 the course of the law, and Gian Battista was executed 

 in prison on the night of April 7, 1560. 



In the whole world of biographic record it would be 

 hard to find a figure more pathetic than that of Cardan 

 fighting for the life of his unworthy son. No other 

 episode of his career wins from the reader sympathy 

 half so deep. The experience of these terrible days 

 certainly shook still further off its balance a mind not 

 over steady in its calmest moments. Cardan wrote 



1 Gian Battista seems to have boasted about the family wealth, 

 and thus stirred up the Seroni to demand an excessive and 

 impossible sum. " Haec et alia hujusmodi cum protulissem, non 

 valere, nisi eousque, ut decretum sit, si impetrare pacem potuis- 

 sem vitae parceretur. Sed non potuit filii stultitia, qui dum 

 jactat opes quas non sunt, illi quod non erat exigunt." De Vita 

 Propria, ch. x. p. 34. 



