i8o JEROME CARDAN 



voluminously and laboriously over Gian Battista's fate, 

 but in his dirges and lamentations he never lets fall an 

 expression of detestation or regret with regard to the 

 crime itself: all his soul goes out in celebrating the 

 charm and worth of his son, and in moaning over the 

 ruin of mind, body, and estate which had fallen upon 

 him through this cruel stroke of adverse fate. When 

 he sat down to write the De Vita Propria, Cardan was 

 strongly possessed with the belief that all through his 

 career he had been subject to continuous and extra- 

 ordinary persecution at the hands of his enemies. The 

 entire thirtieth chapter is devoted to the description of 

 these plots and assaults. In his earlier writings he 

 attributes his calamities to evil fate and the influences 

 of the stars ; his wit was indeed great, and assuredly it 

 was allied to madness, so it is not impossible that these 

 personal foes who dogged his steps were largely the 

 creatures of an old man's monomaniacal fancies. The 

 persecution, he affirms, began to be so bitter as to be 

 almost intolerable after the condemnation of Gian 

 Battista. "Certain members of the Senate afterwards 

 admitted (though I am sure they would be loth that 

 men should hold them capable of such a wish) that they 

 condemned my son to death in the hope that I might 

 be killed likewise, or at least might lose my wits, and 

 the powers above can bear witness how nearly one of 

 these ills befell me. I would that you should know 

 what these times were like, and what practices were in 

 fashion. I am well assured that I never wrought offence 

 to any of these men, even by my shadow. I took advice 

 how I might put forward a defence of some kind on my 

 son's behalf, but what arguments would have prevailed 

 with minds so exasperated against me as were theirs ? '"' 1 

 1 De Vita Propria^ ch. x. p. 33. 



