1 88 JEROME CARDAN 



grief and remorse which oppressed him in this, or any 

 other literary work. He was ill looked upon at Milan, 

 but his position at Pavia seems to have been still more 

 irksome. He grew nervous as to his standing as a phy- 

 sician, for, with the powerful prejudice which had been 

 raised against him both as to his public and his private 

 affairs, he felt that a single slip in his treatment of any 

 particular case would be fatal to him. In Milan he did 

 meet with a certain amount of gratitude from the 

 wealthier citizens for the services he had wrought them ; 

 but in Pavia, his birthplace, the public mind was strongly 

 set against him; indeed in 1562 he was subjected to so 

 much petty persecution at the hands of the authorities 

 and of his colleagues, that he determined to give up his 

 Professorship at all cost. He describes at great length 

 one of the most notable intrigues against him. " Now 

 in dealing with the deadly snares woven against my life, 

 I will tell you of something strange which befell me. 

 During my Professorship at Pavia I was in the habit of 

 reading in my own house. I had in my household at 

 that time a woman to do occasional work, the youth 

 Ercole Visconti, two boys, and another servant. Of the 

 two boys, one was my amanuensis and well skilled in 

 music, and the other was a lackey. It was in 1562 that 

 I made up my mind to resign my office of teaching and 

 quit Pavia, a resolution which the Senate took in ill part, 

 and dealt with me as with a man transported with rage. 

 But there were two doctors of the city who strove with 

 all their might to drive me away : one a crafty fellow who 

 had formerly been a pupil of mine ; the other was the 

 teacher extraordinary in Medicine, a simple-minded man, 

 and, as I take it, not evil by nature ; but covetous and 

 ambitious men will stop at nothing, especially when the 

 prize to be won is an office held in high esteem. Thus, 



