JEROME CARDAN 203 



in the Via Gombru. Aldo was nominally a member of 

 his household ; but his presence must have been a 

 plague rather than a comfort to his father, and he took 

 with him likewise his orphan grandson, the son of Gian 

 Battista and Brandonia, whom he destined to make his 

 heir on account of Aide's ill conduct. 1 This young 

 man seems to have been a hopeless scoundrel from the 

 first. The ratio in which fathers apportion their affec- 

 tion amongst their offspring is a very capricious one, 

 and Cardan may have been fully as wide of the mark in 

 chiding his younger as he was in lauding the talents 

 and virtues of his elder son. But it is certain that on 

 several occasions the authorities shared Cardan's view of 

 Aide's ill behaviour. More than once he alludes to the 

 young reprobate's shameful conduct, and the intolerable 

 annoyance caused by the same. Many of the ancient 

 rights of parents over their children, which might to-day 

 be deemed excessive, were still operative in the cities 

 of Italy, and Cardan readily invoked the help of them 

 in trying to work reformation of a sort upon Aldo, 

 whom he caused to be imprisoned more than once, and 

 finally to be banished. 2 The numerous hitches which 

 delayed his final call to Bologna were probably due to 

 the fact that a certain party amongst the teachers there 

 were opposed to his appointment, and things did not 

 run too smoothly after he had taken up his residence 

 in his new home. It was not in Cardan's nature, how- 

 ever much he may have been cowed and broken down 

 by misfortune, to mix with men inimical to himself 

 without letting them have a taste of his quality. He 

 records one skirmish which he had with Fracantiano, 



1 " Sed filius minor natu adeo mal se gessit, ut malim transire 

 in nepotem ex primo filio.'' De Vita Propriety ch. xxxvi. p. 1 1 2. 



2 De Vita Propria^ ch. xxvii. p. 71. 



