244 JEROME CARDAN 



trust ; if the issue of his body should fail, then the suc- 

 cession should pass in perpetuity to his kinsfolk on the 

 father's side. He desired that his works should be 

 corrected and printed, and that, if heirs failed entirely, 

 his house at Bologna should pass to the University, and 

 be styled, after his family, Collegium Cardanorum. 



There is no authentic record of the exact date of 

 Cardan's death. De Thou, in writing the record of 

 1576, says that if Cardan's life had been prolonged by 

 three days he would have completed his seventy-fifth 

 year. As Cardan's birthday was September 24, 1501, 

 this would fix his death on September 21, 1576. The 

 exact figures given by De Thou are: "eodem, quo 

 praedixerat, anno et die, videlicet XI. Kalend. VIII.," 

 and he adds by way of information that a belief was 

 current at the time that Cardan, who had foretold how 

 he would die on this day and in this year, had abstained 

 from food for some days previous to his death in order 

 to make the fatal day square with the prophecy. 



But the details which Cardan himself has set down 

 concerning the last few weeks of his life are inconsistent 

 with the facts chronicled by De Thou. In the De Vita 

 /V0/770, chapter xxxvi., Cardan records how on October I, 

 1576, he set to work to make his last will and testament, 

 wherefore if credit is to be given to his version rather 

 than to that of De Thou, he was alive and active some 

 days after the date of his death as fixed by the chronicler. 

 In cases where the record of an event of his early life 

 given in the De Vita Propria differs from an account of 

 the same in some contemporary writing, the testimony 

 of the De Vita Propria may justly be put aside ; but 

 in this instance he was writing of something which could 

 only have happened a few days past, and the balance 

 of probability is that he was right and De Thou wrong. 



