JEROME CARDAN 245 



Bayle notices this discrepancy, and in the same para- 

 graph taxes De Thou with a mistake of which he is 

 innocent. He states that De Thou placed the date of 

 Cardan's death in 1575, whereas the excerpt cited above 

 runs: "Thuanus ad annum MDLXXVI., p. 136, lib. 

 Ixii. torn. 4. Romae magni nominis sive Mathematicus, 

 sive Medicus Hieronymus Cardanus Mediol. natus hoc 

 anno itidem obiit." 



No mention is made of the disease to which Cardan 

 finally succumbed. Had his frame not been of the 

 strongest and most wiry, it must have gone to pieces 

 long before through the havoc wrought by the severe and 

 continuous series of ailments with which it was afflicted; 

 so it seems permissible to assume that he died of natural 

 decay. His body was interred in the church of Sant 

 Andrea at Rome, and was subsequently transferred to 

 Milan to be deposited finally under the stone which 

 covered the bones of his father in the church of San 

 Marco. This tomb, which Jerome had erected after 

 Fazio's death, bore the following inscription : 



FACIO CARDANO 



i.e. 



Mors fuit id quod vixi : vitam mors dedit ipsa, 

 Mens aeterna manet, gloria tuta quies. 



Obiit anno MDXXIV. IV. Kalend. Sept. anno ^Etatis LXXX. 

 Hieronymus Cardanus Medicus Parenti posterisque V.P. 1 



1 Tomasinus, Gymnasium Pata-vinum. 



