JEROME CARDAN 3 



heart ; but in compensation for these defects he had 

 eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not 

 spectacles even in advanced age. 



Of Jerome's mother little is known, Her family 

 seems to have been as tenacious of life as that of Fazio, 

 for her father Jacopo lived to be seventy-five years of 

 age. Of his maternal grandfather Jerome remarks that 

 he was a highly skilled mathematician, and that when 

 he was about seventy years of age, he was cast into 

 prison for some offence against the law. He speaks of 

 his mother as choleric in temper, well dowered with 

 memory and mental parts, small in stature and fat, and 

 of a pious disposition, 1 and declares that she and his 

 father were alike in one respect, to wit that they were 

 easily moved to anger and were wont to manifest but 

 lukewarm and intermittent affection for their child. 

 Nevertheless they were in a way indulgent to him. His 

 father permitted him to remain in bed till the second 

 hour of the day had struck, or rather forbade him to 

 rise before this time an indulgence which worked well 

 for the preservation of his health. He adds that in 

 after times he always thought of his father as possessing 

 the kindlier nature of the two. 2 



It would seem from the passage above written, as well 

 as from certain others subsequent, that Jerome had little 

 affection for his mother; and albeit he neither chides 

 nor reproaches her, he never refers to her in terms 

 so appreciative and loving as those which he uses in 

 lamenting the death of his harsh and tyrannical father. 



1 Cardan makes a statement in De Consolatione, Opera, torn. i. 

 p. 605, which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. 

 "Matrem meam Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum 

 puer essem, meminique hanc dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo 

 placuisset, extincta forem in infantia." 



2 De Vita Propria, ch. i. p. 4. 



