JEROME CARDAN 37 



a wife, and from that time divers misfortunes have 

 attended me." 1 Lucia, the wife of his choice, was the 

 eldest daughter of Altobello Bandarini, who had, 

 besides her, three daughters and four sons. Jerome, as 

 it has been already noted, was possessed with a fear lest 

 he should be burdened by his brothers- and sisters-in- 

 law after his marriage ; but, considering that he was a 

 young unknown physician, without either money or 

 patients, and that Bandarini was a man of position and 

 repute, with some wealth and more shrewdness, the 

 chances were that the burden would lie on the other 

 side. Cardan seems to have inherited Fazio's contempt 

 for wealth, or at least to have made a profession thereof; 

 for, in chronicling the event of his marriage, he sets 

 down, with a certain degree of pomposity, that he took 

 a wife without a dower on account of a certain vow he 

 had sworn. 2 If the bride was penniless the father-in-law 

 was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have 

 proved a powerful argument to induce Cardan to remain 

 at Sacco, albeit he had little scope for his calling. That 

 he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence 

 of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination 

 to sponge upon his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, 

 when this scheme was proposed to him, vetoed it at 

 once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and 

 possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, 

 for Cardan has left it on record that Bandarini was 

 greatly pleased with the match ; he ended, however, by 

 consenting to the migration, which was not made 

 without the intervention of a warning portent. A short 

 time before the young couple departed, it happened 

 that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's 

 bed-chamber ; and, in the course of the night, exploded 

 1 De Vita Propria, ch. xli. p. 149. 2 De Utilitate, p. 350. 



