46 JEROME CARDAN 



acts of benevolence done to Cardan by the family of 

 Archinto. * It is not impossible that the promises and 

 persuasions of his young patron Filippo may have had 

 some weight in inducing Jerome to shift his home once 

 more. Whatever befell he could hardly make his case 

 worse ; but whether Filippo had promised help or not, 

 he showed himself now a true and valuable friend. 

 There was in Milan a public lectureship in geometry 

 and astronomy supported by a small endowment left by 

 a certain Tommaso Plat, and to this post, which hap- 

 pened opportunely to be vacant, Cardan was appointed 

 by the good offices of Filippo Archinto. Yet even when 

 he was literally a pauper he seems to have felt some 

 scruples about accepting this office, but fortunately 

 in this instance his poverty overcame his pride. The 

 salary was indeed a very small one, 1 and the lecturer 

 was not suffered to handle the whole of it, but it was at 

 least liberal enough to banish the dread of starvation, 

 and his duties, which consisted solely in the preparation 

 and delivery of his lectures, did not debar him from 

 literary work on his own account. Wherefore in his 

 leisure time he worked hard at his desk. 



Any differences which may have existed between 

 him and his mother were now removed, for he took her 

 to live with him, the household being made up of him- 

 self, his wife, his mother, a friend (a woman), a nurse, 

 the little boy, a man- and maidservant, and a mule. 2 

 Possibly Chiara brought her own income with her, and 

 thus allowed the establishment to be conducted on a 

 more liberal scale. The Plat lectureship would scarcely 



1 " Minimo tamen honorario, et illud etiam minimum suasu cujus- 

 dam amici egregii praefecti Xenodochii imminuerunt ; ita cum 

 hujus recorder in mentem venit fabellae illius Apuleii de annonae 

 Praefecto." Opera, torn. i. p. 64. 



2 De Utilitate, p. 351. 



