62 JEROME CARDAN 



of other men's learning. 1 He published also about this 

 period the treatise on Judicial Astrology, and the Essay 

 De Consolatione^ the only one of his books which has 

 been found worthy of an English translation. 2 In 

 1541 he became Rector of the College of Physicians, 

 but there is no record of any increase in the number 

 of his patients by reason of this superadded dignity. 

 A passage in the De Vita Propria^ written with even 

 more than his usual brutal candour, gives a graphic 

 view of his manner of life at this period. " It was in 

 the summer of the year 1543, a time when it was 

 my custom to go every day to the house of Antonio 

 Vicomercato, a gentleman of the city, and to play chess 

 with him from morning till night. As we were wont to 

 play for one real, or even three or four, on each game, I, 

 seeing that I was generally the winner, would as a rule 

 carry away with me a gold piece after each day's play, 

 sometimes more and sometimes Jess. In the case of 

 Vicomercato it was a pleasure and nothing else to spend 

 money in this wise ; but in my own there was an element 

 of conflict as well ; and in this manner I lost my self- 

 respect so completely that, for two years and more, I 

 took no thought of practising my art, nor considered 

 that I was wasting all my substance save what I made 

 by play that my good name and my studies as well 

 would suffer shipwreck. But on a certain day towards 

 the end of August, a new humour seized Vicomercato 

 (either advisedly on account of the constant loss he 

 suffered, or perhaps because he thought his decision would 

 be for my benefit), a determination from which he was 



1 Exotericarum exercitationum, p. 987. 



2 Cardanus Comforte, translated into Englishe^ 1573. It was the 

 work of Thomas Bedingfield, a gentleman pensioner of Queen 

 Elizabeth. 



