JEROME CARDAN 93 



is now two months since I informed you of the blunders 

 you made in the extraction of the cube root, which 

 process is one of the first to be taught to students who 

 are beginning Algebra. Wherefore, if after the lapse 

 of all this time you have not been able to find a remedy 

 to set right this your mistake (which would have been 

 an easy matter enough), just consider whether in any 

 case your powers could have been equal to the discovery 

 of the rule aforesaid." 1 



In this quarrel Messer Giovanni Colla had appeared 

 as the herald of the storm, when he carried to Milan 

 in 1536 tidings of the discovery of the new rule which 

 had put Cardan on the alert, and now, as the crisis 

 approached, he again came upon the scene, figuring as 

 unconscious and indirect cause of the final catastrophe. 

 On January 5, 1540, Cardan wrote to Tartaglia, telling 

 him that Colla had once more appeared in Milan, and 

 was boasting that he had found out certain new rules in 

 Algebra. He went on to suggest to his correspondent 

 that they should unite their forces in an attempt to 

 fathom this asserted discovery of Colla's, but to this 

 letter Tartaglia vouchsafed no reply. In his diary it 

 stands with a superadded note, in which he remarks 

 that he thinks as badly of Cardan as of Colla, and that, 

 as far as he is concerned, they may both of them go 

 whithersoever they will. 2 



Colla propounded divers questions to the Algebraists 



1 Subsequently Tartaglia wrote very bitterly against Cardan, as 

 the latter mentions in De Libris Propriis. " Nam etsi Nicolaus 

 Tartalea libris materna lingua editis nos calumniatur, impudentias 

 tamen ac stultitise suae non aliud testimonium quasras, quam ipsos 

 illius libros, in quibus nominatim splendidiorem unumquemque e 

 civibus suis proscindit : adeo ut nemo dubitet insanisse hominem 

 aliquo infortunio." Opera, torn. i. p. 80. 



2 Quesiti et Invention^ p. 1 29. 



