JEROME CARDAN 123 



journey down the Loire, I arrived at Paris. While I 

 was there I met Orontius ; but he for some reason or 

 other refused to visit me. Under the escort of Magni- 

 enus l I inspected the treasury of the French Kings, and 

 the Church of Saint Denis. I saw likewise something 

 there, not so famous, but more interesting to my mind, 

 and this was the horn of a unicorn, whole and uninjured. 

 After this we met the King's physicians, and we all 

 dined together, but I declined to hold forth to them 

 during dinner, because before we sat down they were 

 urgent that I should begin a discussion. I next set 

 forth on my journey, my relations with Pharnelius and 

 Silvius, and another of the King's physicians, 2 whom I 

 left behind, being of a most friendly nature, and 

 travelled to Boulogne in France, where, by the command 

 of the Governor of Sarepont, an escort of fourteen armed 

 horsemen and twenty foot-soldiers was assigned to me, 

 and so to Calais. I saw the tower of Caesar still stand- 

 ing. Then having crossed the narrow sea I went to 

 London, and at last met the Archbishop at Edinburgh 



1 He mentions this personage in De Varietate, p. 672: "Johannes 

 Manienus medicus, vir egregius et mathematicaram studiosus." He 

 was physician to the monks of Saint Denis. 



2 The reception given to Cardan in Paris was a very friendly one. 

 Orontius was a mechanician and mathematician ; and jealousy of 

 Cardan's great repute may have kept him away from the dinner, 

 but the physicians were most hospitable. Pharnelius [Fernel] was 

 Professor of Medicine at the University, and physician to the Court. 

 Sylvius was an old man of a jocular nature, but as an anatomist bitterly 

 opposed to the novel methods of Vesalius, who was one of Cardan's 

 heroes. With this possibility of quarrelling over the merits of 

 Vesalius, it speaks well for the temper of the doctors that they 

 parted on good terms. Ranconet, another Parisian who welcomed 

 Cardan heartily, was one of the Presidents of the Parliament of 

 Paris. He seems to have been a man of worth and distinguished 

 attainments, and Cardan gives an interesting account of him in 

 Geniturarum Exempla^ p. 423. 



