JEROME CARDAN 173 



he, still holding that the cake was harmless, ate thereof 

 somewhat greedily ; and, after having been sick, had to 

 lie by for some time. On the second day after this Gian 

 Battista, and his brother, and the servant as well were 

 taken in hold : and on the Sunday following I, having 

 been informed of what had happened, went to Milan in 

 great anxiety as to what I should do." 



The news which had been brought to Cardan at Pavia 

 told him, over and beyond what is written above, that 

 his son's wife was dead, poisoned as every one believed 

 through having eaten the cake, which had caused nausea 

 and pain to every one else who had tasted it. 1 The 

 catastrophe was accompanied by the usual portents. 

 Some weeks previous to the attempt Gian Battista had 

 chanced to walk out to the Porta Tonsa, clad in the 

 smart silk gown which his father had recently given 

 him, and as he was passing a butcher's shop, a certain 

 pig, one of a drove which was there, rose up out of the 

 mud and attacked the young physician and befouled his 

 gown. The butcher and his men, to whom the thing 

 seemed portentous, drove off the hog with staves, but 

 this they could only do after the beast had weaned 

 itself, and after Gian Battista had gone away. Again, 

 at the beginning of February following, while Cardan 

 was in residence as a Professor at Pavia, he chanced to 

 look at the palm of his hand, and there, at the root of 

 the third finger of the right hand, he beheld a mark like 

 a bloody sword. That same evening a messenger 



1 In his defence at the trial Cardan affirmed that, while Bran- 

 donia was lying sick from eating the cake, her mother and the nurse 

 quarrelled and fought, and finally fell down upon the sick woman. 

 When the fight was over Brandonia was dead. In Opera, torn. ii. 

 p. 3 1 1 ( Theonoston, lib. i.) he writes : " Obiit ilia non veneno, sed 

 vi morbi atque Fato quo tarn inclytus juvenis morte sua, omnia 

 turbare debuerat." 



