i 9 o JEROME CARDAN 



letter I was as one stupefied, nor could I believe it was 

 the work of Fioravanti, whom I had hitherto regarded 

 as a man of seemly carriage and a friend. But this 

 letter and its purport remained fixed in my mind and 

 prompted me to reply to my son-in-law ; for I believed 

 no longer that he had aught to do with the letter which 

 professed to come from him ; indeed I ought never to 

 have harboured such a suspicion, seeing that both then 

 and now he has always had the most kindly care for me; 

 nor has he ever judged ill of me. 



" I called for my cloak at once and went to Fioravanti, 

 whom I questioned about the letter. He admitted that 

 he wrote it, whereupon I was more than ever astonished, 

 for I was loth to suspect him of crooked dealing, much 

 more of any premeditated treachery. I began to reason 

 with him, and to inquire where all these wonderful 

 plans had been concocted, and then he began to waver, 

 and failed to find an answer. He could only put 

 forward common report, and the utterances of the 

 Rector of the Gymnasium, as the source of them." l 



Cardan goes on to connect the foregoing incident, by 

 reasoning which is not very clear, with what he main- 

 tained to have been a veritable attempt against his life. 

 " The first act of the tragedy having come to an end, the 

 second began, and this threw certain light upon the first. 

 My foes made it their special care that I, whom they 

 held up as a disgrace to my country, to my family, to 

 the Senate, to the Colleges of Milan and Pavia, to the 

 Council of Professors, and to the students, should become 

 a member of the Accademia degli Affidati, a society in 

 which were enrolled divers illustrious theologians, two 

 Cardinals, and two princes, the Duke of Mantua, and the 

 Marquis Pescara. When they perceived how loth I 

 1 De Vita Rropria, ch. xxx. p. 83. 



