204 JEROME CARDAN 



the Professor of the Practice of Medicine, a skirmish 

 which, in its details, resembles so closely his encounter 

 with Branda Porro, at Pavia, some time before, that it 

 suggests a doubt whether it ever had a separate exist- 

 ence, and was not simply a variant of the Branda 

 legend. " It happened that he (Fracantiano) was giving 

 an account of the passage of the gall into the stomach, 

 and was speaking in Greek before the whole Academy 

 (he was making the while an anatomical dissection), 

 when I cried out, * There is an " ov " wanting in that 

 sentence.' And as he delayed making any correction of 

 his error, and I kept on repeating my remark in a low 

 voice, the students cried out, ' Let the Codex be sent 

 for.' Fracantiano sent for it gladly. It was brought at 

 once, and when he came to read the passage, he found 

 that what I had affirmed was true to a hair. He spake 

 not another word, being overwhelmed with confusion 

 and astonishment. Moreover the students, who had 

 almost compelled me to come to the lecture, were even 

 more impressed by what had happened. But from that 

 day forth my opponent avoided all meeting with me ; 

 nay, he even gave orders to his servants that they 

 should warn him whenever they might see me approach- 

 ing, and thus he contrived that we should never fore- 

 gather. One day when he was teaching Anatomy, the 

 students brought me, by a trick, into the room, where- 

 upon he straightway fled, and having entangled his feet 

 in his robe, he fell down headlong. This accident 

 caused no little confusion, and shortly afterwards he 

 left the place, being then a man well advanced in 

 years." i 



He had not lived long in Bologna before he was fated 

 to experience another repetition of one of the untoward 

 1 De Vita Propriety ch. xii. p. 40. 



