CHAPTER XV 



WHEN dealing with Cardan's sudden incarceration in 

 1570, in the chronicle of his life, it was assumed that his 

 offence must have been some spoken or written words 

 upon which a charge of impiety might have been 

 fastened. Leaving out of consideration the fiery zeal of 

 the reigning Pope Pius V., it is hard to determine what 

 plea could have been found for a serious charge of this 

 nature. Cardan's work had indeed passed the ecclesi- 

 astical censors in 1562 ; but in the estimation of Pius V. 

 the smallest lapse from the letter of orthodoxy would 

 have seemed grave enough to send to prison, and 

 perhaps to death, a man as deeply penetrated with the 

 spirit of religion as Cardan assuredly was. One of his 

 chief reasons for refusing the King of Denmark's 

 generous offer was the necessity involved of having to 

 live amongst a people hostile to the Catholic religion ; 

 and, in writing of his visit to the English Court, he 

 declares that he was unwilling to recognize the title 

 of King Edward VI., inasmuch as by so doing he might 

 seem to prejudice the rights of the Pope. 1 In spite of 

 this positive testimony, and the absence of any utter- 

 ances of manifest heresy, divers writers in the succeeding 

 century classed him with the unbelievers. Dr. Samuel 

 Parker in his Tractatus de Deo, published in 1678, 



1 De Vita Propria^ ch. xxix. p. 76. 

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