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THE LIFE OF CARDANO,

AND

A JUDGMENT

CONCERNING HIM.

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IT did not seem right to me to commit my judgment of Cardano to writing with the intention that it should serve as a standard for others to assess him. I am well aware how difficult it is to adapt one's own mind or judgment to the intellect of another. However, I see that learned men devote their efforts only to studying those books of Cardano which may bring some utility to their own way of life and studies, while they either remain entirely ignorant of the nature of the others—which Cardano elaborated in almost every branch of knowledge—or keep them hidden away merely as ornaments of their libraries, because the greater part of these are difficult to find. Therefore, I did not consider anyone among them sufficiently qualified to pass judgment on Cardano. To wish to pronounce on such matters without diligently exploring every single condition of the subjects is the mark of a person who is overly confident and who abuses the leisure of others no less than his own.

For my part, although I may lack that perspicacity of mind and that mode of varied and recondite learning which one must possess who endeavors to draw forth the marvelous intellect of Cardano—hitherto hidden as if divided from itself within the corners and inner sanctums of the Muses—into the open light of men, I would not be lying if I said that I have been so delighted by all the lucubrations of this author from the very beginning of my youth and the culture of my freer intellect that I have never desired any others more ardently, sought them out more diligently, or studied them more frequently. Indeed, when I could not obtain his books On Wisdom original: "De Sapientia" from booksellers, either by prayer or by price—as very many of my friends can testify—I undertook the labor of copying them out by my own hand, a task I found not unpleasant, but rather most welcome. That varied and

manifold doctrine of Cardano always pleased me so much that I left nothing untried in order to investigate it, whether in his own books or in those of Camuzio, Tartaglia, Duno, Scaliger, and others. Whether the subject was medical, moral, philosophical, mathematical, historical, political, philological, or of another kind, I wished to have it explored.

From this it happened that, before I set out for Italy with my Lord of most happy memory, Giovanni Francesco Guidi di Bagno, a most eminent Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, nothing whatsoever regarding Cardano’s life, morals, books, or opinions could be desired by anyone that I did not hold as if at my fingertips. Even now, all these things seem not to have slipped from my mind, such that I should fear that I am embarking on this judgment unprepared. I do not do this out of any boasting of my diligence, nor out of confidence in my own wit, nor to obstruct others or dictate laws with this determination, but rather to serve the desires of some who, being devoted to better studies, have been more sparing in examining Cardano. I do so far removed from all hatred and bias.

First, therefore, concerning the life and morals of the man, if we attend to what he said about himself in the example of his own nativity, and in his books On Consolation, On Wisdom, On Taking Utility from Adversity, On His Own Books, On His Own Life, and elsewhere, no one was viler in birth, weaker in nature, or more neglected in his upbringing; no one was more unhappy in his wife, children, and servants; and, in short, throughout the entire course of his life, no one was poorer, more miserable, or more afflicted. These were the damages to his body and fortune. Yet, if any enemy had attributed to him such an intellect as he himself testified was his own in his birth chart, that person could have rightly sued him under that law:

And with a broad penalty, for the evil poem by which he would not have anyone
Described.

For he says that his spirit was fashioned by Venus, the ruler of the place of the Moon, and Mercury, mixed greatly with Mercury and moderately with Saturn, as one living for the day, trifling, a despiser of religion, mindful of injury received, envious, sad, a plotter plotter...