Complete Works, Volume 1: The Book on Games of Chance

and they retain them easily; they also perceive them, they prophesy, they speak of unknown things, they reveal hidden matters, and according to the sects or religions to which they are addicted, or the offices to which they are enslaved, they adhere to vain or solid things: just as one can see in those Platonic philosophers and in Cardano, who, following the teachings of the Academy, were accustomed to diligently observe specters, ghosts, portents, and—derived from the necessity of invariable Fate—auguries, dreams, oracles, and other such things, which the Peripatetics deride as signs of extreme dementia.

A decorative initial "I" depicts a floral motif, common in seventeenth-century printing, framing the opening of the paragraph.For these and similar reasons, it might seem that Cardano acted no differently from those who have acquired such a temperament of character. But since he contends that nothing was ever more important to him than the love of truth, and consequently frequently breaks out into such expressions as, I do not remember ever having lied: therefore, I am now secure from the suspicion of falsehood, as one who has grown old in the study of truth, and other similar phrases which occur here and there in his books: I, on the contrary, discovered that he was a most deceitful man, and I believe—for no light reasons—that other things, which some call ravings, flowed from this vice as if from a fountain. And lest anyone should be persuaded that this was said by me without consideration, since it is a matter of great moment, I confirm it with signed tables, the veracity of which not even Cardano himself could rightfully challenge if he were alive today.

Indeed, when he had said in chapter 12 of his own Life, I never learned grammar, just as I did not learn the Greek, French, or Spanish language, but the usage was bestowed upon me somehow: and had previously asserted in chapter 9 that he was helped by a miracle to understand the Latin language, he explains what that miracle was in chapter 41: Who was the one who sold me Apuleius The Roman author of The Golden Ass. when I was already, if I am not mistaken, in my twentieth year, and he immediately departed? I, who until then had never been in a grammar school except once, and who had no knowledge of the Latin language, having bought it inadvertently because it was gilded—on the next day I emerged as I am now in the Latin language, and I also acquired Greek, Spanish, and French, as it were, simultaneously, but only to the extent that I understand the books, being ignorant of speech, narration, and the rules of grammar entirely.

How consistent this is with the truth is made clear by those words from the little work On His Own Books, which is found toward the end of his books On Wisdom and On Consolation: Meanwhile, I was applying myself to grammar and dialectics, namely around the twenty-third year of his age. For around his thirty-fifth year, he applied himself diligently to learning the Greek language, from which, he says, in the present year, weakened by the excessive intensity of the study of Greek literature, I have attempted nothing difficult, and he adds shortly after, I reduced Micyllus's book into an epitome, which I combined with the book on the instruction of Greek literature.

But this lie, although joined with a miracle, might perhaps seem very light, since nothing followed from it that brought Cardano any benefit. But the same cannot be said of that which it is now appropriate to summarize in a few words: For when he had confidently written in book 5 of On Wisdom, While we were laboring under envy in this city, and profit did not provide for our expenses, we attempted to find many new things in the art: for outside the art

nothing did not yield: Finally, I devised a cure for consumption (which they call Pthoë), which for many centuries had been deemed incurable, and I cured many who now survive, and it was no more difficult than the French disease Syphilis.; and the Most Illustrious John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Legate of the Holy Apostolic See, and Primate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland, having fallen by some chance upon such a promise regarding the cure of the consumption from which he was then miserably suffering, thought his salvation was reposited in this secret of Cardano. Wherefore, with great promises, he lured him to himself in Scotland, and having used his advice for several months, although health was not entirely attained, he dismissed him, showered with those honors which Cardano later rightfully recounted among the most significant of his life.

But let us see now how Cardano himself, in the Rouillé edition Referring to the printer Guillaume Rouillé of Lyon. of his little work On His Own Books, attributes this whole affair to a certain solemn lie, which he uttered, as it were, unwillingly. This thing, he says, is worthy of admiration, that although I have never lied, this good fortune, such as it was, nevertheless arose from a lie: For it was not true that I had cured those suffering from Pthoë, nor yet had I lied deliberately, or entirely, for at that time I hoped I could cure them: thus fate drove me, as if Fortune never truly favors virtue, so that, excellently unwilling, I lied, and this single lie, which slipped out against my will, brought me so much utility and pleasure.

To these two lies, I add a third, which was likewise very famous, because of that Genius so often sung of, regarding whom Cardano inculcates—to the point of hoarseness and disgust—both in his natal theme, in the history of his life and books, and in his pamphlets and all his books, that he himself was its object of care. Thus it would be a very long, difficult, and extremely tedious task to collect everything he said in various places about this deity for a fuller history of it. But because he explains clearly enough what that was in his Dialogue on Human Counsels, it will be enough for me to bring the speakers of it, Thetis and Ram, here. RAM: So many and so great and wonderful things have happened in his life, that I, who am intimate with him, am forced to suspect that he has a Genius, and a great, powerful, and rare one, so that he is not the Master of his own actions, but he does not have what he desires, and he did not desire what he has, much less did he hope for it: he himself, however, abhors this, but when he thinks that all things obey God, he acquiesces. TET: But of what nature? For they say that some are Saturnine, others Jovian, and so on for others. RAM: He suspects it is Venerian, mixed with Saturn and Mercury. TET: All such people live miserably and perish, even if the name of some is great. RAM: I do not know this, since I have known no one except this man, his father, and Socrates, who used such a familiarity of Geniuses. But by Hercules, if that Socratic demon was not much different from the one Cardano boasts was his companion, I fear that both will be considered as fables from now on. For as regards the latter, it is wonderful how worn and weak the supports are upon which he leans, or rather, with what vain and ridiculous marks he betrayed himself to Cardano. For first, he was accustomed to warn him through dreams and noises: then, however, it became even more known when Cardano, as Thetis adds, was freed without any medicine from a hernia of the intestines on his right side, and freed