Jerome Cardan | Page 9

eyes is fixed, like that of one in deep thought. My front teeth are large, and my complexion red and white: the form of my countenance being somewhat elongated, and my head is finished off in narrow wise at the back, like to a small sphere. Indeed, it was no rare thing for the painters, who came from distant countries to paint my portrait, to affirm that they could find no special characteristic which they could use for the rendering of my likeness, so that I might be known by the same."[30]
After giving this account of his person, Cardan writes down a catalogue of the various diseases which vexed him from time to time, a chapter of autobiography which looks like a transcript from a dictionary of Nosology. More interesting is the sketch which he makes of his mental state during these early years. Boys brought up in company of their elders often show a tendency to introspection, and fall into a dreamy whimsical mood, and his case is a striking example. "By the command of my father I used to lie abed until nine o'clock,[31] and, if perchance I lay awake any time before the wonted hour of rising, it was my habit to spend the same by conjuring up to sight all sorts of pleasant visions, nor can I remember that I ever summoned these in vain. I used to behold figures of divers kinds like airy bodies. Meseemed they were made up of tiny rings, like those in coats of chain-armour, though at this time I had seen nought of the kind. They would rise at the bottom of the bed, from the right-hand corner; and, moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests, and divers other things which I now forget. In all this I took no small delight, and with straining eyes I would gaze upon these marvels; wherefore my Aunt Margaret asked me more than once whether I saw anything. I, though I was then only a child, deliberated over this question of hers before I replied, saying to myself: 'If I tell her the facts she will be wroth at the thing--whatever it may be--which is the cause of these phantasms, and will deprive me of this delight.' And then I seemed to see flowers of all kinds, and four-footed beasts, and birds; but all these, though they were fashioned most beautifully, were lacking in colour, for they were things of air. Therefore I, who neither as a boy nor as an old man ever learned to lie, stood silent for some time. Then my aunt said--'Boy, what makes you stare thus and stand silent?' I know not what answer I made, but I think I said nothing at all. In my dreams I frequently saw what seemed to be a cock, which I feared might speak to me in a human voice. This in sooth came to pass later on, and the words it spake were threatening ones, but I cannot now recall what I may have heard on these occasions."[32]
With a brain capable of such remarkable exercises as the above-written vision, living his life in an atmosphere of books, and with all games and relaxations dear to boys of his age denied to him, it was no marvel that Jerome should make an early literary essay on his own account. The death of a young kinsman, Niccolo Cardano,[33] suggested to him a theme which he elaborated in a tract called De immortalitate paranda, a work which perished unlamented by its author, and a little later he wrote a treatise on the calculation of the distances between the various heavenly bodies.[34] But he put his mathematical skill to other and more sinister uses than this; for, having gained practical experience at the gaming-tables, he combined this experience with his knowledge of the properties of numbers, and wrote a tract on games of chance. Afterwards he amplified this into his book, Liber de Ludo Ale?.
With this equipment and discipline Jerome went to Pavia in 1520. He found lodging in the house of Giovanni Ambrogio Targio, and until the end of his twenty-first year he spent all his time between Pavia and Milan. By this date he had made sufficiently good use of his time to let the world see of what metal he was formed, for in the