CARDAN, JEROME. To give any great detail of the life and writings of this singular union of genius and folly would require considerable space. We must therefore confine ourselves for the most part to those circumstances in regard to which his name is principally mentioned in modern writings.
On the life of Cardau the authorities most in use are—I. His own treatise 'De VitA Proprile,' Works, voL i.-2. O. Nandmus Qudicium de Cnrdano,' 1843. The most accessible accounts of these are in ' ilayh's Dictionary,' article Cardin;' and in Teissler, ' Eioges dee Homilies Sams, vol. iv. p. 97.
The works of Carden were collected under the title of ' Hicronymi Caniani Opera 'Annie, curl Cavell Sponii,' Lyon, 1603, in ten volumee, folio. The following lint of works, long as it may appear, is perhaps the bluntest mode of touching on many points which require only the briefest notice. In all, the date begins the title.
1539, 'Card. Cassilionel Practice Aritionetica, Melan.-1541, Aphorismi aetronomici; Ulm.-1542, 'De consolatione,' Venice.— 1544, 'Da Judiciis Geniturarum exemplis illustratum,' Nuremburg. —1545, 'Ara Magna,' &c., Nuremburg.-1545, ' De Male recent. Medic. medendi usu,' Venice.-1545, 'De Animi Immortalitate,' Venice.-1547, 'De Supplemento Almanach,' Nuremburg.-1547, `De Genituris, Revolutionibus,' &c., Nuremburg.-1550, 'De Reruns Sub tilitate,' Nuremburg (again in 1557).-1553, 'An Bain. Articulari Morho Competat,' Venice.-1554, 'In quadripart. CL Ptolemni. Ejus dum Geniturarum BaseL-1557, 'De Rerum Varietate,' lib. xviL, folio, Basel.-1559, In Hippocratem de Aere, ()ratio de Medic.
Inacitia; BaseL-1559, Opusc. Artem Med. exercent. utilissima,' BaseL-1561, 'De Militate ex Rebus Adversis capiencla,' Basel.-1562, H. Card. Somniorum Synesiorum,' libri iv., Basel.-1563, 'De Pro videntia ex Anni Constitutione,' Bologna.-1564, Comm. in vii Particulas Aphorism. Hippocratis,'Basel.—I564, Ars Curandi parva,' BaseL-1565, 'De Simpl. Medicament. Neil,' Paris.-1565, Method() Medendi,' Paris.-1566, Anti-Gorgias, Basel.-1570, 'H. Card. &c. de Proportionibus Numerorum Motuum, &c. . . . Preterea Artie Magmas sive de Regulis Algebrte, liber uous, &c. . . . Item de Alia& RegulA liber,' Basel.-1573, 'Examen 22 Aegrotorum Hippocratis,' Rome.
We have chosen this list as containing all we can certainly ascertain to have been published during his lifetime. We have found the
dates mostly in old catalogues, and it is very possible that several may be reprints. The list of his works is of considerable length ; but many were not published until after his death ; and some not till the collection in ten volumes, already mentioned, was made. He states of himself that he had printed 12S books, had written 40 more, and that 60 authors had cited him.
Jerome Carden was born at Pavia in the autumn of 1501 ; his father was a physician and lawyer at Milan. From two circumstances men tioned by himself, namely, that his mother and father did not live together, and also that the former endeavoured to procuro a mis carriage, it is presumed that he was illegitimate. At twenty years of age he studied in the university of Pavia ; at twenty-two he taught Euclid in the same place. Ho went to Padua in 1524, and was there received doctor in medicine in 1525. Ile was successively professor of mathematics or of medicine at Milan, Pavia, or Bologna, and was imprisoned in the latter place (but for what offence is not stated) in 1570. Having obtained his liberty, ho left Bologna in September 1571, and went to Rome, where he was admitted into the college of physicians, and received a pension from pope Pius V. He died after Oct. 1, 1576, and probably not long after, bnt when is not well known. was unfortunate in his family, which consisted of two eons and a daughter. The elder poisoned his wife, and died by the hands of the law ; Cardan protested against the sentence, and rested his son's justification upon the conduct of the wife, who, he affirms, had made his son believe that she was a woman of good fame and fortune, being neither. It is an evidence of the extreme vanity of his character, that not denying the fact for which his son suffered, he left on record his belief that the judges, in passing the sentence, had no other object than to deprive him of life or reason. The younger son turned out badly, and was disinherited by his father. His daughter, according to his own account, never caused him any other vexation than the pay ment of her marriage portion. The treatise 'De &c. was written on the death of his eldest son.