Jerome Cardan Part 6

When Cardan received the first letter from Scotland the ma.n.u.script of the _De Varietate_ must have been ready or nearly ready for the printer; but, for some reason or other, he determined to postpone the publication of the work until he should have finished with the Archbishop, and took his ma.n.u.script with him when he set forth on his travels. In 1550 there came another break in Cardan's life as Professor at Pavia, the reason being the usual one of dearth of funds.[134] In 1551 he went back for a short time, but the storms of war were rising on all sides, and the luckless city of Pavia was in the very centre of the disturbance. The French once more crossed the Alps, pillaging and devastating the country, their ostensible mission being the vindication of the rights of Ottavio Farnese to the Duchy of Parma. Ottavio had quarrelled with Pope Julius III., who called upon the Emperor for a.s.sistance. War was declared, and Charles set to work to annex Parma and Piacenza as well to the Milanese. Cardan withdrew to Milan at the end of the year. Gian Battista had now completed his medical course, so there was now no reason why he should continue to live permanently at Pavia. Moreover at this juncture he seems to have been strongly moved to augment the fame which he had already won in Mathematics and Medicine by some great literary achievement, and he worked diligently with this object in view.[135]

At the beginning of November 1551, a letter came to him from Ca.s.sanate,[136] a Franco-Spanish physician, who was at that time in attendance upon the Archbishop of St. Andrews, requesting him to make the journey to Paris, and there to meet the Archbishop, who was suffering from an affection of the lungs. The fame of Cardan as a physician had spread as far as Scotland, and the Archbishop had set his heart on consulting him.

Ca.s.sanate's letter is of prodigious length. After a diffuse exordium he proceeds to praise in somewhat fulsome terms the _De Libris Propriis_ and the treatises _De Sapientia_[137] and _De Consolatione_, which had been given to him by a friend when he was studying at Toulouse in 1549. He had just read the _De Subtilitate_, and was inflamed with desire to become acquainted with everything which Cardan had ever written. But what struck Ca.s.sanate more than anything was a pa.s.sage in the _De Sapientia_ on a medical question, which he extracts and incorporates in his epistle.

Cardan writes there: "But if my profession itself will not give me a living, nor open out an avenue to some other career, I must needs set my brains to work, to find therein something unknown hitherto, for the charm of novelty is unfailing, something which would prove of the highest utility in a particular case. In Milan, while I was fighting the battle against hostile prejudice, and was unable to earn enough to pay my way (so much harder is the lot of manifest than of hidden merit, and no man is honoured as a prophet in his own country), I brought to light much fresh knowledge, and worked my hardest at my art, for outside my art there was naught to be done. At last I discovered a cure for phthisis, which is also known as Phthoe, a disease for many centuries deemed incurable, and I healed many who are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the _Gallicus morbus_. I also discovered a cure for intercutaneous water in many who still survive. But in the matter of invention, Reason will be the leader, but Experiment the Master, the stimulating cause of work in others. If in any experiment there should seem to be an element of danger, let it be performed gently, and little by little."[138] It is not wonderful that the Archbishop, who doubtless heard all about Cardan's a.s.serted cure of phthisis from Ca.s.sanate, should have been eager to submit his asthma to Cardan's skill. After acknowledging the deep debt of grat.i.tude which he, in common with the whole human race, owed to Cardan in respect to the two discoveries aforesaid, Ca.s.sanate comes to the business in hand, to wit, the Archbishop's asthma. Not content with giving a most minute description of the symptoms, he furnishes Cardan also with a theory of the operations of the distemper. He writes: "The disease at first took the form of a distillation from the brain into the lungs, accompanied with hoa.r.s.eness, which, with the help of the physician in attendance, was cured for a time, but the temperature of the brain continued unfavourable, being too cold and too moist, so that certain unhealthy humours were collected in the head and there remained, because the brain could neither a.s.similate its own nutriment, nor disperse the humours which arose from below, being weakened through its nutriment of pituitous blood. After an attack of this nature it always happened that, whenever the body was filled with any particular matter, which, in the form of substance, or vapour, or quality, might invade the brain, a fresh attack would certainly arise, in the form of a fresh flow of the same humour down to the lungs.

Moreover these attacks were found to agree almost exactly with the conjunctions and oppositions of the moon."[139]

Ca.s.sanate goes on to say that his patient had proved somewhat intractable, refusing occasionally to have anything to do with his medical attendants, and that real danger was impending owing to the flow of humour having become chronic. Fortunately this humour was not acrid or salt; if it were, phthisis must at once supervene. But the Archbishop's lungs were becoming more and more clogged with phlegm, and a stronger effort of coughing was necessary to clear them. Latterly much of the thick phlegm had adhered to the lungs, and consequently the difficulty of breathing was great.

Ca.s.sanate declares that he had been able to do no more than to keep the Archbishop alive, and he fears no one would be able to work a complete cure, seeing that the air of Scotland is so moist and salt, and that the Archbishop is almost worried to death by the affairs of State. He next urges Cardan to consent to meet the Archbishop in Paris, a city in which learning of all sorts flourishes exceedingly, the nurse of many great philosophers, and one in which Cardan would a.s.suredly meet the honour and reverence which is his due. The Archbishop's offer was indeed magnificent in its terms. Funds would be provided generous enough to allow the physician to travel post the whole of the journey, and the goodwill of all the rulers of the states _en route_ would be enlisted in his favour.

Ca.s.sanate finishes by fixing the end of January 1552 as a convenient date for the _rendezvous_ in Paris, and, as time and place accorded with Cardan's wishes, he wrote to Ca.s.sanate accepting the offer.

The Archbishop of St. Andrews was John Hamilton, the illegitimate brother of James, Earl of Arran, who had been chosen Regent of the kingdom after the death of James V. at Flodden, and the bar sinister, in this case as in many others, was the ensign of a courage and talent and resource in which the lawful offspring was conspicuously wanting. Any student taking a cursory glance at the epoch of violence and complicated intrigue which marked the infancy of Mary of Scotland, may well be astonished that a man so weak and vain and incompetent as James Hamilton--albeit his footing was made more secure by his position as the Queen's heir-presumptive--should have held possession of his high dignities so long as he did. Alternately the tool of France and of England, he would one day cause his great rival Cardinal Beatoun to be proclaimed an enemy of his country, and the next would meet him amicably and adopt his policy. After becoming the partisan of Henry VIII. and the foe of Rome, he finally put the coping-stone to his inconsistencies by becoming a convert to Catholicism in 1543. But in spite of his indolence and weakness, he was still Regent of Scotland, when his brother, the Archbishop, was seized with that attack of periodic asthma which threatened to change vitally the course of Scottish politics. A very slight study of contemporary records will show that Arran had been largely, if not entirely, indebted to the distinguished talents and to the ambition of his brother for his continued tenure of the chief power of the State. If confirmation of this view be needed, it will be found in the fact that, as soon as the Archbishop was confined to a sick-room, Mary of Guise, the Queen Mother, supported by her brothers in France and by the Catholic party at home, began to undermine the Regent's position by intrigue, and ultimately, partly by coaxing, partly by threats, won from him a promise to surrender his power into her hands.

In the meantime Cardan was waiting for further intelligence and directions as to his journey. The end of January had been fixed as the date of the meeting at Paris, and it was not until the middle of February that any further tidings came to him. Then he received a letter from Ca.s.sanate and a remittance to cover the expenses of his journey.[140] He set out at once on February 22, undaunted by the prospect of a winter crossing of the Simplon, and, having travelled by way of Sion and Geneva, arrived at Lyons on March 13. In Ca.s.sanate's first letter Paris had been named as the place of meeting; but, as a concession to Cardan's convenience, Lyons was added as an alternative, in case he should find it impossible to spare time for a longer journey. Cardan accordingly halted at Lyons, but neither Archbishop nor physician was there to meet him. After he had waited for more than a month, Ca.s.sanate appeared alone, and brought with him a heavy purse of money for the cost of the long journey to Scotland, which he now begged Cardan to undertake, and a letter from the Archbishop himself, who wrote word that, though he had fully determined in the first instance to repair to Paris, or even to Lyons, to meet Cardan, he found himself at present mastered by the turn of circ.u.mstances, and compelled to stay at home. He promised Cardan a generous reward, and a reception of a nature to convince him that the Scots are not such Scythians as they might perchance be deemed in Milan.[141] Cardan's temper was evidently upset by this turn of affairs, and his suspicions aroused; for he sets down his belief that patient and physician had from the first worked with the intention of dragging him all the way to Scotland, but that they had waited till he was across the Alps before showing their hand, fearing lest if the word Scotland should have been used at the outset, he would never have moved from Milan.[142] In describing his journey he writes:--"I tarried in Lyons forty-six days, seeing nothing of the Archbishop, nor of the physician whom I expected, nevertheless I gained more than I spent. I met there Ludovico Birago, a gentleman of Milan, and commander of the King's foot-soldiers, and with him I contracted a close friends.h.i.+p, so much so that, had I been minded to take service under Brissac, the King's lieutenant, I might have enjoyed a salary of one thousand crowns a year.

Shortly afterwards Guglielmo Ca.s.sanate, the Archbishop's physician, arrived in Lyons and brought with him three hundred other golden crowns, which he handed to me, in order that I might make the journey with him to Scotland, offering in addition to pay the cost of travel, and promising me divers gifts in addition. Thus, making part of our journey down the Loire, I arrived at Paris. While I was there I met Orontius; but he for some reason or other refused to visit me. Under the escort of Magnienus[143] I inspected the treasury of the French Kings, and the Church of Saint Denis. I saw likewise something there, not so famous, but more interesting to my mind, and this was the horn of a unicorn, whole and uninjured. After this we met the King's physicians, and we all dined together, but I declined to hold forth to them during dinner, because before we sat down they were urgent that I should begin a discussion. I next set forth on my journey, my relations with Pharnelius and Silvius, and another of the King's physicians,[144] whom I left behind, being of a most friendly nature, and travelled to Boulogne in France, where, by the command of the Governor of Sarepont, an escort of fourteen armed hors.e.m.e.n and twenty foot-soldiers was a.s.signed to me, and so to Calais. I saw the tower of Caesar still standing. Then having crossed the narrow sea I went to London, and at last met the Archbishop at Edinburgh on the twenty-ninth of June. I remained there till the thirteenth of September. I received as a reward four hundred more gold crowns; a chain of gold worth a hundred and twenty crowns, a n.o.ble horse, and many other gifts, in order that no one of those who were with me should return empty-handed."[145]

The Archbishop's illness might in itself have supplied a reason for his inability to travel abroad and meet Cardan as he had agreed to do; but the real cause of his change of plan was doubtless the condition of public affairs in Scotland at the beginning of 1552. In the interval of time between Ca.s.sanate's first letter to Cardan and the end of 1551, the Regent had half promised to surrender his office into the hands of the Guise party in Scotland, wherefore it was no wonder that the Primate, recognizing how grave was the danger which threatened the source of his power, should have resolved that, sick or sound, his proper place was at the Scottish Court.

FOOTNOTES:

[112] Vesalius had certainly lectured on anatomy at Pavia, but it would appear that Cardan did not know him personally, seeing that he writes in _De Libris Propriis_ (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 138): "Brasavolum ... nunquam vidi, ut neque Vesalium quamquam intimum mihi amic.u.m."

[113] _De Vita Propria_, ch. x.x.xii. p. 99.

[114] In describing Fazio, Jerome writes: "Erat Euclidis operum studiosus, et humeris incurvis: et filius meus natu major ore, oculis, incessu, humeris, illi simillimus."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iii. p. 8. In the same chapter Fazio is described as "Blaesus in loquendo; variorum studiorum amator: ruber, oculis albis et quibus noctu videret."

[115] "At uxor mea imaginabatur a.s.sidue se videre calvariam patris, qui erat absens dum utero gereret Jo: Baptistam."--_Paralipomenon_, lib. iii.

c. 21.

[116] _De Utilitate_, p. 832.

[117] "Post ex geminatis somniis, scripsi libros de Subtilitate quos impressos auxi et denuo superauctos tertio excudi curavi."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175.

[118] "Libros de Rerum varietate anno MDLVIII edidi: erant enim reliquiae librorum de subtilitate."--_De Vita Propria_, p. 176. "Reversus in patriam, perfeci libros XVII de Rerum varietate quos jampridem inchoaveram."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110. He had collected much material during his life at Gallarate.

[119] Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, book I. ch. v., contains an examination of the Pythagorean doctrine which maintains Number to be the Substance of all things:--[Greek: all' auto to apeiron kai auto to hen ousian einai touton on kategorountai.]

[120] "Sed nullus major labor quam libri de Rerum Varietate quem c.u.m saepius muta.s.sem, demum traductis quibuscunque insignioribus rebus in libros de Subtilitate, ita illum exhausi, ut totus denuo conscribendus fuerit atque ex integro rest.i.tuendus."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 74.

He seems to have utilized the services of Ludovico Ferrari in compiling this work.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 64.

[121] _De Varietate_, p. 661.

[122] Book XV. ch. lxxix.

[123] He gives one example of his skill as a palmist in the _De Vita Propria_: "Memini me dum essem adolescens, persuasum fuisse cuidam Joanni Stephano Biffo, quod essem Chiromanticus, et tamen nil minus: rogat ille, ut praedicam ei aliquid de vita; dixi delusum esse a sociis, urget, veniam peto si quicquam gravius praedixero: dixi periculum imminere brevi de suspendio, intra hebdomadam capitur, admovetur tormentis: pertinaciter delictum negat, nihilominus tandem post s.e.x menses laqueo vitam finivit."--ch. xlii. p. 156.

[124] "Ergo nunc Britannia inclyta vellere est. Nec mirum c.u.m null[u=]

animal venenat[u=] mittat, im nec infestum praeter vulpem, olim et lupum: nunc vero exterminatis etiam lupis, tut pecus vagat. Rore coeli sitim sedant greges, ab omni alio potu arcentur, quod aquae ibi ovibus sint exitiales: quia tamen in pabulo humido vermes multi abundant, cornic[u=]

adeo mult.i.tudo crevit, ut ob frugum d.a.m.na nuper publico consilio illas perdentibus proposita praemia sint: ubi enim pabulum, ibi animalia sunt quae eo vesc.u.n.tur, atque immodice tunc multiplicantur c.u.m ubique abundaverit.

Caret tamen ut dixi, serpentibus, tribus ex causis: nam pauci possunt generari ob frigus immensum."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 298.

[125] aeneas Sylvius in describing his visit to Britain a century earlier says that rooks had been recently introduced, and that the trees on which they roosted and built belonged to the King's Exchequer.

[126] "Ejusdem insulae accola fuit Ioannes, ut dixi, Suisset [Richard Swineshead] cognom[e=]to Calculator; in cujus solius unius argumenti solutione, quod contra experiment[u=] est de actione mutua tota laboravit posteritas; quem senem admodum, nec inventa sua dum legeret intelligentem, flevisse referunt. Ex quo haud dubium esse reor, quod etiam in libro de animi immortalite scripsi, barbaros ingenio n.o.bis haud esse inferiores: quandoquidem sub Brumae caelo divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tam clari ingenii viros emiserit."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 444.

[127] _Ibid.,_ p. 142.

[128] p. 369.

[129] The fame of Scots as judges of precious stones had spread to Italy before Cardan's time. In the _Novellino_ of Masuccio, which was first printed in 1476, there is a pa.s.sage in the tenth novel of the first part, in which a rogue pa.s.ses as "grandissimo cognoscitore" of gems because he had spent much time in Scotland.

[130] _De Varietate_, p. 636.

[131] _De Varietate_, p. 637.

[132] _Ibid.,_ p. 637.

[133] _Ibid.,_ p. 565.

[134] "Peracto L anno quod stipendium non remuneraretur mansi Mediolani."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 15.

[135] About this time he wrote the _Liber Decem Problematum_, and the treatise _Delle Burle Calde_, one of his few works written in Italian.--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 109.

[136] Ca.s.sanate's letter is given in full (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 89).

[137] The quotation from the _De Sapientia_ differs somewhat from the original pa.s.sage which stands on p. 578 of the same volume.

[138] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 89.

[139] In a subsequent interview with Cardan, Ca.s.sanate modifies this statement.--_Opera_, tom. ix. p. 124.

[140] "Accepique antequam discederem aureos coronatos Gallicos 500 et M.C.C. in reditu."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16.

[141] "Difficillimis causis victus venire non potui." The Archbishop's letter is given in _Opera_, tom. i. p. 137.

[142] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 469.

[143] He mentions this personage in _De Varietate_, p. 672: "Johannes Manienus medicus, vir egregius et mathematicaram studiosus." He was physician to the monks of Saint Denis.

[144] The reception given to Cardan in Paris was a very friendly one.

Orontius was a mechanician and mathematician; and jealousy of Cardan's great repute may have kept him away from the dinner, but the physicians were most hospitable. Pharnelius [Fernel] was Professor of Medicine at the University, and physician to the Court. Sylvius was an old man of a jocular nature, but as an anatomist bitterly opposed to the novel methods of Vesalius, who was one of Cardan's heroes. With this possibility of quarrelling over the merits of Vesalius, it speaks well for the temper of the doctors that they parted on good terms. Ranconet, another Parisian who welcomed Cardan heartily, was one of the Presidents of the Parliament of Paris. He seems to have been a man of worth and distinguished attainments, and Cardan gives an interesting account of him in _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 423.

[145] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxix. p. 75. Cardan refers more than once to the generosity of the Archbishop. He computes (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 93) that his visit must have cost Hamilton four talents of gold; that is to say, two thousand golden crowns.

CHAPTER VII