Hieronymus Cardanus is of their number; he was remarkable as an individual of world-wide reputation, in whom the upheaval and fermentation of his time manifested itself in its utmost violence. His writings fill ten folio volumes. Cardanus was born in 1501 at Pavia, and died at Rome in 1575. He recounted his own history and described his character in his book _De vita propria_, where he makes an extraordinary confession of his sins, passing the severest possible judgment upon them. The following may serve to give a picture of these contradictions. His life was a series of the most varied misfortunes, external and domestic. He speaks first of his pre-natal history. He relates that his mother, when pregnant with him, drank potions in order to produce abortion. When he was still at the breast, there was an outbreak of the plague; the nurse who suckled him died of the pestilence, he survived. His father was very severe in his treatment of him. He lived sometimes in the most crushing poverty and the utmost want, sometimes in the greatest luxury. Afterwards he applied himself to science, became a Doctor of Medicine, and travelled much. He was celebrated far and wide; summons came to him from every quarter, several times he was called to Scotland. He writes that he cannot tell the sums of money that were offered to him. He was professor at Milan, first of mathematics and then of medicine; after that he lay for two years in Bologna in the strictest imprisonment, and had to undergo the most frightful tortures. He was a profound astrologer, and predicted the future for many princes, who on that account held him in the greatest awe and reverence.[64] He is a name of note in mathematics; we have from him still the _regula Cardani_ for the solution of equations of the third degree, the only rule we have had up to this time.