"These words may be taken as a sort of augury referring rather to certain other men about to set forth to do their work in the world, than to my father, who, except in the department of jurisprudence (of which indeed rumour says that he was a master), never let his mind take in aught that was new. The rudiments of mathematics were all that he possessed, and he gathered no fresh knowledge from the store-houses of Greek learning. This disposition in him was probably produced by the vast multitude of subjects to be mastered, and by his infirmity of purpose, rather than by any lack of natural parts, or by idleness or by defect of judgment; vices to which he was in no way addicted. But I, being firmly set upon the object of my wishes, for the reasons given above, and because I perceived that my father had achieved only moderate success--though he had encountered but few hindrances--remained unconvinced by any of his exhortations."[27] FOOTNOTES: [1] Bayle is unwilling to admit Cardan's illegitimate birth. In _De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 619 (Lyons, 1663), Cardan writes in reference to the action of the Milanese College of Physicians: "Medicorum collegium, suspitione oborta, quod (tam male a patre tractatus) spurius essem, repellebat." Bayle apparently had not read the _De Consolatione_, as he quotes the sentence as the work of a modern writer, and affirms that the word "suspitio" would not have been used had the fact been notorious. But in the _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 676, Cardan declares that his father openly spoke of him as a bastard. [2] _De Utilitate ex adversis Capienda_ (Franeker, 1648), p. 357. [3] Matteo Visconti was born in 1250, and died in 1322. He was lord of Novara Vercello Como and Monferrato, and was made Vicar Imperial by Adolphus of Nassau. Though he was worsted in his conflict with John XXII. he did much to lay the foundations of his family. [4] _De Vita Propria_ (Amsterdam, 1654), ch. i. p. 4. [5] Cardan makes a statement in _De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 605, which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. "Matrem meam Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum puer essem, meminique hanc dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo placuisset, extincta forem in infantia." [6] _De Vita Propria_, ch. i. p. 4. [7] _Geniturarum Exempla_ (Basil, 1554), p. 436. [8] _De Rerum Varietate_ (Basil, 1557), p. 655. [9] _De Utilitate_, p. 347. There is a passage in _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 435, dealing with Fazio's horoscope, which may be taken to mean that these children were his. "Alios habuisse filios qui obierint ipsa genitura dem[o=]strat, me solo diu post eti[a=] illius mort[e=] superstite." [10] With regard to the union of his parents he writes: "Uxorem vix duxit ob Lunam afflictam et eam in senectute."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 435.