and while he was wondering whether or not he had better go home and break his fast, he found three raisins in his pocket, and thus made a fortunate ending of all his difficulties. All this reads like a commonplace chapter of accidents; but the events recorded did not present themselves to Cardan in this guise. He sits down to moralize over the succession of momentary events: his meeting with Vincenzio; Vincenzio's meeting with the driver, and directions given to the man to drive to the money-changers'; the presence of the Governor, his exit from the bank, his consequent meeting with the carriage, and his discovery of the raisins, seven occurrences in all, any one of which, if it had happened a little sooner or a little later, would have brought about great inconvenience, or even worse. He does not deny that other men may not now and then encounter like experiences, but the experiences of other men were not fraught with such momentous crises, nor did they foreshadow so many or grave dangers. The chronicling of this episode and the fanciful coincidence of the deaths of Dominicus and Troilus may be taken as evidence that his idiosyncrasies were becoming aggravated by the decay of his faculties. Writing on October 1, 1576, he makes mention of the various testaments he had already made, and goes on to say that he had resolved to make a new and final disposition of his goods. He would fain have let his property descend to his immediate offspring, but with a son like Aldo this was impossible, so he left all to Gian Battista's son, who would now be a youth about eighteen years of age, Aldo getting nothing. He desired, for reasons best known to himself, that all his descendants should remain _in curatela_ as long as possible, and that all his property should be held on trust; if the issue of his body should fail, then the succession should pass in perpetuity to his kinsfolk on the father's side. He desired that his works should be corrected and printed, and that, if heirs failed entirely, his house at Bologna should pass to the University, and be styled, after his family, _Collegium Cardanorum_. There is no authentic record of the exact date of Cardan's death. De Thou, in writing the record of 1576, says that if Cardan's life had been prolonged by three days he would have completed his seventy-fifth year. As Cardan's birthday was September 24, 1501, this would fix his death on September 21, 1576. The exact figures given by De Thou are: "eodem, quo praedixerat, anno et die, videlicet XI. Kalend. VIII.," and he adds by way of information that a belief was current at the time that Cardan, who had foretold how he would die on this day and in this year, had abstained from food for some days previous to his death in order to make the fatal day square with the prophecy.