[41] Tomasinus writes that the Rector should be "Virum illustrem, providum, eloquentem ac divitem, quique eo pollet rerum usu ut Gymnasi decora ipsius gubernatione et splendore augeantur."--_Gymnasium Patavinum_, p. 54. He likewise gives a portrait of the Rector in his robes of office, and devotes several chapters to an account of his duties. [42] "Ab anno 1509 usque ad annum 1515 ob bellum Cameracense Gymn. interrmissum fuit."--_Elenchus nominum Patavii_ (1706), p. 28. The first names given after this interregnum are Dom. Jo. Maria de Zaffaris, Rector in Arts, and Dom. Marinus de Ongaris, Rector in Jurisprudence in 1527. Papadapoli (_Historia Gymn. Patav._) gives the name of Ascanius Serra as pro-Rector in 1526: no Rector being mentioned at all. [43] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 79. [44] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 13. CHAPTER III DURING his life at Padua it would appear that Cardan, over and above the allowance made to him by his mother, had no other source of income than the gaming-table.[45] However futile and disastrous his sojourn at this University may have been, he at least took away with him one possession of value, to wit his doctorate of medicine, on the strength of which he began to practise as a country physician at Sacco. The record of his life during these years gives the impression that he must have been one of the most wretched of living mortals. The country was vexed by every sort of misfortune, by prolonged warfare, by raging pestilence, by famine, and by intolerable taxation;[46] but while he paints this picture of misery and desolation in one place, he goes on to declare in another that the time which he spent at Sacco was the happiest he ever knew.[47] No greater instance of inconsistency is to be found in his pages. He writes: "I gambled, I occupied myself with music, I walked abroad, I feasted, giving scant attention the while to my studies. I feared no hurt, I paid my respects to the Venetian gentlemen living in the town, and frequented their houses. I, too, was in the very flower of my age, and no time could have been more delightful than this which lasted for five years and a half."[48]