The dream aforesaid was not the only portent having reference to his marriage. After describing shakings and tremblings of his bed, for which indeed a natural cause was not far to seek, he tells how in 1531 a certain dog, of gentle temper as a rule, and quiet, kept up a persistent howling for a long time; how some ravens perched on the house-top and began croaking in an unusual manner; and how, when his servant was breaking up a faggot, some sparks of fire flew out of the same; whereupon, "by an unlooked-for step I married a wife, and from that time divers misfortunes have attended me."[52] Lucia, the wife of his choice, was the eldest daughter of Altobello Bandarini, who had, besides her, three daughters and four sons. Jerome, as it has been already noted, was possessed with a fear lest he should be burdened by his brothers- and sisters-in-law after his marriage; but, considering that he was a young unknown physician, without either money or patients, and that Bandarini was a man of position and repute, with some wealth and more shrewdness, the chances were that the burden would lie on the other side. Cardan seems to have inherited Fazio's contempt for wealth, or at least to have made a profession thereof; for, in chronicling the event of his marriage, he sets down, with a certain degree of pomposity, that he took a wife without a dower on account of a certain vow he had sworn.[53] If the bride was penniless the father-in-law was wealthy, and the last-named fact might well have proved a powerful argument to induce Cardan to remain at Sacco, albeit he had little scope for his calling. That he soon determined to quit the place, is an evidence of his independence of spirit, and of his disinclination to sponge upon his well-to-do connections. Bandarini, when this scheme was proposed to him, vetoed it at once. He was unwilling to part with his daughter, and possibly he may have taken a fancy to his son-in-law, for Cardan has left it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; he ended, however, by consenting to the migration, which was not made without the intervention of a warning portent. A short time before the young couple departed, it happened that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's bed-chamber; and, in the course of the night, exploded with a loud report, and the fragments thereof were scattered around. This event Bandarini regarded as an augury of evil, and indeed evil followed swiftly after. Before a year had passed he was dead, some holding that his death had been hastened by the ill conduct of his eldest son, and others whispering suspicions of poison.