even less chance of
getting his salary paid than when he had refused it before, he accepted
the post, explaining that he took this step because there was now no need
for him to leave Milan, or danger that he would be rated as an itinerant
teacher. It is not improbable that he may have been led to accept the
office on account of the additional dignity it would give to him as a
practising physician. When, a little later on, the authorities began to
talk of returning to Pavia, he was in no mind to follow them, giving as a
reason that, were he to leave Milan, he would lose his stipend for the
Plat lectureship, and be put to great trouble in the transport of his
household, and perhaps suffer in reputation as well. The Senate was
evidently anxious to retain his services. They bade him consider the
matter, promising to send on a certain date to learn his decision; and, as
fate would have it, the question was conveniently decided for him by a
portent.

"On the night before the day upon which my answer was to be sent to the
Senate to say what course I was going to take, the whole of the house fell
down into a heap of ruins, and no single thing was left unwrecked, save
the bed in which I and my wife and my children were sleeping. Thus the
step, which I should never have taken of my own free will or without some
sign, I was compelled to take by the course of events. This thing caused
great wonder to all those who heard of it."[80]

This was in 1544. Jerome hesitated no longer, and went forthwith to Pavia
as Professor of Medicine at a salary of two hundred and forty gold crowns
per annum; but, for the first year at least, this salary was not paid;
and the new professor lectured for a time to empty benches; but, as he was
at this time engaged in the final stage of his great work on Algebra, the
leisure granted to him by the neglect of the students must have been most
acceptable. He published at this time a treatise called _Contradicentium
Medicorum_, and in 1545 his _Algebra_ or _Liber Artis Magnae_ was issued
from the press by Petreius of Nuremberg. The issue of this book, by which
alone the name of Cardan holds a place in contemporary learning, is
connected with an episode of his life important enough to demand special
and detailed consideration in a separate place.

His practice in medicine was now a fairly lucrative one, but his
extravagant tastes and the many vices with which he charges himself would
have made short work of t