to one wanting the second
term.--Ed. 1729, p. 595.

[111] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 66.

CHAPTER VI

IT has been noted that Cardan quitted Pavia at the end of 1544 on account
of the bankruptcy of the University, and that in 1546 a generous offer was
made to him on condition of his entering the service of Pope Paul III.; an
offer which after some hesitation he determined to refuse. In the autumn
of this same year he resumed his teaching at Pavia, a fact which sanctions
the assumption that this luckless seat of learning must have been once
more in funds. In the year following, in 1547, there came to him another
offer of employment accompanied by terms still more munificent than the
Pope's, conveyed through Vesalius[112] and the ambassador of the King of
Denmark. "The emolument was to be a salary of three hundred gold crowns
per annum of the Hungarian currency, and in addition to these six hundred
more to be paid out of the tax on skins of price. This last-named money
differed in value by about an eighth from the royal coinage, and would be
somewhat slower in coming in. Also the security for its payment was not so
solid, and would in a measure be subject to risk. To this was farther
added maintenance for myself and five servants and three horses. This
offer I did not accept because the country was very cold and damp, and the
people well-nigh barbarians; moreover the rites and doctrines of religion
were quite foreign to those of the Roman Church."[113]

Cardan was now forty-six years of age, a mathematician of European fame,
and the holder of an honourable post at an ancient university, which he
might have exchanged for other employment quite as dignified and far more
lucrative. In dealing with a character as bizarre as his, it would be as a
rule unprofitable to search deeply for motives of action, but in this
instance it is no difficult matter to detect upon the surface several
causes which may have swayed him in this decision to remain at Pavia.
However firmly he may have set himself to win fame as a physician, he was
in no way disposed to put aside those mathematical studies in which he had
already made so distinguished a name, nor to abandon his astrology and
chiromancy and discursive reading of all kinds. At Pavia he would find
leisure for all these, and would in addition be able to make good any
arrears of medical and magical knowledge into which he might have fallen
during the years so largely devoted to the pro