tractatus) spurius
essem, repellebat." Bayle apparently had not read the _De Consolatione_,
as he quotes the sentence as the work of a modern writer, and affirms that
the word "suspitio" would not have been used had the fact been notorious.
But in the _Dialogus de Morte_, Opera, tom. i. p. 676, Cardan declares
that his father openly spoke of him as a bastard.

[2] _De Utilitate ex adversis Capienda_ (Franeker, 1648), p. 357.

[3] Matteo Visconti was born in 1250, and died in 1322. He was lord of
Novara Vercello Como and Monferrato, and was made Vicar Imperial by
Adolphus of Nassau. Though he was worsted in his conflict with John XXII.
he did much to lay the foundations of his family.

[4] _De Vita Propria_ (Amsterdam, 1654), ch. i. p. 4.

[5] Cardan makes a statement in _De Consolatione_, Opera, tom. i. p. 605,
which indicates that her disposition was not a happy one. "Matrem meam
Claram Micheriam, juvenem vidi, cum admodum puer essem, meminique hanc
dicere solitam, Utinam si Deo placuisset, extincta forem in infantia."

[6] _De Vita Propria_, ch. i. p. 4.

[7] _Geniturarum Exempla_ (Basil, 1554), p. 436.

[8] _De Rerum Varietate_ (Basil, 1557), p. 655.

[9] _De Utilitate_, p. 347. There is a passage in _Geniturarum Exempla_,
p. 435, dealing with Fazio's horoscope, which may be taken to mean that
these children were his. "Alios habuisse filios qui obierint ipsa genitura
dem[o=]strat, me solo diu post eti[a=] illius mort[e=] superstite."

[10] With regard to the union of his parents he writes: "Uxorem vix duxit
ob Lunam afflictam et eam in senectute."--_Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 435.

[11] "Igitur ut ab initio exordiar, in pestilentia conceptus, matrem,
nondum natus (ut puto) mearum calamitatum participem, profugam
habui."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 618.

"Mater ut abortiret medicamentum abortivum dum in utero essem, alieno
mandato bibit."--_De Utilitate_, p. 347.

[12] _De Vita Propria_, ch. ii. p. 6.

[13] In one passage, _De Utilitate_, p. 348, he sums up his physical
misfortunes: "Hydrope, febribus, aliisque morbis conflictatus sum, donec
sub fine octavi anni ex dysenteria ac febre usque ad mortis limina
perveni, pulsavi ostium sed non aperuere qui intro erant."

[14] "Inde lac praegnantis hausi per varias nutrices lactatus ac
jactatus."--_De Utilitate_, p. 348.

[15] The _De Vita Propria_, the chief authority for these remarks, was
written by Cardan in Rome shortly before his death.

[16] The illness woul