avourite child, and on this account the eulogies
written of him in those dark hours when Cardan's reason was reeling under
the accumulated blows of private grief and public disgrace, must be
accepted with caution. There is no evidence to show he was in intellect
anything like the budding genius his father deemed him; as to conduct and
manner of life, his carriage was exactly what the majority of youths,
brought up in a similar fashion, would have adopted. There must have been
something in the young man's humours which from the first made his father
apprehensive as to the future, for Cardan soon came to see that an early
marriage would be the surest safeguard for Gian Battista's future. With
his mind bent on this scheme, he pointed out to his son various damsels of
suitable station, any one of whom he would be ready to welcome into his
family, but Gian Battista always found some excuse for declining
matrimony. He declared that he was too closely engaged with his work; and,
over and beyond this, it would not be seemly to bring home a bride into a
house like their own, full of young men, for Cardan, as usual, had several
pupils living with him. It was at the end of 1557 that the first
forebodings of misfortune appeared. To Cardan, according to custom, they
came in the form of a portent, for he records how he lay awake at midnight
on December 20, and was suddenly conscious that his bed was shaking. He at
once attributed this to a shock of an earthquake, and in the morning he
demanded of the servant, Simone Sosia, who occupied the truckle bed in the
room, whether he had felt the same. Simone replied that he had, whereupon
Cardan, as soon as he arose, went to the piazza and asked of divers
persons he met there, whether they had also been disturbed, but no one had
felt anything of the shock he alluded to. He went home, and while the
family were at table, a messenger, sent, as he afterwards records, by a
certain woman of the town,[183] entered the room, and told him that his
son was going to be married immediately after breakfast. Cardan asked who
the bride might be, but the messenger said he knew not, and departed. It
is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon
as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst
over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and
setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good
family, of whom two were cert