t to be moved. He records, however, that he did break his vow after all
by going out after dusk to see a poor butcher who was seriously ill.

It is hard to detect any evidence of deadly intent in what seems, by
contemporary daylight, to have been a complimentary invitation to dinner;
but to the old man, possessed as he was by hysterical terrors, this
episode undoubtedly foreshadowed another assault against his life. He
finds some compensation, however, in once more recording the fact that all
these disturbers of his peace--like the men who were concerned in Gian
Battista's condemnation--came to a bad end. His rival, who had taken his
place as Professor, had not taught in the schools more than three or four
times before he was seized with disease and died after three months'
suffering. "Upon him there lay only the suspicion of the charge, but I
heard afterwards that a friend of his was certainly privy to the deed of
murder which they had resolved to work upon me by giving me a cup of
poisoned wine at the supper. In the same year died Delfino, and a little
while after Fioravanti."[209]

In July Cardan withdrew to Milan, where, to add to his other troubles, he
was seized with an attack of fever. He was now thoroughly alarmed at the
look of his affairs. Many of his fears may have been imaginary, but the
burden of real trouble which he had to carry was one which might easily
bring him to the ground, and, when once a man is down, the crowd has
little pity or scruple in trampling him to death. He set about to review
his position, and to spy out all possible sources of danger. He writes: "I
called to mind all the books I had written, and, seeing that in them there
were many obscure passages upon which an unfavourable meaning might be put
by the malice of my enemies, I wrote to the Council, submitting all my
writings to its judgment and will and pleasure. By this action I saved
myself from grave danger and disgrace in the future."[210] The Council to
which Cardan here refers was probably the Congregation of the Index
appointed by the Council at Trent for the authoritative examination of all
books before allowing them to be read by the faithful. Before the close of
the Council (1563) these duties had been handed over to the Pope (Pius
IV.), who published the revised and definite Roman Index in 1564.

FOOTNOTES:

[197] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71.

[198] "Quin etiam dominus ac Princeps alioquin generosus et humanus, cum