cording to Jerome's contention, could lay claim to
considerable antiquity and distinction. He prefers a claim of descent from
the house of Castillione, founding the same upon an inscription on the
apse of the principal church at Gallarate.[2] He asserts that as far back
as 1189 Milo Cardano was Governor of Milan for more than seven years, and
according to tradition Franco Cardano, the commander of the forces of
Matteo Visconti,[3] was a member of the family. If the claim of the
Castillione ancestry be allowed the archives of the race would be still
farther enriched by the name of Pope Celestine IV., Godfrey of Milan, who
was elected Pope in 1241, and died the same year.

Cardan's immediate ancestors were long-lived. The sons of Fazio Cardano,
his great-grandfather, Joanni, Aldo, and Antonio, lived to be severally
ninety-four, eighty-eight, and eighty-six years of age. Of these Joanni
begat two sons: Antonio, who lived eighty-eight years, and Angelo, who
reached the age of eighty-six. To Aldo were born Jacopo, who died at
seventy-two; Gottardo, who died at eighty-four; and Fazio, the father of
Jerome, who died at eighty.[4]

Fazio, albeit he came of such a long-lived stock, and lived himself to be
fourscore, suffered much physical trouble during his life. On account of a
wound which he had received when he was a youth, some of the bones of his
skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain
long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a
certain corrosive poison, which did not kill him, but left him toothless.
He was likewise round-shouldered, a stammerer, and subject to constant
palpitation of the heart; but in compensation for these defects he had
eyes which could see in the dark and which needed not spectacles even in
advanced age.

Of Jerome's mother little is known. Her family seems to have been as
tenacious of life as that of Fazio, for her father Jacopo lived to be
seventy-five years of age. Of his maternal grandfather Jerome remarks that
he was a highly skilled mathematician, and that when he was about seventy
years of age, he was cast into prison for some offence against the law. He
speaks of his mother as choleric in temper, well dowered with memory and
mental parts, small in stature and fat, and of a pious disposition,[5] and
declares that she and his father were alike in one respect, to wit that
they were easily moved to anger and were wont to manifest but lukew