left
it on record that Bandarini was greatly pleased with the match; he ended,
however, by consenting to the migration, which was not made without the
intervention of a warning portent. A short time before the young couple
departed, it happened that a tile got mixed with the embers in Bandarini's
bed-chamber; and, in the course of the night, exploded with a loud
report, and the fragments thereof were scattered around. This event
Bandarini regarded as an augury of evil, and indeed evil followed swiftly
after. Before a year had passed he was dead, some holding that his death
had been hastened by the ill conduct of his eldest son, and others
whispering suspicions of poison.

Jerome and his young wife betook themselves to Milan, but this visit seems
to have been fully as unprofitable as the one he had paid in 1529. In that
year he had to face his first rejection by the College of Physicians, when
he made application for admission; and there is indirect evidence that he
now made a second application with no better result.[54] In any case his
affairs were in a very bad way. If he had money in his pocket he would not
keep long away from the gaming-table; and, with the weight of trouble ever
bearing him down more and more heavily, it is almost certain that his
spirits must have suffered, and that poor Lucia must have passed many an
unhappy hour on account of his nervous irritability. Then the gates of his
profession remained closed to him by the action of the College. The
pretext the authorities gave for their refusal to admit him was his
illegitimate birth; but it is not unlikely that they may have mistrusted
as a colleague the son of Fazio Cardano, and that stories of the
profligate life and the intractable temper of the candidate may have been
brought to them.[55] His health suffered from the bad air of the city
almost as severely as before, and Lucia, who was at this time pregnant,
miscarried at four months, and shortly afterwards had a second misfortune
of the same kind. His mother's temper was not of the sweetest, and it is
quite possible that between her and her daughter-in-law there may have
been strained relations. Cardan at any rate found that he must once more
beat a retreat from Milan, wherefore, at the end of April 1533, he made up
his mind to remove to Gallarate.

This town has already been mentioned as chief place of the district, from
which the Cardan family took its origin. Before going thither Jerome had
evi