Girolamo Cardano: VENICE

In his 20s and early 30s, Girolamo Cardano lived in the Veneto (i.e. near Venice). He finished his medical degree in Padua, having studied first in Pavia until the university there was closed due to French invasion and war. After graduating from Padua with his medical degree (and for prejudicial reasons being denied a license by the College of Physicians in Milan), Cardano moved to the small town Piove di Sacco just east of Padua. He practiced medicine independently there. In his autobiography, he writes of his days in Sacco being the happiest of his life. 

There was at least one one not-so-happy event during this time, however. It involves a run-in with a Venetian senator.

Senate Hall, Doge's Palace, Venice

The ceiling of Senate Hall, Doge's Palace, Venice

Cardano was one of the greatest mathematical minds of his era. He also spent large chunks of his life in poverty and had to turn to gambling to make ends meet. Due to his mathematical skill, he did well at gambling. In fact, he was the first to make a study of probability as something that could be measured. He predated Pascal and Fermat by about 100 years on that, but he left his book in manuscript form and didn't publish. Anyway, back to the story. Cardano was gambling with a Venetian Senator - no one knows the senator's name for sure at this point* - nor where he lived, but senators were wealthy, so let's imagine the pallazo pictured below as representative of the senator's home - very imposing.

Door to Palazzo Van Axel

Palazzo Van Axel

As they played, Cardano was losing money. They continued the next day, and he lost the rest of his money. This was not normal for Cardano, given that he had an understanding of probability that others in his day did not have. Eventually he realize the cards were marked, and he struck out at the senator with a dagger, leaving a gash on his face. Despite having done this and despite the senator having two young bodyservants in the room, they kept on playing. Now that Cardano knew that the cards were marked, he began winning and recovered all the money (his own and that of the senator) - along with clothes and rings that he had lost the previous day. Wanting to make amends for having harmed the senator, he threw some of the money back and then escaped the house - fighting his way through the house-servants who were unable to use weapons. The senator, weighing what he had to gain or lose, having defrauded Cardano, ordered the door opened and Cardano let go.

Of the rest of the evening Cardano writes in his memoirs: 

"On that same day about eight o'clock in the evening, while I was doing my best to escape from the clutches of the police because I had offered violence to a Senator, and keeping meanwhile my weapons beneath my cloak, I suddenly slipped, deceived in the dark, and fell into a canal. I kept my presence of mind even as I plunged, threw out my right arm, and, grasping the gunwale of a passing boat, was rescued by the passengers. When I scrambled aboard the skiff, I discovered in it, to my surprise, the Senator with whom I had just gambled. He had the wounds on his face bound up with a dressing; yet he willingly enough brought me out a suit of garments such as sailors wear. Dressed in these clothes, I traveled with him as far as Padua."**

So, the "not-so-good" situation had a happy ending!

Having walked all around Venice the last 4 days, I can certainly see how he could have slipped. The walkways can be very narrow - or can dead-end unexpectedly into a canal - and some canals are edged in marble, which is very slippery.

In order to "walk in the same footsteps" or "sail the same waters" as Cardano, I took a gondola ride today. I imagine that his experience was much different than mine. For one thing, I wasn't soaking wet. For another, I'm sure the senator had a fancy gondola with an enclosure.

*In his uniquely wonderful novel, The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook, author Michael Brooks gives the Senator's name as Thomas Lezun. I believe this comes from an early biography of Cardano.

**Quote taken from Cardano's The Book of My Life, chapter 30, titled: "Perils, Accidents, and Manifold, Diverse, and Persistent Treacheries." The book is quite the read - very eccentric. It's a biography like what I would want to write about myself!