Girolamo CardanoReseñas

A smattering of memoir-esque sketches written by Girolamo Cardano (physician, astrologer, inventor of the combination lock and the binomial coefficient, etc.) while under house arrest during the last year of his life.
Cardano flops between being quite personable and almost mad, always retaining a certain eccentricity.
Several sections are dedicated to visions (spectral chains floating in varied shapes around his bed), omens (loud bangs, mysterious animal noises), and other oddities (amnesia-inducing jewelry) which are variously treated according to Cardano's mood; others are dedicated to disparaging Cardano's professional rivals, clearing his own good name, and bemoaning his son's missteps. Cardano boasts of his spectacular feats of memory and rhetoric; describes each book he has written, each skill he has mastered, and each patient he has cured; lists each time another person has mentioned him in one of their books (lists are provided for positive and for negative mentions); and describes each time he has managed to avoid falling pieces of masonry through a strange unconscious foresight. And he always makes sure to inject some humanist proverb or aphorism into his treatment of a subject (with about as good a hit rate as Sancho Panza).

A short introduction to Gambling. I was more interested to know about Probabilities, it gives a basic introduction on gambling. He talks about dices and cards.

"Play is very good test of man's patience or impatience."

Deus Vult
-- Gottfried

A short introduction to Gambling. I was more interested to know about Probabilities, it gives a basic introduction on gambling. He talks about dices and cards.

"Play is very good test of man's patience or impatience."

Deus Vult
-- Gottfried

Interesting account of a 16th c Italian life.....but he's no Montaigne.

CARDANI OPERA OMNIA, cura Sponii, 10 vole. in 5, folio, neat, vellum, £3. ib.. 1663 —
Jerome Cardan was tbe most remarkable, and at the same lime, one of tbe greatest men of the fifteenth century. More was written and said about him, and he himself wrote more, than almost any other writer of the age. He was a mathematician, and is celebrated as the inventor of one of the most Important rules in algebra, which goes by his пaте. Не was a physician, aп astronomer, an eminent metaphysician and moral philosopher. He was called a polypus of science — cut off one head, and a score sprung up — refute him in one department, yet bis fame and reputation stood upon tbe footing of half a dozen others.” Retrospective Review.[19th-Century periodical]

First bought pback on 5/4/83