Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576)

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).… (altro)