Table Of ContentGirolamo Cardano
1501-1576
Girolamo Cardano
1501-1576
Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician,
Astrologer, and Interpreter of Dreams
Markus Fierz
Translated by Helga Niman
1983
Birkhauser
Boston • Basel • Stuttgart
MARKUS FIERZ
Felseneggstrasse 10
CH-8700 Kusnacht
Switzerland
Edited for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,
Zurich, and its Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences by
Jean-Fran<;ois Bergier
Markus Fierz
Roger Kempf
Adolf Muschg
Hans-Werner Tobler
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Fierz, Markus.
Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
Translation of: Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
l. Cardano, Girolamo, 1501-1576.
2. Physicians-Italy-Biography.
3. Mathematicians-Italy-Biography.
4. Astrologers-Italy-Biography. I. Tide.
R 5 2 0 . C 32F5313 610'.92'4 [B) 82-4173
AACR2
ISBN 978-1-4684-9208-8 ISBN 978-1-4684-9206-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4684-9206-4
CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
Fierz, Markus.
Girolamo Cardano: (1501-1576); physician, natural philosopher,
mathematician, astrologer, and interpreter of dreams/Markus Fierz.
Trans!. from the German by Helga Niman.-Boston; Basel; Stuttgart:
Birkhauser, 1982.
Dc. Ausg. unter demselben Titel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without prior permission of the copyright owner.
© Birkhauser Boston, 1983
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover I st edition 1983
AVTOR,IS CA RMEN.
Non me terra teget,cmo fed raptus in alto
IIIuRris uiuam doda per ora uirUm.
QIicquid umturis fpedabit Phu<rE"b us in annis~
Cardanos nofce(, nomen at meum.
Girolamo Cardano
1501-1576
T
'HE PROFILE OF CARDANO reproduced on the
preceding page appears for the first time on the title
page of the Basel edition 1554 of De Subtilitate (Ludovicus
Lucius anno 1554). A similar portrait, somewhat smaller,
can be found on the title page of Cardano's Commentaries
on Cl. Ptolemy's "Quadripartitum" (Basel, Henri Petri
1554). Both woodcuts are reproductions of a medal from
the Mint of Milan ascribed to Leone Leone: vide G. F.
Hill and G. Pollard, "Renaissance Medals from the
S. H. Kress Collection," N. 436 (London, 1967).
All later portraits of Cardano go back to the said wood
cuts. The well-known engraving in Vol. I of the "Opera"
(1663) has the features accentuated to the demonic, re
flecting the baroque, seventeenth century view of Car
dano's personality.
Contents
Preface lX
Preface to the English Edition lX
Introduction Xl
1 Cardano's Life and Writings 1
2 Cardano the Physician 37
3 Natural Philosophy and Theology 56
4 De Subtilitate and De Rerum Varietate 88
5 Astrology 117
6 The Interpretation of Dreams 125
7 On the Art of Living with Oneself 156
Postscript 167
Notes 177
References 193
Appendix 197
Preface
T
HIS STUDY OF GIROLAMO CARDANO is the
work of an amateur in the field of the history of
science and the history of ideas. As a mathematical physi
cist I lack the depth of training in philological-historical
disciplines necessary to discuss the sources of Car
dano's knowledge and trace the influences that shaped
his views on science, medicine, and philosophy.
What little recent literature on Cardano there is some
times shows a lack of true understanding, or is primarily
an appreciation of the mathematician. I relied, therefore,
largely on his own writings, which are collected in the
Opera Omnia. My excerpts and translations are taken di
rectly from these works, and I hope that I have succeeded
in capturing their essential meaning and spirit.
MARKUS FIERZ
Preface to the English Edition
I
THANK the publisher Birkhauser Boston, Incorpo
rated, for the venture of this English edition of my
essay on Cardano that originally appeared in the Poly
Series published by Birkhauser Verlag, and for the care
given to the translation.
For this edition I have added two longer sections: one
on Cardano's voyage to Scotland, and another on a rather
interesting "mathematical theosophy" contained in his
Liber de Proportionibus (Basel, 1570). Also included is a
list of references quoted in the notes, and a record-as
complete as possible-of the original editions of Cardano' s
writings.
MARKUS FIERZ
Introduction
T
HIS MONOGRAPH is an attempt to acquaint the
modern reader wi th the philosophy and scientific
investigations of the universal scholar Girolamo Cardano
of Milan, who lived from 1501 to 1576. Carda no was
a physician, astrologer, and interpreter of dreams. His
significance as a mathematician is undisputed; he enjoyed
an international reputation as a physician among his con
temporaries; and a hundred years later Leibniz still praised
him as a man who was truly knowledgeable. He is the
oldest of the famous Italian natural philosophers, and is
usually mentioned together with Bernado Telesio
(1508-1588) and Francesco Patrizzi (1529-1597). Car
dano greatly influenced Parrizzi, and he surpasses both
his colleagues in the wide range of his interests and
knowledge, as well as in the power of his creative imag
ination. The latter does lead him occasionally toward the
intellectually adventurous, and has prompted comparisons
with his contemporary, Paracelsus (1493-1541).1 Beside
this volcanic visionary, however, Cardano seems dispas
sionate and systematic. Yet, when judged by present-day
standards, his writings do appear rather fantastic and
unmethodical, although they apparently did not make
this impression on his contemporaries! Theirs was a time
of great social upheaval and chaos. Throughout Cardano's
youth and adulthood, the power struggles of Emperor
Charles V (1500-155R), francis I (1494-1547), and
Xl
Introduction
Henry VIII (1491-1547) dominated the life of Europe
and shaped its fate. A succession of wars engulfed Italy
in turmoil and terror-that same Italy where Titian,
Vignola and Palladio were creating their works.
The voluminous corpus of Cardano's writings2 embraces
all the major ideas of his time, and thus conveys an
authentic picture of the intellectual life of the High Re
naissance. His writings contain rudiments and ideas per
taining to almost every scientific and philosophical doc
trine developed during the seventeenth century.
Yet, his name remained familiar only to mathemati
cians. As a philosopher and natural scientist he has prac
tically been forgotten, in much the same way that the
imaginatively comprehensive thought of the Renaissance
has been generally forgotten. The seventeenth century
strove above all for clarity and distinctness of conception
and thought, a goal it finally reached in the scientific
mathematical method, which has asserted its predomi
nance despite its extreme one-sidedness.
This "new science," as it developed toward the end
of the sixteenth century, found its main antagonist in
Scholasticism, that is to say, in the Aristotelian philos
ophy of nature taught in the universities. This prompted
Galileo to introduce in his dialogues the figure of Sim
plicio, the Peripatetic opponent of the new doctrine, as
representative of the philosophy that Galileo attacks. Sim
plicio is portrayed throughout as a learned and amiable
gentleman who knows how to remain gracious even when
attacked for expounding an obsolete theory. Renaissance
philosophy, on the other hand, could not at that time
be considered antiquated. It was anti-Aristotelian, relying
on Plato, the Neo-Platonists and the fabled Hermes Tris
megistus as its authorities. To Galileo, however, this
xii
Introduction
philosophy and conception of nature was not a serious
science, but rather, a form of medieval superstition. Yet
these ideas were by no means medieval-they reflected
the spirit of their time. Apparently, Galileo thought it
beneath his dignity to discuss them seriously. He was,
therefore, all the more surprised that Kepler, his colleague
in the defense of the Copernican doctrine, considered so
called occult causes to be possible, and that he believed,
for example, that the influence of the moon on the earth's
bodies of water caused the tides.1
As a consequence of Galileo's attitude-or of that of
Descartes, for that matter-the natural philosophy of the
Renaissance has received little attention in the history
of philosophy and science. The doctrines of Galileo's out
spoken opponents were, on the other hand, carefully stud
ied. Their merits and their shortcomings were evaluated,
and it was concluded that during its second period Scho
lasticism made notable contributions to physics, on which
Galileo himself relied. 4 These medieval investigations in
the field of optics, mechanics, and the increase and de
crease of quantities, and the scholars who carried them
out-such as Vitelo, Jordanus, the Franciscans at Merton
College, Oxford, the Parisian Scholastics like Buridan and
Oresme-belong to the thirteenth and fourteenth cen
turies. A gap of more than two hundred years separates
the High Middle Ages from the seventeenth century, and
we hear little about the intellectual life of this extended
period.
When judged by the standard of Galilean methods of
investigation, the scientific philosophy of the Renaissance
certainly is minor. But this disregards Kepler's impor
tance and makes his views questionable or inexplicable.
Galileo found them indeed incomprehensible, and Des-
xiii
