Gerolamo Cardano

File:Cardano - De propria vita, 1821 - 698063 F.jpg

Cardano was born on 24 September 1501{{Cite web|title=Quick Fact on Cardona|url=https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/didmath/ag_jahnke/leb_ca.pdf|access-date=2 October 2021|website=Universität Duisburg Essen}} in Pavia, Lombardy, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a mathematically gifted jurist, lawyer, and close friend of Leonardo da Vinci. In his autobiography, Cardano wrote that his mother, Chiara Micheri, had taken "various abortive medicines" to terminate the pregnancy; he said: "I was taken by violent means from my mother; I was almost dead." She was in labour for three days.{{cite book|author=Armando Maggi|title=Satan's Rhetoric: A Study of Renaissance Demonology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dF-JHCT9bT0C&pg=PA184|date=1 September 2001|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-50132-1|pages=181–}} Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the Plague; her three other children died from the disease.

After a depressing childhood, with frequent illnesses, and the rough upbringing by his overbearing father, in 1520, Cardano entered the University of Pavia. Against the wish of his father, who wanted his son to undertake studies of law, Girolamo felt more attracted to philosophy and science. During the Italian War of 1521–1526, however, the authorities in Pavia were forced to close the university in 1524.{{Cite book|title=Pavia 1525 : the climax of the Italian wars|last=Angus.|first=Konstam|date=1996|publisher=Osprey Military|isbn=1855325047|location=London|oclc=36143257}} Cardano resumed his studies at the University of Padua, where he graduated with a doctorate in medicine in 1525.{{cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html|title=Cardan biography|publisher=MacTutor History of Mathematics archive|access-date=30 October 2017}} His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after he completed his studies. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not admitted owing to his combative reputation and illegitimate birth. However, he was consulted by many members of the College of Physicians, because of his irrefutable intelligence.{{Cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Cardan.html|title = Girolamo Cardano - Biography}}

Cardano wanted to practice medicine in a large, rich city like Milan, but he was denied a license to practice, so he settled for the town of Piove di Sacco, where he practised without a license. There, he married Lucia Banderini in 1531. Before her death in 1546, they had three children, Giovanni Battista (1534), Chiara (1537) and Aldo Urbano (1543). Cardano later wrote that those were the happiest days of his life.

With the help of a few noblemen, Cardano obtained a mathematics teaching position in Milan. Having finally received his medical license, he practised mathematics and medicine simultaneously, treating a few influential patients in the process. Because of this, he became one of the most sought-after doctors in Milan. In fact, by 1536, he was able to quit his teaching position, although he was still interested in mathematics. His notability in the medical field was such that the aristocracy tried to lure him out of Milan. Cardano later wrote that he turned down offers from the kings of Denmark and France, and the Queen of Scotland.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/mathmathematicia00brun|title=Math and mathematicians: the history of math discoveries around the world|last=Bruno|first=Leonard C|date=2003|orig-year=1999|publisher=U X L|others=Baker, Lawrence W.|isbn=0787638137|location=Detroit, Mich.|pages=60|oclc=41497065|url-access=registration}}

File:Gerolamo Cardano (colour).jpg]]

Gerolamo Cardano was the first European mathematician to make systematic use of negative numbers.Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Numbers, published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, 1966, 1977, page 119. He published with attribution the solution of Scipione del Ferro to the cubic equation and the solution of Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari to the quartic equation in his 1545 book Ars Magna, an influential work on algebra. The solution to one particular case of the cubic equation $ax^3+bx+c=0${{cite book|last=Burton|first=David|title=The History of Mathematics: An Introduction|edition=7th (2010)|publisher= McGraw-Hill|location=New York}} (in modern notation) had been communicated to him in 1539 by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long dispute) in the form of a poem,V.J. Katz, A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, 3rd edn. (Boston: Pearson Education, 2009). but del Ferro's solution predated Tartaglia's. In his exposition, he acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties, described for the first time by his Italian contemporary Rafael Bombelli. In Opus novum de proportionibus he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem.

Cardano was chronically short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, Liber de ludo aleae ("Book on Games of Chance"), written around 1564,In Chapter 20 of Liber de Ludo Aleae he describes a personal experience from 1526 and then adds that "thirty-eight years have passed" [elapsis iam annis triginta octo]. This sentence is written by Cardano around 1564, age 63. but not published until 1663, contains the first systematic treatment of probability,Katz, ibid., p. 488 as well as a section on effective cheating methods. He used the game of throwing dice to understand the basic concepts of probability. He demonstrated the efficacy of defining odds as the ratio of favourable to unfavourable outcomes (which implies that the probability of an event is given by the ratio of favourable outcomes to the total number of possible outcomes).[http://www.columbia.edu/~pg2113/index_files/Gorroochurn-Some%20Laws.pdf Some laws and problems in classical probability and how Cardano anticipated them Gorrochum, P. Chancemagazine 2012] He was also aware of the multiplication rule for independent events but was not certain about what values should be multiplied.Katz, ibid., p. 488

{{more citations needed section|date=September 2017}}

File:Leone leoni (attr.), medaglia di girolamo cardano, verso con sogno di cardano, 1550-51.JPG, 1550–51]]

Cardano was a music theorist who studied music privately in Milan in his youth. He wrote two treatises on music, both of which were titled De Musica. The first was published within his 1663 work Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis Opera Omnia. It is of interest to scholars on the history of woodwind instruments because of its discussion of instruments from that family. The second treatise was published in 1574, and a copy of it is held in the Vatican Library. The work is valuable for studies in harmony for its discussion of the use of microtones. It is also of interest to scholars of historically informed performance practice for its details on 16th century performance. The later treatise of music Della natura de principii et regole musicali which has been attributed to Cardano by some, is according to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians most likely falsely attributed to Cardano and is by another writer. Cardano also dabbled in composing, writing the motet Beati estis which is scored for 12 voices and contains four overlapping canons.{{Cite encyclopedia|date= 2001|entry=Cardano, Girolamo [Cardan, Jerome; Cardanus, Hieronymous]|encyclopedia=Grove Music Online|publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.04908|author=Clement A. Miller|title=Cardano, Girolamo }}

Cardano's work with hypocycloids led him to Cardan's Movement or Cardan Gear mechanism, in which a pair of gears with the smaller being one-half the size of the larger gear is used to convert rotational motion to linear motion with greater efficiency and precision than a Scotch yoke, for example.{{cite web|title=How does a Cardan gear mechanism work?|url=http://www.mekanizmalar.com/cardan_gear.html|publisher=Seyhan Ersoy|access-date=1 April 2015}} He is also credited with the invention of the Cardan suspension or gimbal.

Cardano made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic writing tool, in 1550.

Significantly, in the history of education of the deaf, he said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to speak first. He was familiar with a report by Rudolph Agricola about a deaf-mute who had learned to write.

Cardano's medical writings included: a commentary on Mundinus' anatomy and of Galen's medicine, along with the treaties Delle cause, dei segni e dei luoghi delle malattie, Picciola terapeutica, Degli abusi dei medici and Delle orine, libro quattro.{{cite journal|first1=David Eugene|last1=Smith|author-link1=David Eugene Smith|title=Medicine and Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century|pmc=7927718|pmid= 33943138|journal=Ann Med Hist.|date=July 1, 1917|volume= 1|issue=2|pages=125–140|oclc=12650954}} (here cited p. 130).

Cardano has been credited with the invention of the so-called Cardano's Rings, also called Chinese Rings, but it is very probable that they predate Cardano. The universal joint, sometimes called Cardan joint, was not described by Cardano.

File:Cardano, Girolamo – De subtilitate, 1559 – BEIC 3024364.jpg

As quoted from Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology:

The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, De Subtilitate (corresponding to what would now be called transcendental philosophy), would lead us to expect, in the chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former sojourn of the sea upon the mountains.Charles Lyell, [https://archive.org/details/principlesgeolo01unkngoog Principles of Geology], 1832, p.29

File:Leone leoni, medaglia di girolamo cardano.JPG (1509–1590)]]

In 1552 Cardano travelled to Scotland with the Spanish physician William Casanatus, via London,C. S. Knighton, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Edward VI (London, 1992), p. 241 no. 652. to treat the Archbishop of St Andrews who suffered of a disease that had left him speechless and was thought incurable. The treatment was a success and the diplomat Thomas Randolph recorded that "merry tales" about Cardano's methods were still current in Edinburgh in 1562.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 592: James Melville, Memoirs of his own life (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 21, 73. Cardano and Casanatus argued over the Archbishop's cure.Markus Fierz, Girolamo Cardano: 1501–1576 Physician, Natural Philosopher Mathematician (Birkhäuser Boston, 1983), pp. 8–11. Cardano wrote that the Archbishop had been short of breath for ten years, and after the cure was effected by his assistant, he was paid 1,400 gold crowns.Cardanus, Gerolamo, [https://books.google.com/books?id=blA9AAAAcAAJ De Propria Vita Liber (Amsterdam, 1654), pp. 136-7]

Two of Cardano's children — Giovanni Battista and Aldo Urbano — came to ignoble ends. Giovanni Battista, Cardano's eldest and favourite son was arrested in 1560 for having poisoned his wife, after he had discovered that their three children were not his. Giovanni was put to trial and, when Cardano could not pay the restitution demanded by the victim's family, was sentenced to death and beheaded.{{cite web |last1=Schaefer |first1=John |title=Cardano's Demons: Renaissance Demonology and Divination |url=https://www.harvardsynthesis.com/post/cardano-s-demons-renaissance-demonology-and-divination |website=Harvard Synthesis Journal |date=26 April 2021 |access-date=26 January 2025}} Gerolamo's other son Aldo Urbano was a gambler, who stole money from his father, and so Cardano disinherited him in 1569.

Cardano moved from Pavia to Bologna, in part because he believed that the decision to execute his son was influenced by Gerolamo's battles with the academic establishment in Pavia, and his colleagues' jealousy at his scientific achievements, and also because he was beset with allegations of sexual impropriety with his students. He obtained a position as professor of medicine at the University of Bologna.

Cardano was arrested by the Inquisition in 1570 after an accusation of heresy by the Inquisitor of Como, who targeted Cardano's De rerum varietate (1557).{{Cite journal|last=Valente|first=Michaela|date=2017|title=Facing the Roman Inquisition: Cardano and Della Porta|journal=Bruniana e Campanelliana|volume=23|issue=2|pages=533–540|doi=10.19272/201704102017}} The inquisitors complained about Cardano's writings on astrology, especially his claim that self-harming religiously motivated actions of martyrs and heretics were caused by the stars.{{Cite journal|last=Regier|first=Jonathan|date=2019|title=Reading Cardano with the Roman Inquisition: Astrology, Celestial Physics, and the Force of Heresy|url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8608904/file/8651154.pdf|journal=Isis|volume=110|issue=4|pages=661–679|doi=10.1086/706783|hdl=1854/LU-8608904|s2cid=201272821}} In his 1543 book De Supplemento Almanach, a commentary on the astrological work Tetrabiblos by Ptolemy, Cardano had also published a horoscope of Jesus. Cardano was imprisoned for several months and lost his professorship in Bologna. He abjured and was freed, probably with help from powerful churchmen in Rome. All his non-medical works were prohibited and placed on the Index.

He moved to Rome, where he received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V, who died in 1572) and finished his autobiography. He was accepted into the Royal College of Physicians, and as well as practising medicine he continued his philosophical studies until his death in 1576.{{cite web |last1=Smoller |first1=Laura |title=CARDANO'S COSMOS: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer |url=https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/undefined/cardanos-cosmos-worlds-and-works-renaissance-astrologer |access-date=26 January 2025 |website=Wilson's Quarterly}}

The seventeenth-century English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne possessed the ten volumes of the Lyon 1663 edition of the complete works of Cardan in his library.J.S. Finch (ed.), A Facsimile of the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward's Libraries, with Introduction, notes and index (E.J. Brill: Leiden, 1986).

Browne critically viewed Cardan as:

that famous Physician of Milan, a great Enquirer of Truth, but too greedy a Receiver of it. He hath left many excellent Discourses, Medical, Natural, and Astrological; the most suspicious are those two he wrote by admonition in a dream, that is De Subtilitate & Varietate Rerum. Assuredly this learned man hath taken many things upon trust, and although examined some, hath let slip many others. He is of singular use unto a prudent Reader; but unto him that only desireth Hoties,{{efn|plural of “hoti”: Greek ὅτι, “because”}} or to replenish his head with varieties; like many others before related, either in the Original or confirmation, he may become no small occasion of Error.Pseudodoxia Epidemica Bk 1: chapter 8 no. 13

Richard Hinckley Allen tells of an amusing reference made by Samuel Butler in his book Hudibras:

{{poemquote|

Cardan believ'd great states depend

Upon the tip o'th' Bear's tail's end;

That, as she wisk'd it t'wards the Sun,

Strew'd mighty empires up and down;

Which others say must needs be false,

Because your true bears have no tails.}}

Alessandro Manzoni's novel I Promessi Sposi portrays a pedantic scholar of the obsolete, Don Ferrante, as a great admirer of Cardano. Significantly, he values him only for his superstitious and astrological writings; his scientific writings are dismissed because they contradict Aristotle, but excused on the ground that the author of the astrological works deserves to be listened to even when he is wrong.

English novelist E. M. Forster's Abinger Harvest, a 1936 volume of essays, authorial reviews and a play, provides a sympathetic treatment of Cardano in the section titled 'The Past'. Forster believes Cardano was so absorbed in "self-analysis that he often forgot to repent of his bad temper, his stupidity, his licentiousness, and love of revenge" (212).

• De malo recentiorum medicorum medendi usu libellus, Hieronymus Scotus, Venice, 1536 (on medicine).1545 edition, Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/hin-wel-all-00000131-001/page/n11 Internet Archive].
• Practica arithmetice et mensurandi singularis (on mathematics), Io. Antoninus Castellioneus/Bernadino Caluscho, Milan, 1539.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/hin-wel-all-00000134-001/page/n8 Internet Archive].
• De Consolatione, Libri tres, Hieronymus Scotus, Venice, 1542.Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=evs5AAAAcAAJ Google].
• Translation into English by T. Bedingfield (1573).T. Bedingfield, Cardanus Comforte, T. Marshe, London 1573. Full text (page views) at [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35556001441757;view=1up;seq=7 Hathi Trust].
• Libelli duo: De Supplemento Almanach; De Restitutione temporum et motuum coelestium; Item Geniturae LXVII insignes casibus et fortuna, cum expositione, Iohan. Petreius, Norimbergae, 1543.Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=8d5SAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP5 Google].
• De Sapientia, Libri quinque, Iohan. Petreius, Norimbergae, 1544 (with De Consolatione reprint and De Libris Propriis, book I).Full text (original page views) at [https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&bandnummer=bsb10166666&pimage=00001&v=100&nav=&l=en Bayerische StaatsBibliothek]; De Sapientia at pp. 1-273.
• De Immortalitate animorum, Henric Petreius, Nuremberg 1544/Sebastianus Gryphius, Lyons, 1545.1545 edition, Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_42261/page/n6 Google].
• Contradicentium medicorum (on medicine), Hieronymus Scotus, Venetijs, 1545.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_jGhH5AVrxyIC Google].
• Artis magnae, sive de regulis algebraicis (on algebra: also known as Ars magna), Iohan. Petreius, Nuremberg, 1545.[http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/testi/operaomnia/vol_4_s_4.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626092254/http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/testi/operaomnia/vol_4_s_4.pdf|date=26 June 2008}} An electronic copy of his book Ars Magna (in Latin)Full text (original page views) at [https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&bandnummer=bsb00029375&pimage=5&v=100&nav=&l=fr Bayerische StaatsBibliothek]; another at [https://archive.org/details/hieronymicardan00card/page/n3 Internet Archive].
• Translation into English by D. Witmer (1968).{{Citation |translator=Witmer, T. Richard |others=foreword by Ore, Oystein |orig-year=1968 |year=2007 |title=The Rules of Algebra: Ars Magna |series=Dover Books on Mathematics |publisher=Dover Publications |page=304 |url={{Google books|ZMZY79bvOPgC|The Rules of Algebra: Ars Magna|plainurl=yes}} |isbn=978-0-486-45873-1 }}
• Della Natura de Principii e Regole Musicale, ca 1546 (on music theory: in Italian): posthumously published.C. Sponius (ed.), Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis opera omnia (Lyons, 1663), IV, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7lW9Odn9kbMC&pg=PA621 pp. 621-end] (Google). (most likely falsely attributed to Cardano)
• De Subtilitate rerum (on natural phenomena), Johann Petreius, Nuremberg, 1550.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/hin-wel-all-00000138-001/page/n8 Internet Archive]; another at [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/06d8c190-6ca1-0134-ecf8-00505686a51c#/?uuid=081debe0-6ca1-0134-d24f-00505686a51c New York Public Libraries]. Paris 1550 edition, Michael Fezandat and Robert GranIon (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Tmf3wRsurVsC Google].
• Translation into English by J.M. Forrester (2013).J.M. Forrester (trans.), The De Subtilitate of Girolamo Cardano (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe 2013).
• Metoposcopia libris tredecim, et octingentis faciei humanae eiconibus complexa (on physiognomy), written 1550 (published posthumously by Thomas Jolly, Paris (Lutetiae Parisiorum), 1658).Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=K4_j9ikw3ZQC Google].
• In Cl. Ptolemaei Pelusiensis IIII, De Astrorum judiciis... libros commentaria: cum eiusdem De Genituris libro, Henrichus Petri, Basle, 1554.1554 edition, Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=BoVAcgAACAAJ Google]; from [https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb11199111?page=1 Bayerische StaatsBibliothek/Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum]. 1578 Heinrich Petri edition, Basle, at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_ex9DAAAAcAAJ Google].
• Geniturarum Exemplar (De Genituris liber, separate printing), Theobaldus Paganus, Lyons, 1555.Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ii1mAAAAcAAJ&pg=Frontcover Google].
• Ars Curandi Parva (written c. 1556).1564/66 edition, 2 volumes, HenricPetrini, Basel, Full texts at Google, [https://books.google.com/books?id=wBc8AAAAcAAJ Vol. I], [https://books.google.com/books?id=cwo8AAAAcAAJ Vol. II].
• De Libris propriis (about the books he has written, and his successes in medical work), Gulielmus Rouillius, Leiden, 1557.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_BEKRqbLNspoC/page/n22 Google].
• De Rerum varietate, Libri XVII (on natural phenomena); (Revised edition), Matthaeus Vincentius, Avignon 1558.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/dererumvarietate00card Internet Archive]. Another at [https://archive.org/details/dererumvarietate00card Google]. Also Basle, Henricus Petri, 1559.D.F. Larder, 'The Editions of Cardanus' "De rerum varietate"', Isis, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Spring, 1968), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/227853?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents pp. 74-77] (JSTOR, open).1581 Basle edition (original page views) at [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-30760 University and State Library, Düsseldorf].
• Actio prima in calumniatorem (reply to J.C. Scaliger), 1557.
• De Utilitate ex adversis capienda, Libri IIII (on the uses of adversity), Henrich Petri, Basle, 1561.Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=yvA5AAAAcAAJ&pg=Frontcover Google].
• Theonoston, seu De Tranquilitate, 1561. (Opera, Vol. II).
• Somniorum synesiorum omnis generis insomnia explicantes, Libri IIII (Book of Dreams: with other writings), Henricus Petri, Basle 1562.1582 edition, Full text (original page views) at [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31378008334701;view=1up;seq=5 Hathi Trust].
• Neronis encomium (a life of Nero), Basle, 1562.Full text (John and Cornelius Blaeu, Amsterdam 1640 edition) (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=SLxlAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1 Google].
• Translation into English by A. Paratico (2012).A. Paratico (trans.), Nero: An Exemplary Life, by Girolamo Cardano (Inkstone publications, Chameleon Press, Hong Kong 2012).
• De Providentia ex anni constitutione, Alexander Benaccius, Bononiae, 1563.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_1QO_LLNWsfgC Internet Archive]; another at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_DC7VCLsZWEUC Google].
• De Methodo medendi, Paris, In Aedibus Rouillii, 1565.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/hieronymicardan00cardgoog Internet Archive]. Another at [https://books.google.com/books?id=61Y8OvcLlJcC Google].
• De Causis, signis ac locis morborum, Liber unus, Alexander Benatius, Bononiae, 1569.Full text (original page views) at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_n3cWySvr9EAC Internet Archive]; also in [https://books.google.com/books?id=xNfImxD_bjcC Google].
• Commentarii in Hippocratis Coi Prognostica, Opus Divinum; Commentarii De Aere, aquis et locis opus, Henric Petrina Officina, Basel, 1568/1570.1568 and 1570 editions, Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=Xt9mLetwdjwC Google]. 1570 only, at [https://books.google.com/books?id=7LaUZXtgBd0C&dq=Cardani%2C+Commentarii&pg=PP7 Google]; another at [http://dl.ub.uni-freiburg.de/diglit/cardano1570/0005?sid=dfe96b2dd4d60a8929c4814db2ee7d87 Freiburger historische Beistände].
• Opus novum, De Proportionibus numerorum, motuum, ponderum, sonorum, aliarumque rerum mensurandarum. Item de aliza regula, Henric Petrina, Basel, 1570.Full text (original page views) at [https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10147886?page=5 Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum/Bayerische Staatsbibliothek] or at [https://books.google.com/books?id=XyRFAAAAcAAJ Google].
• Opus novum, cunctis De Sanitate tuenda, Libri quattuor, Sebastian HenricPetri, Basle, 1569.Text (incomplete, original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4ZEAAAAcAAJ&pg=Frontcover Google]. Franciscus Zannettus, Rome 1580, Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=x7hfAAAAcAAJ&pg=Frontcover Google].
• De Vita propria, 1576 (autobiography).Full text (page views): Iacobus Villery, Paris 1653, edition at [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_XsKYeQO_FiQC/page/n3 Internet Archive]; Amsterdam 1654 edition at [https://books.google.com/books?id=blA9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PP7 Google].
• Translation into English by J. Stoner (2002).{{Citation |translator=Stoner, Jean |others=introduction by Grafton, Anthony |year=2002 |title=The Book of My Life |series=New York Review Books Classics |publisher=NYRB Classics |page=320 |isbn=978-1-59017-016-8 }}
• Liber De Ludo aleae ("On Casting the Die"; on probability): posthumously published.C. Sponius (ed.), Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis opera omnia (Lyons, 1663), I, [https://archive.org/details/imgmar3940MiscellaneaOpal/page/n309 pp. 262-76] (Internet Archive).J. Gullberg, Mathematics from the birth of numbers (W.W. Norton & Company, 1997), p. 963. {{ISBN|0-393-04002-X}} {{ISBN|978-0-393-04002-9}}
• Translation into English by S.H. Gould (1961).{{Citation |translator=Gould, Sydney Henry |others=foreword by Wilks, Samuel S. |orig-year=1961 |year=2015 |title=The Book on Games of Chance: The 16th-Century Treatise on Probability |series=Dover Recreational Math |publisher=Dover Publications |page=64 |url={{Google books|SJXkCgAAQBAJ|The Book on Games of Chance|plainurl=yes}} |isbn=978-0-486-79793-9 }}
• Proxeneta, seu De Prudentia Civili (posthumously published: Paulus Marceau, Geneva, 1630).Full text (original page views) at [https://books.google.com/books?id=paP6XYvZZTwC&pg=PP5 Google].

A chronological key to this edition is supplied by M. Fierz.M. Fierz (trans. H. Niman), Girolamo Cardano, 1501-1576, Physician, Natural Philosopher, Mathematician, Astrologer and Interpreter of Dreams (Birkhäuser, Boston/Basel/Stuttgart 1983), [https://books.google.com/books?id=8ED2BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA32 pp. 32-33] (Google).

• Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis Opera Omnia, cura Carolii Sponii (Lugduni, Ioannis Antonii Huguetan and Marci Antonii Ravaud, 1663) (10 volumes, Latin):
• Volume 1: Philologica, Logica, Moralia ([https://archive.org/details/imgmar3940MiscellaneaOpal/page/n2 Internet Archive]; another at [https://books.google.com/books?id=r25kAAAAcAAJ Google]; another at [https://books.google.com/books?id=5-ioDlZFawwC Google])
• Volume 2: Moralia Quaedam et Physica ([https://books.google.com/books?id=8kcIpBqL0lUC&pg=PP5 Google])
• Volume 3: Physica ([https://books.google.com/books?id=FpcIo8qMPf8C Google])
• Volume 4: Arithmetica, Geometrica, Musica ([https://books.google.com/books?id=7lW9Odn9kbMC Google])
• Volume 5: Astronomica, Astrologica, Onirocritica ([https://archive.org/stream/imgmar3940aooMiscellaneaOpal?ui=embed#mode/2up Internet Archive]; another at [https://books.google.com/books?id=tVUdw5vpyE4C Google])
• Volume 6: Medicinalium I ([https://books.google.com/books?id=Jyh0yuZZZTwC Google])
• Volume 7: Medicinalium II ([https://books.google.com/books?id=yUy3wOyaTn0C Google])
• Volume 8: Medicinalium III ([https://books.google.com/books?id=jOoxQeT40foC Google])
• Volume 9: Medicinalium IV ([https://books.google.com/books?id=xbwhwVSR324C Google])
• Volume 10: Opuscula Miscellanea ([https://books.google.com/books?id=GAczc2s-cDYC Google])

• Blow book, an early form of art or magic trick initially uncovered by Gerolamo Cardano
• Negative numbers, the core of Cardano's major contributions to science and mathematics

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{{Reflist}}

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• {{cite book |first=Filippo|last=Picinelli|author-link=Filippo Picinelli|title=Ateneo dei letterati milanesi |date=1670 |publisher=Vigone |location=Milan |pages=335–7}}
• Cardano, Girolamo, Astrological Aphorisms of Cardan. Edmonds, WA: Sure Fire Press, 1989.
• Cardano, Girolamo, The Book of My Life. trans. by Jean Stoner. New York: New York Review of Books, 2002.
• Cardano, Girolamo, Opera omnia, Charles Sponi, ed., 10 vols. Lyons, 1663.
• Cardano, Girolamo, Nero: an Exemplary Life Inckstone 2012, translation in English of the Neronis Encomium.
• Dunham, William, Journey through Genius, Chapter 6, 1990, John Wiley and Sons. {{ISBN|0-471-50030-5}}. Discusses Cardano's life and solution of the cubic equation.
• Ekert, Artur, "Complex and unpredictable Cardano". International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 47, Issue 8, pp. 2101–2119. arXiv e-print ([https://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0485 arXiv:0806.0485]).
• Giglioni, Guido, "'Bolognan boys are beautiful, tasteful and mostly fine musicians': Cardano on male same-sex love and music", in: Kenneth Borris & George Rousseau (curr.), The sciences of homosexuality in early modern Europe, Routledge, London 2007, pp. 201–220.
• Grafton, Anthony, [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674006706 Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer.] Harvard University Press, 2001.
• Morley, Henry, The life of Girolamo Cardano, of Milan, Physician 2 vols. Chapman & Hall, London 1854.
• Ore, Øystein, Cardano, the Gambling Scholar. Princeton, 1953.
• Rutkin, H. Darrel, "Astrological conditioning of same-sexual relations in Girolamo Cardano's theoretical treatises and celebrity genitures", in: Kenneth Borris & George Rousseau (curr.), The sciences of homosexuality in early modern Europe, Routledge, London 2007, pp. 183–200.
• Sirasi, Nancy G., The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine, Princeton University Press, 1997.

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• Georgio Vivi (ed.), Cardani Mediolanensis Philosophi ac Medici Celeberrimi Bibliographia, Tertia Editio (Author, 'Cosmopoli', 2018). A bibliography of works referring to Cardano.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20121221212618/http://www.arturekert.org/Site/Varia_files/NewCardano.pdf A recreational article about Cardano and the discovery of the two basic ingredients of quantum theory, probability and complex numbers.]
• {{MacTutor Biography|id=Cardan}}
• [http://www.chlt.org/sandbox/lhl/dsb/page.64.php History of Science Collection] at Linda Hall Library
• {{CE1913|wstitle=Girolamo Cardan}}
• [http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/index.php Girolamo Cardano, Strumenti per la storia del Rinascimento in Italia settentrionale (in Italian)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015232109/http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/index.php |date=15 October 2015 }} and [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/index.php%3Fpage%3Dbiblio&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.filosofia.unimi.it/cardano/index.php%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG English]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120324053652/http://hos.ou.edu/galleries//01Ancient/HeroOfAlexandria/1575//15thCentury/Vespucci//16thCentury/Cardano/ Online Galleries], History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries High-resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Gerolamo Cardano in .jpg and .tiff format.
• Forster, E.M. 'Cardan' in Abinger Harvest (1936). Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 208–221.
• {{cite journal|last1=Forster|first1=E.M.|title=Cardan|journal=Independent Review|date=1 January 1905|volume=5|pages=365–374|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=UNQRAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA365|access-date=25 February 2015}}
• [https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.2181 "Cardano v Tartaglia: The Great Feud Out of Bounds"] by Tony Rothman
• [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/general.23471.1 De Subtilitate Libri XXI] From the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the Library of Congress
• W.G. Waters, Jerome Cardan, a Biographical Study (Lawrence and Bullen, London 1898), from [https://archive.org/details/jeromecardanbiog00wateuoft/page/n13 Internet Archive] (A barely-disguised re-hash of Morley's work)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardano, Gerolamo}}

Category:1501 births

Category:1576 deaths

Category:16th-century writers in Latin

Category:16th-century Italian mathematicians

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Category:Italian astrologers

Category:16th-century astrologers

Category:16th-century Italian inventors

Category:Physicians from Pavia

Category:University of Pavia alumni

Category:Scientists from Pavia

Category:Italian music theorists