## 1. Life and Philosophical Works



Girolamo Cardano was born in Pavia in 1501 from Fazio and Chiara
Micheri. Chiara delivered her baby in Pavia, in the house of family
friends, and not in Milan, to defuse a possible scandal concerning the
illegitimate birth. Fazio would marry Chiara and recognize Girolamo
only later in 1524, just before his death. After a difficult
childhood, saddened by frequent illnesses and the harsh upbringing by
his overbearing father, Cardano enrolled at the University of Pavia to
study medicine in 1520 against his father's wish. Fazio
(1445-1524), a jurist and an accomplished practitioner of
mathematics and natural philosophy (in 1480 he had published an
edition of John Peckham's *Perspectiva communis*
("General Optics"), written around 1265), wanted his son
to undertake studies of law, but Girolamo felt more attracted to
philosophy and science. When, due to the ongoing war between France
and Spain, the authorities in Pavia were forced to close the
university, Cardano resumed his studies at the University of Padua,
where he graduated in medicine in 1526. For about six years, he
practised as a physician in Saccolungo, a village close to Padua,
where he met and married Lucia Bandareni (1531). Three children were
born from this marriage: Giovanni Battista (1534), Chiara (1537) and
Aldo (1543). In the meantime, Cardano had been trying several times to
become a member of the College of Physicians in Milan, but his
applications had always been turned down, adding to his professional
frustration and disappointment. Rejections notwithstanding, he moved
back to Milan with his family in 1532. He divided his time between
practising medicine in Gallarate, a town nearby Milan, and teaching
mathematics in the Piattine schools of Milan, a charitable institution
founded by the nobleman Tommaso Piatti in 1501 to improve knowledge of
Greek, logic, astronomy, and mathematics among Milanese students from
a poor background. Fazio, too, had previously taught in this school.
In the meantime, his reputation as a successful practitioner in
medicine began to spread among the important families of Milan. In
1539 his application to become a member of the College of Physicians
was finally accepted. Discontinuously, from 1543 to 1551, he taught
medicine at the University of Pavia, until 1552, when he went to
Scotland to treat the Archbishop of Edinburgh, John Hamilton, who was
suffering from a particularly severe form of asthma. Back to Milan in
1553, he resumed teaching in Pavia in 1559. In 1560 his son Giovanni
Battista was executed charged with the murder of his wife, Brandona
Seroni, whom, against his father's will, he had married in 1557.
This tragic event represented a turning point in Cardano's life
and intellectual career. In 1562, he decided to leave Pavia, whose
academic environment had become increasingly hostile, to teach
medicine in Bologna. As a result of mounting suspicions that he was
actively spreading heretical views, he was arrested on 6 October 1570
and remained in prison until 22 December of the same year. In February
1571, before the Sacred Congregation led by Antonio Baldinucci,
Cardano was required to acknowledge and reject his serious crimes
against the faith (*abiura de vehementi*), having been declared
"vehemently suspect of heresy." He solemnly swore that he
would no longer teach and publish books until his death. In 1571 he
went to Rome to serve as personal physician to Pope Pius V and then
Pope Gregory XIII. After having been admitted to the College of
Physicians in 1575, he died in Rome, on 20 September 1576, devoting
his last energies (from September 1575 to May 1576) to write his
autobiography, *De vita propria*, published posthumously by
Gabriel Naude in 1643.



Cardano wrote and published a vast amount of works, in the most
disparate fields of knowledge, especially medicine, mathematics,
astrology and natural history. His strictly philosophical treatises
include: *De arcanis aeternitatis* ("The Mysteries of
Eternity", began at the end of the 1530s and published partially
in the posthumous *Opera omnia* in 1663); *De
consolatione* ("On Consolation", 1543); *De
sapientia* ("On Wisdom", 1544); *De animi
immortalitate* ("On the Immortality of the Soul",
1545); *De subtilitate* ("On Subtlety", 1550, 1554,
1560), and its twin book *De rerum varietate* ("On the
Variety of Things", 1557); *Theonoston* ("Divine
Knowledge", written in the middle of 1550s and published
posthumously in 1617 and 1663); *De utilitate ex adversis
capienda* ("On Gaining Advantage from Misfortunes",
1561); *Encomium Neronis* ("Praise of Nero");
*Dialectica* ("Dialectic"), *De uno*
("On the One"), *Tetim seu de humana conditione*
("Tetim, or On the Human Condition"), *De minimis et
propinquis* ("On Those Things which are Smallest and Closest
to Hand"), *De summo bono* ("On the Highest
Good") and *Guglielmus*, *sive de morte*
("William, or On Death"), all published in 1562;
*Antigorgias dialogus sive de recta vivendi ratione*
("Anti-Gorgias, or On the Right Way to Live"),
*Hyperchen* ("Being") and *De Socratis
studio* ("On the Earnestness of Socrates"), published
in 1566; *Proxeneta seu de prudentia civili* ("The
Mediator, or Civic Prudence", published posthumously in 1627 and
1663); *Paralipomena* ("Supplements", begun in 1561
and published posthumously in 1663). Other works were published
posthumously in the *Opera omnia* edited by the French
physician Charles Spon (1609-1684) in 1666: *Hymnus seu
canticum ad Deum* ("A Hymn, or a Canticle to God");
*Mnemosynon* ("Memorial"); *Norma vitae
consarcinata* ("A Patched-Up Rule of Life"); *De
optimo vitae genere* ("On the Noblest Kind of Life");
*Dialogus Hieronymi Cardani et Facii Cardani ipsius patris*
("Dialogue between Girolamo Cardano and His Father
Fazio"); *De natura liber unicus* ("A Single Book
on Nature").



Generally speaking, Cardano's philosophy is heavily influenced
by characteristic trends of late scholastic Aristotelianism, with a
strong penchant for Averroist interpretations. Cardano shows a great
interest in Averroes' opinion that one intellect would perform
intellective functions for all human beings. However, he tends to
provide a historicized version of this radical view, in that he looks
at the one intellect as the varying amount of learning accumulated by
mankind throughout the centuries rather than simply justifying it from
a purely epistemological point of view (seen as the one intellective
power that actualizes the life and knowledge of the sublunary world as
a whole). Cardano's philosophy also displays clear traces of
Platonic influences, absorbed through the reading of Marsilio
Ficino's recent translations and commentaries, especially
Plotinus and Iamblichus. Together with his impressive knowledge of
astrological and medical literature, both scholasticism and Platonism
give a characteristically vitalistic slant to his cosmological views.
Cardano's philosophy has often been described as suggestive and
rich in original intuitions, but cluttered and inconsistent as a
whole. In fact, his philosophical work is yet another example, common
during the Renaissance, of how different philosophical traditions
(including not only Aristotelianism and Platonism, but also
Epicureanism and Stoicism, and not only Graeco-Roman, but also
Christian and Arabic views) could converge into one composite but
coherent picture. Throughout his life, from his early endeavours in
the 1540s (*De animi immortalitate*) to the last philosophical
attempt (*Dialogus Hieronymi Cardani et Facii Cardani* and
*De propria vita*), Cardano demonstrated a distinctive
commitment to a certain number of philosophical issues: the
relationship between oneness and multiplicity, with the notable
corollaries dealing with order and disorder, determinism and chance,
life and decay; the view of the intellect as the ultimate principle of
reality and knowledge; a general theory of celestial heat, described
as the main formative agent in nature; the interplay of nature and the
soul in the organization of the universe; a general doctrine of the
immortality of the soul, seen as the foundation of both cognitive
clarity and moral certitude. As a whole, the originality of
Cardano's eclecticism lies in the unique way in which he
characterizes the interdependence of life, knowledge and matter, in
which a pronounced sense of reality and truth is constantly being
questioned and jeopardized by a realistic view of human nature,
mercilessly presented as prone to fear, delusion and deceit.


## 2. Life, Knowledge, and Nature



Cardano's cosmological views belong to a long-established system
of astro-biological doctrines whose origins go back to Aristotelian
physics, Hippocratic vitalism, and fundamental assumptions underlying
the tradition of astrological and meteorological learning, reshaped
through a series of Hebrew and Arabic mediations. His account of the
supralunary world combines elements from Neoplatonic philosophy and
Christian theology. In line with many of his contemporaries, Cardano
maintains that there is a clear division between the supralunary and
sublunary world. The life of the universe is the result of varying
degrees of celestial energy overflowing from the One, i.e., God. From
God to matter, cohorts of the most disparate souls mediate between
these two extremes. From a material point of view, the connective
element between heaven and earth is celestial heat. The principal
constituents of the sublunary world are matter (earth, water and air),
celestial heat, and a wide variety of souls (spanning from demonic
minds to substantial forms understood as specific principles of
life).



In line with the principles of Greek ontology (and showing an evident
interest in the Renaissance recovery of Parmenides' philosophy),
Cardano maintains that nothing comes out of nothing; rather, all
things derive from something, and this something cannot be infinite
(*Hyperchen*, OO, I, 284b; *De natura*, OO, II, 284a).
Aristotle called this something "hyle or prime matter,"
but Cardano prefers to discard this notion of an intermediate entity
between being and non being, replacing it with the view of the
elements (earth, water and air) as the material starting point and
celestial heat as the efficient active principle, "for otherwise
the elements would be completely redundant if there were prime
matter" (*De natura*, OO, II, 284b). The elements, which
represent the first level of organization in matter, are three (and
not four as demanded by Aristotelian and scholastic physics): earth,
water and air (*De arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 9a). As for
fire, Cardano considers this to be a product of celestial heat, which
is one of the various streams of vital energy flowing from the
supralunary sources of life and knowledge and which pervade the
universe as one living organism. Innate heat of a celestial origin is
the active element that mediates between the state of utter immobility
which characterizes intelligible substances and the incessant mobility
that defines the life of material beings. Through an exercise in
introspective analysis, Cardano enumerates three principles that
regulate both our inner life and the life of all created things: one
"is moved and does not move, resulting from the heavy
elements;" another "moves, and it is not moved, that is,
the soul;" the third, finally, "is moved by the
soul" and moves the body, i.e., the innate heat
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 304b). To the question of whether the
soul can be identified with celestial heat, Cardano replies that,
unlike the latter, the former is incorporeal, does not occupy any
place and therefore is never in motion. Also, that which is in motion
does not have that level of self-stability that is necessary for a
being to be able to perceive (*sentire*) or to think
(*intelligere*) (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 304b).



In Cardano's metaphysics, matter and form are complementary, in
that in nature there cannot be matter without form, and forms are
always with a body. Forms represent the primordial stage in the
process through which the created universe becomes one living being.
The difference between souls and forms is that souls, albeit involved
in the animation of bodies, remain nevertheless unaffected by
corporeal reality. Up on a higher level, minds are souls that are
completely independent of matter, bodies and motion. However, even
within the ontological sphere of the minds, there are varying degrees
of embodiment. While the highest celestial intelligences are wholly
separated from the material cosmos, demonic substances, albeit
incorporeal, can affect the corporeal world through forces
(*vires*) and influences (*influxus*) of various kind.
One of these is "that force which is connected to demons,
regardless of whether this power is corporeal and depends on humours,
or it is incorporeal." Cardano maintains that it is through
forces of this nature that "the parts of the universe are
aroused by demons, stars or some other hidden cause"
(*Paralipomena*, in OO, X, 446b-447a. See also *De
subtilitate*, OO, III, 670a). The principle that in a way collects
and administers all these currents of celestial energy is the soul of
the world (*anima mundi*). In Cardano's system of
astro-biological determinism, the universal soul keeps the whole
cosmos together and performs paramount operations in accordance with
the original plan devised by God and implemented by the planetary
intelligences, for "all things are influenced by the higher
heaven and are moved at the command of the soul of the world."
The soul of the world, which "cannot be understood without
God," directs the work of nature, and, "in the process of
generating things, produces supercelestial lives and
multiplicity" (*De arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 6a). In
the sublunary world, the major operations of life and generation are
performed by nature, understood as a source of teleological activity
supervised by the intellect and the soul of the world (*De
subtilitate*, OO, III, 360a; ed. Nenci, 63). The complex
relationship between soul and nature, and the role played by celestial
forces, is a crucial point in Cardano's philosophy (On
Cardano's cosmological views, see Ingegno 1980, 1-78,
209-271; Maclean 1984; Grafton 1999).



Regarding the hierarchical arrangement of the ontological principles,
there is a certain oscillation in the way Cardano distributes them
along the various degrees of being, but by and large we can say that
God understood as the One represents the ultimate source of order and
activity in the universe, and all the rest emanates from it in the
form of increasingly more plural and less integrated entities, from
intellects to souls, from the soul of the world to individual souls,
from the soul to nature, from celestial to earthly animals, from forms
to scattered matter. In *De arcanis aeternitatis*, Cardano
lists fourteen genera of beings, a number that, in his opinion,
"matches the structure of the universe:" three elements
(earth, water, air), celestial heat, stones, plants, living creatures
generated from putrescent matter (*animantia ex putredine*),
quadrupeds, birds, fish, reptiles, human beings, demons, and God
(*De arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 8b).



Higher animals are divided into four main classes: quadrupeds, birds,
fish and reptiles. In the diagram he attaches to his discussion,
"the nature of the animals is connected to the human one only in
one point," which is located in the area corresponding to the
quadrupeds. See Figure 1:



![none](intellectus.jpg)

Figure 1.




However, the margin of interaction between human beings and the rest
of living creatures is ampler. In keeping with a number of Renaissance
philosophers, Cardano maintains that man is at the centre of micro-
and macro-cosmic exchanges within the universe: "since the human
circle corresponds to each single part of the whole domain of living
beings, all the properties and natures that can be found in living
beings will also be present in human beings" (*De arcanis
aeternitatis*, OO, X, 8a). In *Paralipomena*, Cardano
defines the human species as an amalgam of forms (*tota humana
species congeries quaedam est*), a "mass" that is in
constant evolution (*succrescitat que decrescit*):



> 
> this excellent human matter conceals the forms of all animals: the
> forms of the ox (although they do not feed on hay); of the snake (but
> they do not kill with their bite); of the lion (but they have no
> claw). By all means, the characteristics of the soul are exactly the
> same (perhaps even worse); however, since these animal forms
> [concealed in the human nature] lack their corresponding bodily
> organs, they do not really seem to be the same (*Paralipomena*,
> OO, X, 446a).
> 



Human nature includes all the forms of nonhuman nature, but they lie
dormant, as it were, in a state of virtual energy. Cardano always pays
special attention to those aspects of human nature that seem to
indicate a close link with animals and lower forms of life.
Unsurprisingly, comparative analyses between humans and animals abound
in his works. Among the questions dealing with the relationships
between human and nonhuman animals, Cardano is particularly interested
in exploring whether reason is an exclusive prerogative of human
beings or it should rather be seen as the result of biological
development (*De natura*, OO, II, 283b-284a).



Above nonhuman and human animals, Cardano posits a universe teeming
with the most diverse kinds of incorporeal minds. He acknowledges that
to count the number of celestial substances populating the supralunary
world would go way beyond the power of reason; and yet Denis the
Pseudo-Areopagite, "relying on Platonic arguments and the
visions of St Paul" divided them into nine orders. Within these
orders Cardano identifies "seven natures." The first
nature is the "the infinite, or God," eternal in itself.
The second nature is "the soul of all things or lives,"
which represents the first breaking up of the original unity; then
comes the already mentioned soul of the world, whose loss of
ontological unity and independence begins to manifest itself, being
"one principle resulting out of many and eternal ones because of
something else's intervention." The fourth nature is the
soul which moves the universe, the *primum movens*, not eternal
in itself, but through eternal temporal succession. The fifth nature,
the souls of the various planets, derives from the combined action of
this primary mover and the soul of the world. Various orders of souls
emanates from the fifth nature: "heroic" souls, minds that
are capable of having sense perceptions (*mentes sensiles*) and
the soul that presides over all sentient lives (*communis
sensilis*). This last type of soul divides itself not only into
individual beings, but also into parts, "for everything is
alive." The next nature, therefore, the sixth one - the
"common and vital soul" (*anima communis atque
vitalis*) - belongs to plants, lower animals and the
elements. The last order is "the soul conceived in
matter," which "Plato called idea," and Cardano
simply characterizes as "life." Relying on later Platonic
authors, from Iamblichus to Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite, Cardano
describes the universe as one single entity, seamlessly interrelated
throughout its vital expanse, placed between the two extremes of God,
absolute eternity and unity, and matter, the domain of absolute
transience and multiplicity (*De arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X,
6ab).


## 3. The Soul and the Order of Nature



One of the most complex questions in Cardano's philosophy as a
whole concerns the relationship between nature and the soul. This is a
point where Cardano's multiple allegiances (scholastic
Aristotelianism, Plotinian Platonism, medicine and astrology) come to
the fore. Inevitably, it is also an area where not a few frictions
among different traditions come to the fore. Among Cardano's
desiderata there was the plan to devote a specific philosophical
treatise to the notion of nature. It is an unfinished work that in all
likelihood he sketched at the beginning of the 1560s, *De natura
liber unicus*. It can be seen as part of a series of treatises
devoted to the exploration of the most recondite aspects of the
natural, supernatural and moral worlds (*De libris propriis*,
OO, I, 119; ed. Maclean, 293). *De natura* demonstrates
Cardano's lifelong engagement with notions of naturalism,
universal animation, and teleology. The discussion is opaque at times
because of the topic's difficulty, the characteristic obscurity
of Cardano's disjointed and elliptical writing, and the
precarious condition of the text, left unfinished, with several gaps
and marks of typographical sloppiness (typos, mistakes, and missing
words). On the other hand, being a monographic treatment of the
meaning of nature, the treatise holds great significance, all the more
so because, as Cardano explains, the investigation of nature
(*inquisitio naturae*) sheds light on the very origin of
things, including human beings (*De natura*, OO, II, 283a). In
this sense, fragmentary as it may be, Cardano's *De
natura* is an attempt to outline the ultimate principles of
reality (on the relationship between natural and supernatural
phenomena in Cardano, see Siraisi 1997, 149-173).



Cardano's notion of order has strong Platonic overtones. Unity
is a mark of perfection, for all things rejoice in unity and they are
in a better condition when they reach that level of unity that
actualizes their potential nature. Unity gives structure and purpose
to all the elements that make up the system of nature: "order
and fate, since they are one, and exist with respect to the One, are
good; disorder and luck are bad, for they do not strive towards
unity" (*De uno*, OO, I, 277b; ed. Garcia
Valverde, 4). As an expression of unity and goodness, order is so
pervasive that in fact accounts for even the most haphazard and
disorderly aspects of reality. Cardano maintains that multiplicity and
diversity can always be brought back to potentially ordered series of
individual elements (*multitudo ordinata*) (*De uno*,
OO, I, 281ab; ed. Garcia Valverde, 24; *De natura*, OO,
II, 283a). What we perceive as beauty (*decus*) and elegance
(*ornamentum*) in nature is not due to scattered variety
(*multitudo*), but to a principle of ordered unity, "the
one in the many," which produces feelings of harmony and
symmetry in us (*De uno*, OO, 280a; ed. Garcia Valverde,
20). The same principle of order and unity applies to knowledge: we
can say that we really know something when we manage to relate all the
aspects and properties of this thing to one cause. According to
Cardano, Plotinus followed the same approach in moral philosophy, for
he described his notion of happiness as a return to the One (*De
uno*, OO, I, 281b; ed. Garcia Valverde, 24).



Among the sources of unity and order in the universe, souls play a
most significant role. As we have seen in the previous section, souls
are at the center of Cardano's cosmos. Being immaterial, they
are "a unitary principle that is not continuous, nor contiguous,
but exists of its own, not in a place, nor in a time." Unlike
life (*vita*), which is diffused everywhere and therefore
cannot be said to be a real *principium*, souls have no spatial
and temporal limitation and are nowhere (*nullibi*) to be found
because of their incorporeal nature (*De uno*, OO, I, 279a;
Garcia Valverde, 12). While souls are one and individual
everywhere ("our soul is no less here than in the sky, no less
in Italy than in India"), bodies are different and manifold
depending on material circumstances and vital urges, for
"division of bodies is determined by the needs of life
(*vitae commodum*)" (*Paralipomenon*, OO, X,
446a). Given the central role assigned to the soul, in all its forms,
Cardano's philosophy of nature is inevitably exposed to charges
of animism and anthropomorphism. The issue is accentuated by the fact
that the human being represents for Cardano a model of rationality and
teleological activity.



For Cardano, human souls are individual principles of self-awareness.
Selfhood is the principal argument in favour of their immortality.
However, in defending the immortal character of human souls, Cardano
also relies on proofs of a more pragmatic and theological nature. Hope
in "the immortality of the soul" was implanted in human
beings by God, therefore it cannot be considered as a deluded
expectation. In common people God instilled this hope "through
religions (*leges*)," in wise people, "through the
hidden truths (*arcana*) of philosophy." However, when
God provided human beings with hope for immortal life, He decided to
give them a feeble certainty, always in need of confirmation. The
reason, according to Cardano, is that a firm belief in the immortality
of the soul would have created too wide a gap between humans and
animals, while leading man into arrogant delusions of grandeur. There
has always been and - "as long as there is a world"
- there always will be an alternation (*vicissitudo*) of
confirmations and doubts concerning the immortality of the soul. It is
a "vicissitude" of hopes and despair that is part of the
providential regime of the world established by God (*De utilitate
ex adversis capienda*, OO, II, 26a). Hope in the immortality of
the soul is also a fundamental postulate in Cardano's moral
philosophy. As we will see in the next section, Cardano maintains that
true inner tranquillity depends, among other things, on virtue,
wisdom, and "hope in the gods." Otherwise, what is passed
off as tranquillity is in fact mere harshness and stiffness
(*duritia*) (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 303b, 305b, 308a,
312a).


## 4. Moral Philosophy: The Two Levels of Wisdom



The One (God), the ordered variety of nature (*multitudo
ordinata*), and the soul represent the main ontological
coordinates in Cardano's view of the cosmos. The universe is
organized according to a plurality of orders, arranged along
hierarchical levels, but harmoniously attuned to each other. It is not
correct, in Cardano's opinion, to say that everything is for the
sake of everything else (*non omnia propter omnia*), but rather
that everything is for the sake of one thing (*omnia propter
unum*). This means that the One toward which everything else
converges includes many orders, "different among each
other." Nature, art and chance produce a variety of causal
sequences that often intersect and are more or less perfect depending
on the extent to which the end to be actualized prevails over
refractory matter. With respect to natural causes, some are universal,
others specific. Among the universal causes of action, the most
important are the stars, which act over the sublunary world through
influences conveyed by light, heat and motion (*De uno*, OO, I,
279, 281; ed. Garcia Valverde, 12, 26). More specific and
individual sources of natural agency are demonic and human minds,
which add to the complexity of moral and political action.



At its deepest, the principle of unity and order coincides with God.
God is infinite, necessary, wholly undivided, therefore individual. In
keeping with the principles of theological Trinitarianism, God is
described by Cardano in terms of power (*potestas*), mind
(*mens*), and love (*amor*), and these attributes are
not "three gods, as Plotinus thinks," but original divine
attributes. The natural world is a constant reminder that God's
"threefold and undivided life" flows into each single
thing, down to the smallest beings (*ad minima usque*) (*De
arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 6a). However, for all the layers and
mediations that characterize Cardano's universe, the distance
between human beings and God remains unbridgeable. Man cannot
reconcile the finite with the infinite, for "no finite thing can
be transformed into an infinite nature." Cardano rules out that
"this life of ours can get close to that which truly is,"
for there is no proportion and no resemblance between the two levels
of being. Echoing Cusanian motifs, he argues that "everything
that is understood by a finite being is finite, for the act of
understanding (*comprehensio*) occurs through some proportion;
but there is no proportion between the infinite and the finite."
Likewise, our eyes cannot grasp the direct light (*lux*) of the
sun, but only a glimpse of its brightness (*lumen*) (*De
arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 4b-5a). Such a powerful and
all-encompassing view of divine and natural order, in which the
presence of latent Platonic and Averroist motifs contributes to
strengthen the cogent organization of the whole universe, has
inevitable repercussions concerning the meaning of moral action.
During his life, Cardano devoted a considerable number of works to
ethical inquiries, surveying almost every aspect in the field:
theoretical ethics, applied ethics, prudential behaviour, consolation,
education, and the role of rhetoric. However, his most important
contribution to moral philosophy consists in his attempt to redefine
the relationship between the universal scope of practical reason and
the need for human beings to apply moral laws to the concrete
circumstances of their life. This characteristic tension between
knowledge and application is particularly evident in two works:
*Theonoston* (which Cardano began to write around 1555) and
*De utilitate ex adversis capienda* (published in 1561).



Cardano presents *De utilitate* and *Theonoston* as
complementary treatises aimed at implementing two different approaches
in moral philosophy, the former based on the ordinary circumstances of
human life (*humanitus*), the latter assuming the existence of
supernatural conditions such as immortal individual souls and the
effects of divine providence (*divinitus*). They outline two
different paths towards the achievement of the same end: lasting
happiness. While the ethical program devised in *De utilitate*
is designed to face situations of obvious emergency (*quae oculis
ipsis subjacent*) concerning human affairs (*humanae res*),
*Theonoston* provides an account of the immortality of the soul
(*enarratio immortalitatis animi*) that has momentous ethical
consequences (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 8, 39a;
*Theonoston*, OO, II, 299b). The same duplicity of levels is
evident in the way Cardano examines the notion of
"tranquillity," which represents the highest point in
one's virtuous behaviour: one type of tranquillity is premised
on the attainment of a certain level of "honorable and moderate
pleasure," the other secures a decent degree of happiness
"even in the greatest calamities" (*Theonoston*,
OO, II, 310b). Here it is worth pointing out that Cardano's
pragmatic approach to questions of moral philosophy works on both
levels, the rational and the empirical. In the final analysis,
tranquillity is for Cardano the most useful thing that may happen to a
human being, for it provides inner joy, long life, and a more robust
kind of wisdom.


### 4.1 Divine Providence, Immortality of the Soul, and the Highest Good



Despite the emphasis he places on the benefits of prudent action,
Cardano believes that real, lasting happiness can be possible only if
we demonstrate in a persuasive way that the human soul is immortal and
that God intervenes actively in the human world, sanctioning a
providential regime of the world. Two principles, more than any other,
underlie Cardano's moral philosophy: that the human soul is
immortal, and that universal order, being a direct emanation of the
One, governs all aspects of reality. Everything that happens has been
planned by God, and all that God has established can only be good.
Regarding the immortality of the soul, Cardano maintains that, in
order to lead a meaningful existence and act accordingly, people need
to know whether there is life after death and whether the nature of
their afterlife will depend on the way they behaved in this world. In
his opinion, Aristotle and the Stoics took the value of virtue for
granted. In actual life, human beings will never be persuaded that
virtue should be pursued for its own sake, unless they are convinced
that their soul is immortal (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 3). In
this sense, Cardano defends the immortality of the soul on strong
pragmatic grounds. Referring to Seneca's renowned instructions
on how to cope with the thought of death, he points out that
meditating about death while maintaining that the soul is mortal is
simply absurd. In his eyes, Seneca is a bad rhetorician and an
Epicurean in disguise, who exhorts us to die serenely while claiming
that there is nothing after death (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 10a;
see Giglioni 2012, 187).



As we have seen while examining his natural philosophy,
Cardano's moral views assign a central role to the soul:
"The soul is the most important thing we own; everything refers
to it, for riches, honors, and health are nothing without a sound
soul" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 10a). Mental
self-awareness, in particular, is the principal argument through which
Cardano advocates the immortality of the soul, for a human being is
the same thing as his mind (*homo animus est*) (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 12; on Cardano's notion of the mind, see
Giglioni 2005-2007; Garcia Valverde 2013). The same
emphasis on mental awareness can be found in Cardano's moral
investigations, for in his opinion human beings cannot understand what
the ends of their actions are if they lack a clear knowledge of
themselves (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 2). The highest good for
them can only lie in those attributes and activities that are part of
their minds (*quae animo coniuncta sunt*) (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 27a). In this sense, the relationship between
tranquillity and awareness is biunique: human beings can be peaceful
only when they know what the highest good is and know that they have
attained it (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 303b). According to the
Hermit's definition of tranquillity in *Theonoston*,
*tranquillitas* coincides with *securitas*, that is, a
condition of unbreakable inner peace, free from cares and anxiety, and
it is a level of wisdom that would even suit God. In this respect,
true tranquillity for human beings coincides with their being
"assimilated" to God, so that, when this condition of
serenity is reached, nothing is any longer felt as lacking in meaning
and substance. This level of happiness is a "kind of
pleasure" that derives from the awareness of "being in the
possession of goods" (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 302a; *De
optimo vitae genere*, OO, I, 488b). Intellectual pleasure should
never be a *monstrum*, that is to say, a hybrid creature
resulting from combining the goods of reason with those of the body
and external luck (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 313b-314a).



By doing so, Cardano provides a definition of happiness which is
inclusive of both knowledge and pleasure. Happiness consists in a
"perception of pleasure" that is great (*magna*),
full (*plena*), pure (*pura*), untroubled
(*secura*), and safe (*tuta*) (*De utilitate*,
OO, II, 37b; *Theonoston*, OO, II, 305b; *De libris
propriis*, OO, I, 76b; ed. Maclean, 212-213). In
*Theonoston*, happiness is said to coincide with a kind of
inner composure understood not in terms of lack of sensibility
(*indolentia*), but as a condition of mental vigour stemming
from the contemplation of the true nature of things. If tranquillity
consisted in mere refractoriness to unsettling experiences, the
impassive state of a stone should then be viewed as the best condition
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 299b, 305b, 313b). By contrast, ethical
peace rests on a state of cognitive tension and focus. In ways that
remind us of the sea and the air, undisturbed calm (*tranquilla
quies*) is always accompanied by a current of "light
motion," i.e., a state of balance between opposite conditions
"which does not unsettle, but delights us."
Cardano's *tranquillitas* is therefore not the same as
absolute rest: "in its state of highest tranquillity, our soul
is as it were tremulous and breathing" (*Theonoston*, OO,
II, 300a, 305b). The incessant vitality of our being demonstrates that
"the matter we are made of, being of a celestial origin,
produced and entwined with motion, does not enjoy rest, but thrives on
motion," a motion that, in the final analysis, is no bodily
activity, but an expression of knowledge and intellect
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 304a). True tranquillity results from a
condition of inviolable self-fulfilment (*securitas*) based on
resources that are in our power (*in nostra potestate esse*).
Cardano is not convinced by the Senecan view of tranquillity as a
balanced active life (*vita actuosa*), or by Socrates's
kind of 'engaged' tranquillity; in both cases, their
behaviour is for Cardano symptomatic of ambition rather than being the
indication of a truly committed philosophical life
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 306b). Finally, Cardano rejects the
ideals of tranquillity championed by Plutarch, Antoninus and Cicero,
viewed as models of ethical escapism devised by men who in their life
never managed to reach a condition of stable serenity
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 305a).



In outlining his views about the nature of the good, Cardano is
following a deliberately eclectic approach. He combines the Stoic
conception of virtue with Epicurus' emphasis on indifference
(*indolentia*), Aristotle's notion of virtuous life with
Averroes' characterization of happiness as the highest level of
knowledge accessible to human beings. He justifies his eclectic
position by arguing that philosophers who were so clever in their
fields are likely to have come up with closely related ideas and that
therefore "two or more of their opinions can converge into
one" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 24b). From Socrates, for
instance, Cardano draws the principle that only wise people can be
truly happy because virtue lies in knowledge (*De utilitate*,
OO, II, 90b). From medical authors, he borrows the view that pleasure
always follows release from a condition of tension or pain (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 28a). Following traditional argumentative
patterns in moral philosophy, Cardano distinguishes among goods of the
mind (virtues), goods of the body (health, longevity), and goods of
fortune. Among the goods of fortune, Cardano lists finding the right
wife, a lasting fame, and a painless death (*De utilitate*, OO,
II, 19b). Goods of the body, such as enjoying good health and
following a healthy regimen, are also part of one's happiness
(*De utilitate*, OO, II, 19a; on Cardano's notion of
health, see Siraisi, 70-90).



Strictly speaking, goods and ills are values. As such, they transcend
the level of nature and therefore cannot be treated as if they were
natural or against nature: "Goods and ills reside in the soul;
faculties and defects in the body; helps and impediments in fortune
and its occurrences" (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 314b). In
general terms, Cardano defines the good as "what is longed for
by the majority of human beings," such as health, wealth,
friends, glory, offspring and wisdom. In a more specific sense
(*simpliciter*), good is what is everlasting
(*perpetuum*), safe (*securum*), and unchangeable
(*immutabile*) (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 23ab). In order
to achieve a stable condition of inner peace people need to commit to
a good that cannot be taken away from them. Ultimately, since only God
has all the requisites to be this kind of imperishable good, the more
genuine meaning of good is that which brings us closer to God or make
us similar to Him (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 307b-308a,
313b). The difference between human beings and God is that in God the
good (*bonum*) coincides entirely with self-preservation
(*vita incolumis*), whereas in human beings these two
conditions are generally separate. Human beings need to take care of
their life and aim at a life that is marked by reason. There cannot be
any discourse on happiness where the primary requisites for life are
lacking (due to mental illness or death) (*Theonoston*, OO, II,
309b).



Goods of the mind are virtues. By virtue, Cardano means the principle
that teaches human beings to behave in the best way towards God,
animals and our fellow human beings. Hence the key virtues are sense
of duty (*pietas*), compassion (*humanitas*), and
kindness (*benignitas*) (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 312ab).
Given their importance, virtues are among the foundations of human
action: "by its nature, virtue is eternal and a divine good in
us; all the rest rots in time and depends on circumstances"
(*De utilitate*, OO, II, 21a. See ibid., 38b) . Emanating from
the innermost part of our rational soul, virtues have the power to
retroact on our mind, thus fortifying and safeguarding its faculties.
The most prophylactic among virtues are fortitude, prudence and
moderation, and they result from the combined actions of nature, habit
and reason, establishing a delicate balance between control of natural
impulses (*impetus naturae*), education, and the process of
decision making.



As already said, Cardano's moral philosophy rests on a series of
interrelated principles which also play a key foundational role in
natural philosophy: that the soul is immortal; that incorporeal lives
are everlasting; and that mental awareness is the defining
characteristic of the soul. Since the intellect is the only thing that
humans can boast about themselves as being truly immortal,
intellectual self-knowledge is regarded by Cardano as the highest good
that a human being may ever attain. Inevitably, this assumption
re-proposes the Averroist conundrum about whether the mind belongs to
humankind as a whole or it informs the life and knowledge of each
individual human being. Cardano seems to suggest that the mind
transcends individual human beings (*[mens] superior est
homini*), for happiness coincides with eternal life: "he who
does not live long cannot be happy for long" (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 23ab; on Averroism in Cardano, see
Garcia Valverde 2013). There cannot be happiness in human life
if there is no afterlife for the soul. On this point, Cardano follows
St Paul's argument in his Letter to the Romans (8:
20-22):



> 
> If our soul did not survive death, we would be much unhappier than
> animals are. For, besides the fact that no animal, apart from the
> human being, knows that it is going to die, all non human animals
> (*bruta*) enjoy some happiness for the very fact that they
> exist, since they live as if they were to live forever, and therefore
> they participate in eternal bliss. Only human beings are separated
> from eternity, even in their thought, for not only do they know that
> they can die, but they also are aware that they will inevitably die,
> and die within a pre-established time (*De utilitate*, OO, II,
> 24a).
> 



Cardano's reflections on mental happiness, assimilation to God,
and universal intelligibility should be read against the background of
contemporary discussions about the Averroist notion of intellectual
beatitude. There is no doubt that, when Cardano characterizes the
highest good as the union of the soul with God, his definition is full
of Aristotelian and Averroistic resonances. The *summum bonum*,
he argues in *De utilitate ex adversis capienda*, is "to
be assimilated to the highest good," i.e., God. Unlike other
kinds of love, love of God is "honest" and
"safe," for its object never deserts the seeking soul
(*De utilitate*, OO, II, 6, 25a. 500a; *De sapientia*,
OO, I, 500-501; ed. Bracali, 30-36). Elsewhere,
Cardano's definition of *summum bonum* is suppler and
implies such components as wisdom (*sapientia*), virtue
(especially fortitude and prudence), and progeny: wisdom is
distinctively human; expressions of fortitude and prudence can also be
seen in several animals; to have children, finally, is a prerogative
that belongs to almost all living beings. It is a sort of pyramidal
model of virtue, with fertility at the basis and wisdom at the top
(only very few people can reach wisdom) (*De utilitate*, OO,
II, 25b; *Theonoston*, OO, II, 302b; on Cardano's views
on virtue, see Ingegno 1980, 318-76).


### 4.2 Prudence and Practical Wisdom



The characteristic oscillation between intellectual good and
prosperous life is particularly evident in *De utilitate ex
adversis capienda*. This work is meant to provide directions on
how to overcome difficult situations and lead a reasonably serene life
relying only on the material conditions of one's existence and
on the information that one can get from sensible experience. Contrary
to the approach followed in *Theonoston*, in *De
utilitate* Cardano focuses on the kind of happiness that one can
reach in this life, advancing the hypothesis - to be understood
in an experimental sense - that there is no survival of the soul
(*etiam sublata immortalitate*) (*De utilitate*, II, 5).
In this case, the moral actor is confronted not so much with the goods
attainable by the mind as with the ills that the mind needs to
transform into opportunities for inner exercise or practical gain.
Cardano divides ills (*mala*) into external and internal. They
both can be measured according to the impact they have on our lives
(*magnitudo*) and the level of constraint they impose on our
actions (*necessitas*). External ills depend on the variable
arrangement of external events (*fortunae arbitrium*) and on
the shifting states of the body. Although, properly speaking, the body
is "no part of ourselves," nevertheless, it communicates
with our mind. Internal ills are all those passions that can be hardly
eradicated from our soul, such as madness, anger, fear, and envy.
Since they are located within the soul (*animus*), it is
exceedingly difficult to turn them into something useful and
productive unless we undergo a radical transformation of our self
(*De utilitate*, OO, II, 11b-12a, 13b).



Cardano claims that there can be five kinds of responses to calamities
in one's life. The first two are "paradoxical" and
have nothing relevant to say about possible applications to the
practical aspects of one's life. These are the Christian and the
Stoic responses: adversities are either good in themselves, or they
have absolutely no incidence in someone's happiness. The
remaining three kinds of response are of a "pragmatic"
nature, for they appeal to the human senses and have possible social
outcomes. First, they teach us how to avoid misfortunes or mitigate
the impact they have on our life; second, in case they happen, they
direct our attention to ways of coping with misfortunes or escape
dangerous consequences; third, they tell us how to gain "some
good" out of "any kind of ill" (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 10b, 27b, 39a). For Cardano, this ethical
program in three stages is an approach that suits people involved in
the many activities of civic life and helps meet their social
commitments. The distinctive trait of prudent people is their ability
to turn difficulties into opportunities of knowledge and moral
betterment (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 11a). Regarding the
"paradoxical" attitudes to calamities displayed by Stoic
and Christian sages, Cardano thinks that there is a great difference
between the situation in which the wise man is deemed capable of
"bearing calamities with fortitude" (the Stoic approach)
and that in which he is supposed to look at them as part of
"one's goods" (the Christian attitude). Even more
different, however, is to interpret calamities as useful and
productive means of experience, as suggested by Cardano. Otherwise, to
praise the ills of life remains a futile rhetorical exercise, and for
this reason Cardano does not hesitate to place Erasmus' *Laus
stultitiae* ("Praise of Folly") in this category of
edifying but useless rhetoric. With the exception of irreparable
losses, which can only be assuaged by resorting to a whole range of
consolatory techniques, Cardano maintains that any other ill can
always be turned into something useful and therefore no consolation is
needed. To sum up, he identifies different levels - rhetorical,
cognitive, and pragmatic - within the domain of moral
philosophy: "To praise adversities is the eloquent
rhetorician's task; to bear them with fortitude belongs to a
generous soul or a person who knows divine truths; to draw useful
instruction from them is the mark of a prudent man" (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 11a).



As in the case of intellectual happiness, relief from emergencies is
predicated on knowledge. Cardano characterizes his method
(*ratio*) for avoiding misfortunes and preparing against
calamities as based on a particular kind of knowledge
(*scientia*) - both useful and necessary - which
"teaches us to recognize and obtain known goods, and once they
are obtained, it tells us how to use them and how to protect us with
them against ills" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 17a). The
ambivalent role of *animus* in Cardano's moral philosophy
is particularly evident in his directions on how to draw profit from
misfortunes, for both misery and happiness depend on awareness
("the fact that we know our condition") (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 88b). Our thinking activity is a key element
in turning adversities into opportunities of growth in self-awareness.
Any philosophical discussion of ethical matters presupposes that the
ethical subject is aware of his or her happiness or unhappiness:
"the mind (*animus*) alone is the one who is happy or
unhappy." We have previously noted how closely Cardano's
notion of the *summum bonum* is connected to the principle of
soul's awareness. In the same way, all forms of external goods
(riches, physical beauty, health, friends, offspring, country, honors)
are no part of happiness unless they are related to the mind
(*quatenus ad animum referuntur*).



The principal resources through which human beings may learn to draw
advantages from adversities are fortitude, prudence, worldly knowledge
(*rerum experientia*), and all sorts of helps
(*auxilia*), such as material means, friends, authority, bodily
strength and practical experience (*exercitatio*) (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 12a). Among the resources provided by reason,
Cardano shares with Seneca the belief that meditating about
one's death (*meditatio mortis*) can trigger active and
pointed responses to everyday problems: "although death is a
necessary event, nevertheless, it contains in an eminent way, so to
say, all the reasons that sadden our life." Thinking about
death, regardless of whether people may be sure that they are going to
survive after death, "can dissolve almost any form of
sorrow" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 17b). When methodically
structured, far from producing anxiety, the thought of death and of
the transient nature of all human affairs injects a sense of purpose
and order into our existence, making us gradually adjusted to a
universe in a constant flux. Cardano's method of drawing profit
from adversities is based on the general principle that everything in
nature is subject to incessant change: "I usually compare human
affairs, this whole sublunary frame (*machina sublunaris*) and
all that happens in it to a mass of wax in which, while it is
compressed, protrusions become cavities and cavities protrude, all
forms change, and now they change into similar ones, now into
dissimilar ones, into charming or foul, horrible and pleasant
ones." The principle of the unremitting transformation of
reality (*vicissitudo rerum*) is therefore the ontological
rationale behind our belief that ills can be turned into goods (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 14b). Closely related to this principle is
Cardano's striking assumption that, when considered from the
point of view of happiness, all things are on a par (*omnia
aequalia sunt*): "God levelled the conditions not only for
all human beings, but also for all things which are under the
sky" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 18a, 24b).



It is while examining the essence of humane misfortune that Cardano
reaches the important conclusion that loss and want are the ultimate
causes of one's hardships. The ability to anticipate and feel in
advance the effect of losing something or someone (*sensus
amissionis*) can therefore prepare us to face calamities in our
life (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 7). While Cardano insists that
experience of adversities in life (*sensus calamitatum*)
provides people with a richer sense of their happiness, however, he is
also well aware that there are limits in the human ability to process
misfortunes into material for inner transformation (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 38b). Material destitution is certainly one of
these limits. Among the circumstances that affect our perception of
want, penury prevents us from focusing on the improvement of our
knowledge and level of awareness. When in his division of the goods
(of the mind, of the body and of fortune) Cardano describes material
means as a pre-condition for the exercise of virtue and happiness, he
takes special care in specifying that the ethical inconvenience in
being poor does not lie in not having access to the advantages of
material prosperity, but in the inability to work towards one's
own happiness: "if someone does not have the means to raise his
children, to look for wisdom or to practice justice, he will certainly
be unhappy, not because he is poor, but because he cannot practice the
works of happiness" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 26a). Mental
pain is another situation in which human ability to turn misfortunes
into positive experiences is tested to the limit. The way Cardano
insists on the severe reality of mental pain (*molestia animi*,
*dolor animi*) is one of the most characteristic aspects of his
moral philosophy: "No disease, if there is not fear of death,
can equal mental pain (*dolor animi*)" (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 18a).



In promoting (whenever possible) the value of happiness in all
circumstances of human life, Cardano does not intend to humour any
human tendency to self-delusion. On the contrary, he sees his effort
to dispel false beliefs and to curb proclivities to self-deception as
his main contribution to moral philosophy, for there is no greater
merit than "to free mankind from false opinions" (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 26a). Indeed, sometimes he goes so far as to
criticize Averroes' notion of mental happiness as a form of
entertaining false hopes (in this case, the hope to achieve
intellectual bliss). Cardano thinks that the principal task of a moral
philosopher should be that of freeing the mind from misapprehensions
and prejudices: "There are many people who prefer to be happy in
a mistaken way rather than acknowledge the reality of their affairs
and their condition" (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 24b). As
already said, mental *securitas* cannot be premised on forms of
self-distraction and self-delusion, which turn our mind away from the
causes of our discontent. A good physician would never try to assuage
the pain of the patient by recommending him to buy "paintings
and precious stones" (*Theonoston*, OO, II, 307a).
Cardano's method of drawing profit from adversities is therefore
an attempt to promote endurance while insisting on a courageous
acceptance of the human condition.



The clash between appearance and reality, which represents the
hallmark of Cardano's ontology and theory of knowledge, has
therefore its obvious counterpart in his moral philosophy, where he
often associates human misery with unrealistic ambitions triggered by
human desires: "Since human nature is driven to the infinite by
appetites, it can never be satisfied, for it cannot contain the
infinite, indeed, not even a great part of what it desires."
Therefore, he who is not capable of restraining his own appetites, be
he the greatest of the kings, will certainly be the unhappiest person
(*De utilitate*, OO, II, 5; *De sapientia*, OO, I, 532a,
544b-545a; ed. Bracali, 135, 174-175). To fight our
propensity to cherish illusory dreams of happiness (*somnium
umbrae* and *umbra somnii*), Cardano recommends us to
become more aware of the precarious nature of the human condition
(*humana fragilitas*) and to increase our level of
self-mastery. The combined action of self-knowledge (*nosce te
ipsum*) and self-control (*impera te ipsum*) contributes to
narrow the otherwise unmanageable scope of our desires
(*Theonoston*, OO, II, 310b; *De consolatione*, OO, I,
615a; *De utilitate*, OO, II, 89b-90a). Self-awareness and
self-control contribute to create positive habits (*mores*) out
of actions and passions. Unlike nonhuman animals (*belluae*),
human beings are capable of disciplining themselves (*imperare
sibiipsis*) and to shape their nature (*et naturam et mores
sibi formare*) (*Paralipomena*, OO, X, 448a). They modify
their behavior through thought (*cogitatio*), language
(*sermo*), and action (*actio*). Actions are primarily
directed to what is useful for us and are ruled by the criterion of
interest (*utile*), by pleasure, nature, and habit. Thought
concentrates on what is either useful or harmful for us. Language
adjusts our actions and thought to the variable circumstances that
present themselves from time to time (*De utilitate*, OO, II,
19a, 20b; *De minimis*, I, 693a). Once we manage to strike a
balance between the scope of our desires and the reality in which we
live, two things become most necessary (*maxime necessaria*):
to obtain what we wish to have (*habere quod velis*) and to
know how to use what we have (*his quae habes uti commode
scire*) (*De utilitate*, OO, II, 1). To facilitate this
task, Cardano distinguishes between disciplines in which the
theoretical aspect is more prevalent (such as geometry and theology),
disciplines which are characterized by a balanced interplay of theory
(*scientia*) and practice (*usus*), such as medicine and
law, and finally disciplines in which practice (*exercitatio*)
is essential, like moral philosophy. Cardano enumerates five
requisites that define the nature of an accomplished action (in terms
of attaining the right means for the right end (*adeptio*),
readiness of execution (*promptitudo*), and completion
(*perfectio*)). These requisites are nature, art, diligence,
practice, and familiarity with the experts in the field (*De
utilitate*, OO, II, 1-2; *De sapientia*, OO, I, 494b;
ed. Bracali, 15).


## 5. Divination, Fate, and the Roman Inquisition



Among the most difficult periods of Cardano's tumultuous life
was his imprisonment and trial by the Inquisition. The episode is
important for a number of reasons. The Roman Inquisition had taken its
modern form as a Counter-Reformation apparatus for doctrinal purity in
1542. Cardano was arguably the most significant Catholic intellectual
targeted until Giordano Bruno in the 1590s and Galileo in the
seventeenth century. His ordeal, then, is a key moment in the history
of early modern censorship. Beyond that, censor reports reveal a
number of themes central to Cardano's divinatory and
astrological thought, even if they distort his actual views. Such
themes are essential to the whole of his philosophy and to an
understanding of his general reception as one of the most influential
astrologers of his time.



The Inquisition began to investigate Cardano in the spring and summer
of 1570. On 6 October of that year, he was arrested and imprisoned by
the Inquisitor of Bologna, where he lived and was a professor of
medicine at the city's university. Among the documents preserved
in the Inquisition archives is Cardano's desperate plea for
release from prison, addressed to the dean of the Inquisition in Rome:
"Today is the forty-third day in prison [...] I eat almost
nothing because eating would drive me mad, not eating would drive me
to death, which I consider the lesser evil" (Baldini and Spruit,
t. II, 1075). In December, he was transferred to house arrest, and,
shortly thereafter, in February 1571, the Roman authorities rendered
their judgment: he would abjure not as a formal heretic, but rather as
vehemently suspected of heresy. Roughly sixty years later, Galileo
would be forced to do the same. Unlike Galileo, Cardano was released
from house arrest soon after his abjuration, but he did not escape
without consequences, having lost his professorship due to pressure
from the Inquisition on the Bolognese government. In October, he
relocated to Rome. The following year, his non-medical works were
forbidden by the Index of Prohibited Books. Censors both of the
Inquisition and the Index continued to produce reports on his
published writings until at least the 1590s, a testament to the
enduring interest for him on the Italian peninsula well into the
seventeenth century. Physicians, lawyers, ecclesiastics, and other
interested parties, frequently sought permission from the Church to
read his banned works (Marcus 2020, 160-163).



Given Cardano's heterodox views, the general freedom with which
he expressed himself, and his devotion to astrology, it is perhaps
surprising that he was not targeted earlier in his career. There is
little doubt that his patrons and renown had provided some protection.
The Inquisitor of Bologna, notable for his zealous prosecution of
heretics, even expressed a measure of concern about dealing with an
author of Cardano's celebrity. Yet it also seems that Cardano,
despite his international fame, lived a somewhat solitary life in
Bologna, bereft of protectors capable of shielding him from local
machinations (Regier 2019). Larger forces were also at work. With the
conclusion of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Church had
become ever more intolerant of heterodox philosophies. Until the
Inquisition's archives were opened up in the 1990s, the
consensus among historians had been that Cardano had offended the
Church by printing a horoscope of Christ in his commentary on
Ptolemy's *Tetrabiblos*. The archival documents provide a
fuller story. It was not Christ's horoscope that led directly to
Cardano's trial but rather his *De rerum varietate*
(1557), an encyclopedic treatise of natural history. Nevertheless,
astrology was at the center of the Inquisition's case from the
beginning. For the Inquisition to launch an investigation, an initial
accusation was needed, and here it had come in the form of a letter
from the Inquisitor of Como. A focal point of the letter's
attention was a chapter of the *De rerum varietate* devoted to
the effects of the celestial bodies. According to the Inquisitor,
Cardano "exaggerates" the influence of celestial bodies
and denies the possibility of God acting directly on sublunar nature.
He also, says the Inquisitor, holds the martyrs of the Church to be
nothing more than madmen, driven to extreme and foolish religious
behavior by celestial influence. The Inquisitor also lists, rather
vaguely, other offenses: contempt of clergy, denial of miracles and
demons, and teaching of divinatory superstitions (Baldini and Spruit,
t. II, 1042-1043). This cluster of accusations, with astrology
at the center, would prove to be the basis for subsequent censorship
of Cardano. At the heart of censorial concerns was the accusation that
he naturalized what the Church believed outside the realm of nature:
God and providence, free will, and miracles. Hence, Cardano was not
targeted as an astrologer *per se*, but rather as an
astrologizing philosopher in the vein of Pietro Pomponazzi
(1462-1525). Censors seemed ready to impute to him the
skepticism of miracles associated with Pomponazzi, and especially the
latter's embrace of determinism. Pomponazzi had laid out the
possibility in his *De fato, de libero arbitrio, praedestinatione,
providentia Dei* (1567) that free will was philosophically
untenable, that it could not be reconciled with God's nature
unless we limited divine omnipotence and omniscience, and that it
could not be reconciled with the Aristotelian causality.



While censor reports highlight themes in Cardano's thought that
were important at least to a subset of readers, they are of course
neither balanced nor accurate portrayals (for more on Cardano's
trial and censorship, see Valente 2003 and 2017; Regier 2019 and
2021). We might say that his works on divination endorse the consensus
opinion among Christian astrologers, both medieval and Renaissance,
that celestial bodies act as instruments of providence, but that
humans can resist natural forces up to a point. He is something of a
moderate libertarian: free will exists, but it operates within a field
of natural, social, and providential constraints. Following a long
tradition with its origin in Boethius, he seems to recognize a fine
distinction between providence and fate: providence is the universal
order experienced in the timeless present of God's mind, while
fate is the manifestation of that order in the universe itself (*De
arcanis aeternitatis*, OO, X, 43a; *Paralipomenon*, OO, X,
468b). Early in his career, he wrote a treatise specifically devoted
to fate, *De fato*, which was subsequently lost, likely
destroyed by Cardano himself due to fears of the Inquisition (Cardano
2004a, 53). We can, however, consult *De fato*'s table of
contents, which survives in editions of *De libris propriis*
(*De libris propriis*, OO, I, 62a-63b and 99a-100a; Cardano
2004, 174-177 and 236-239). These chapter headings raise more
questions than they answer, however. Cardano built a sweeping
argument, it seems, in favor of an all-encompassing fate that subsumed
even accidental events. And, like Pomponazzi, he was ready to justify
such a conception of fate as a dual consequence of God's nature
and the nature of causality. At the same time, however, he devoted a
chapter to the "utility" of free will.



How exactly free will was grounded in the lost *De fato*
remains a mystery, as does Cardano's reference to its utility.
His writings on divination can help to answer the question, since
there he endeavors at moments to clarify the relationship between fate
and free will. Indeed, an entire section of the *De fato* was
to deal with divination, whose viability, according to a chapter
heading, was based on the orderly unfolding of fate. In his commentary
on Ptolemy's *Tetrabiblos*, as in the
*Tetrabiblos* itself, medicine serves as the paradigm case for
divination. In *Tetrabiblos* I.3, Ptolemy compares astrology to
medicine: a physician identifies the course that nature will take if
left alone and then employs counteracting forces to bring about
another outcome; the astrologer does much the same. Commenting on this
section, Cardano agrees with the Arabic mathematician and astrologer
Ali ibn Ridwan ("Haly" in Latin) that Ptolemy here
"demonstrated maximum wisdom in things divine and human"
(*De astrorum iudiciis*, OO, V, 112a). What Cardano means is
that astrology can estimate the force of future conditions, and so can
determine which events can be deflected (*declinari possint*)
and which will take place due to the divinely instituted
"necessity of fate" (*fatali necessitate*) (*De
astrorum iudiciis*, OO, V, 112b). He has in mind inflection points
in the providential design of history--wars, great defeats and
victories, catastrophes, and political transformations. Yet even under
these circumstances, we are not completely powerless. Cardano turns to
the analogy of shipwreck to make his point: "It is as if a
person found himself in the sea during a tempest, and although he
foresaw the danger he could not avoid it. The person skilled in
swimming through heavy currents or practiced in handling the danger
will be saved, while another hardly so. The divine can be considered
similarly, because it is entirely necessary, and because whatever is
accomplished by the divine mind cannot be escaped" (*De
astrorum iudiciis*, OO, V, 112b). Prognostication in this sense
always implies an estimation of forces, followed by a consideration of
the appropriate response. Cardano proffers a two-tiered astrological
system where princes of the world are more subject to astrological
effects than their subjects; through astrological changes, the divine
can effectively seize the hearts of kings and steer history to its
determined end. This is not to say that the individual outside the
ranks of power never experiences moments of unavoidable fate. In
*De libris propriis*, Cardano reflects on the signs that
foretold his eldest son's execution, signs whose meaning only
became clear when it was too late. Cardano asks himself why these
signs presented themselves when they were to be of no use. He
concludes that they function as Christian consolation, as proof of
God's existence, providential design, and so of the justice that
reveals itself in the unfolding of history (*De libris
propriis*, OO, I, 98a-b; Maclean 2004, 234-235).



Across a spectrum of works, Cardano depicts the course of a human life
as the result of a dynamic between outward and inward inclinations,
and the knowledge and force that we can muster to counter or
complement them. Yet we are not dealing with a pure form of naturalism
here. The divine and supernatural, as Cardano understands them, are
constantly speaking about the future to humans through intermediaries,
through nature itself (Regier 2023). In his monumental treatise on
dream interpretation, *Somniorum Synesiorum libri IV* or *De
somniis*, he describes a universe where providential knowledge is
relayed from God to the celestial intelligences, then to humans. He
writes that when we sleep, we enter into a communion with God's
mind, such that the future is entirely presented to our souls, but we
rarely perceive the information due to the effects of bodily
imbalance, daily worries, and general overstimulation. We are like
dogs given food by their master; we are oblivious to the preparation
that went into it, to its significance (*De somniis*, OO, V,
672a; Cardano 2021a, 515). The framework here is generally
Neoplatonic: the soul has tremendous access to knowledge that stands
above the sensory realm, yet it is too bogged down by incorporeal
things--indeed, one of the intellectual benefits of melancholy,
to which Cardano assigns a variety of powerful effects, is that it can
distance the mind from daily and corporeal cares. As for the nature of
dreams, the celestial influence uses our memories as if they were
stones in a mosaic, assembling these memories into a composite with
meaning; for this reason, dreams are usually cryptic (*De
somniis*, OO, V, 598b; Cardano 2021a, 43).



Except in very rare cases (e.g., the dreams of perfect clarity that
Cardano calls *idola*), the future must be deciphered with
imperfect results. The underlying cause is the nature of the infinite.
Sciences that concern the future, he writes, all run up against the
same problem, the "infinite nature of things, that is, of the
soul and of what can be seen; that which sees and that which can be
seen are infinite in number. How then can the infinite be contained in
books, however long and numerous?" (*De somniis*, OO, V,
671a; Cardano 2021a, 513). He warns his readers against philosophers
like Cicero who prefer clarity to nuance. Clarity is a rhetorical
cheat; only the greatest of philosophers appreciate infinity and
recognize that clarity is the nemesis of accuracy. This discussion is
meant to explain the difficulty of dream interpretation, but it could
be extended to any other discipline. Knowledge and ignorance interact
at the level of the cosmos, insofar as created beings cannot fully
understand the providential knowledge that flows through them and
manifests in their actions. Galen, says Cardano, does not know how he
moves his finger back and forth, despite all his anatomical knowledge,
but he can do it anyway because of the natural framework divinely
established. The celestial intelligences possess detailed knowledge of
their influence over the sublunar world, yet they neither understand
how they received this knowledge from God, nor do they know how they
really move that world any more than Galen knows how he moves his
finger (*De somniis*, OO, V, 671b-672a; Cardano 2021a, 515).
Nature, in this way, is infused with knowledge--knowledge of all
that has and will happen; yet even at the highest ontological level,
such knowledge is accompanied by the ignorance of created beings in
relation to divine understanding.