Book Description
A bright star of the Italian Renaissance, Girolamo Cardano was an internationally-sought-after astrologer, physician, and natural philosopher, a creator of modern algebra, and the inventor of the universal joint. Condemned by the Inquisition to house arrest in his old age, Cardano wrote The Book of My Life, an unvarnished and often outrageous account of his character and conduct. Whether discussing his sex life or his diet, the plots of academic rivals or meetings with supernatural beings, or his deep sorrow when his beloved son was executed for murder, Cardano displays the same unbounded curiosity that made him a scientific pioneer. At once picaresque adventure and campus comedy, curriculum vitae, and last will, The Book of My Life is an extraordinary Renaissance self-portrait—a book to set beside Montaigne's Essays and Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Perhaps best for rarefied tastes
Girolamo Cardano's THE BOOK OF MY LIFE is a very typical entry into the lists of the New York Review of Books Classics: fairly obscure except to Renaissance historians, Cardano was an enormously important Italian mathemetician, scientist, and astrologer who also wrote an account of himself, his nature, and his life. Cardano's experiences in 16th-century Italy are extremely complex and colorful, and he recounts not only his problems with his children and his many enemies, but also his birthsign, his experiments, and his encounters with supernatural beings. The book isn't quite as enthralling as you hope it might be, and in the foreword Anthony Grafton comments on the limitations of this translation (which hearkens back to the 1920s)--given this, you wonder why NYRB didn't commission a new and more faithful translation. The book is intriguing enough but doesn't exactly pass the time quite in the enjoyable way the NYRB Classics seem to be intended to do. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on December 22, 1996. The length of the article is 3265 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Girolamo Cardano: Philosoph, Naturforscher, Arzt.
Author: Susan C. Karant-Nunn
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1996
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: v49Issue: n4Page: p840(10)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on June 22, 1999. The length of the article is 1308 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine.(Review)
Author: Katharine Park
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1999
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: 52Issue: 2Page: 533(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more