Editing Gerolamo Cardano (section)

== References in literature and culture==
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 [[Library of Sir Thomas Browne|his library]].<ref>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).</ref>

Browne critically viewed Cardan as:

<blockquote>
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.<ref>''[[Pseudodoxia Epidemica]]'' Bk 1: chapter 8 no. 13</ref>
</blockquote>

[[Richard Hinckley Allen]] tells of an amusing reference made by [[Samuel Butler (poet)|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 ''[[The Betrothed (Manzoni 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).