Gerolamo Cardano

Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was a typical Renaissance polymath, well versed in Astrology, Natural Magic, Mathematics, Law and Medicine. Like many other eminent individuals of his time (Paracelsus, Della Porta, John Dee), he was not only interested in the occult but also contributed to the development of various aspects of modern science. Although he began his studies in Law, he took his degree in Medicine at Padua, and then taught Mathematics, Architecture and Geometry in Milan. In 1545 he published his Ars Magna in which he expounded the so-called 'Cardano formula', that had earlier been developed by Scipione del Ferro and reformulated by Tartaglia. After a series of peregrinations around Europe, he was appointed to the Chair of Medicine at Bologna in 1562, but was obliged to leave the city nine years later when he was accused of religious scepticism and the practice of magic. In all he wrote more than 200 works. Together with other important thinkers at the University of Bologna at that time, such as Pomponazzi, he resisted the principle of authority and the interference of religious control in scientific research. In this way he contributed to the development of experimental methods which he applied, with noteworthy results, to Medicine.