e should give me poison. They first
went to Ercole and tried to persuade him to go to the function; and he,
suspecting nothing, at first promised his help; but when he heard that his
fellow was to go likewise, he began to smell mischief and said, 'Only one
of us knows music.' Then Fioravanti, a blunt fellow, was so wholly set on
getting them out of the house that he said, 'Let us have both of you, for
we know that the other is also a musician; and, though he may not be one
of the best, still he will serve to swell the band of choristers.' Then
Ercole said somewhat vaguely that he would ask his master. He came to me,
having fathomed and laid bare the whole intention of the plot, so that, if
I had not been stark mad and stupid, I might easily have seen through
their design. Fifteen days or so had passed when the same men once more
sought me out and begged me to let them have the two boys to help them in
the performance of a comedy. Then Ercole came to me and said, 'Now in
sooth the riddle is plain to read; they are planning to get all your
people away from your table, so that they may kill you with poison; nor
are they satisfied with plotting your death merely by tricks of this sort;
they are determined to kill you by any chance which may offer."[204]

How far these plots were real, and how far they sprang from monomania it
is impossible to say. Cardan's relations with his brother physicians had
never been of the happiest, and it is quite possible that a set may have
been made in the Pavian Academy to get rid of a colleague, difficult to
live with at the best, and now cankered still more in temper by
misfortune, and likewise, in a measure, disgraced by the same. Surrounded
by annoyances such as these, and tormented by the intolerable memories and
associations of the last few years, it is not wonderful that he should
seek a way out of his troubles by a change of scene and occupation.

As early as 1536 Cardan had had professional relations with certain
members of the Borromeo family, which was one of the most illustrious in
Milan, and in 1560 Carlo Borromeo was appointed Archbishop of Milan. There
is no record of the date when Cardan first made acquaintance with this
generous patron, who was the nephew of the reigning Pope, Pius IV.,
himself a Milanese, but it is certain that Cardan had at an earlier date
successfully treated the mother of the future Cardinal,[205] wherefore it
is legitimate to assume that the physician was