dex_ be sent for.' Fracantiano sent for it gladly.
It was brought at once, and when he came to read the passage, he found
that what I had affirmed was true to a hair. He spake not another word,
being overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment. Moreover the students,
who had almost compelled me to come to the lecture, were even more
impressed by what had happened. But from that day forth my opponent
avoided all meeting with me; nay, he even gave orders to his servants that
they should warn him whenever they might see me approaching, and thus he
contrived that we should never foregather. One day when he was teaching
Anatomy, the students brought me, by a trick, into the room, whereupon he
straightway fled, and having entangled his feet in his robe, he fell down
headlong. This accident caused no little confusion, and shortly afterwards
he left the place, being then a man well advanced in years."[214]

He had not lived long in Bologna before he was fated to experience another
repetition of one of the untoward episodes of his past life, to wit the
fall of a house. It was not his own house this time, but it was
sufficiently near to induce him to change his abode without delay. Next
door to the house he had hired in the Via Gombru stood a palace belonging
to a certain Gramigna. "The entire house fell, and was ruined in a single
night, and together with the house perished the owner thereof." It was
believed that this man had divers powerful enemies, and, in order that he
might secure his position, he contrived to bring certain of his foes into
his house, having first made a mine of gunpowder under the portico, and
set a match thereto. But for some reason or other the plot miscarried the
night when he destined to carry it out. Gramigna went to see what was
amiss, and at that very moment the mine exploded and brought the house to
the ground. After this explosion Cardan moved to a house in the Galera
quarter, belonging to the family of Ranucci; but he did not find this
dwelling perfect, as he was forced to vacate the rooms which were most to
his taste on account of the bad state of the ceilings, the plaster of
which, more than once, fell down upon his head.

In his _Paralipomena_, "the last fruit off an old tree," which he put
together about this time, there are numerous stories of prodigies and
portents; of doors which would not close, and doors which opened of their
own accord; of rappings on the walls, and of mysterious thunder