he had full time to follow his
physician's calling after taking up his residence there. He records the
cure of a noble matron, Clementina Massa, and of Cesare Buontempo, a
jurisconsult, both of whom had been suffering for nearly two years. The
circumstances of his retirement from Bologna would not affect his
reputation as a physician, and he seems to have had in Rome as many or
even more patients than he cared to treat; and in writing in general terms
concerning his successes as a healer, he says: "In all, I restored to
health more than a hundred patients, given up as incurable in Milan, in
Bologna, and in Rome." Of all the friends Cardan had in this closing
period of his life, none was more useful or benevolent than Cardinal
Alciati, who, although he had been secretary to Pius IV., contrived to
retain the favour of his successor. This piece of good fortune Alciati
owed to the protection of Carlo Borromeo, who had been his pupil at Pavia,
and had procured for him from Pius IV. a bishopric, a cardinal's hat, and
the secretaryship of Dataria. Another of Cardan's powerful friends was the
Prince of Matellica, of whom he speaks in terms of praise inflated enough
to be ridiculous, were it not for the accompanying note of pathos. After
celebrating the almost divine character of this nobleman, his munificence
and his superhuman abilities, he goes on: "What could there be in me to
win the kindly notice of such a patron? Certainly I had done him no
service, nor could he hope I should ever do him any in the future, I, an
old man, an outcast of fortune, and prostrated by calamity. In sooth,
there was naught about me to attract him; if indeed he found any merit in
me, it must have been my uprightness."

Powerful friends are never superfluous, and Cardan seems to have needed
them in Rome as much as in Bologna. In 1573 he again hints at plots
against his life, but almost immediately after recording his suspicions he
goes on to suggest that his danger had arisen chiefly from his ignorance
of the streets of Rome, and from the uncouth manners of the populace.
"Many physicians, more cautious than myself, and better versed in the
customs of the place, have come by their death from similar cause." The
danger, whatever its nature, seems to have threatened him as a member of
the practising faculty at Rome rather than as the persecuted ex-teacher of
Pavia and Bologna. Rodolfo Sylvestro was not the only one of his former
associates near him in