Girolamo Cardano: university student and professor

The encyclopaedic range of G irolamo C ardano's work represents a magnificent document of the intellectual life of the universities in sixteenth‐century northern I taly, in particular P avia, P adua and B ologna. C ardano (1501–76) studied medicine and philosophy in P avia from 1519 to 1523, and later in P adua, where he obtained the doctorate in medicine in 1525. He taught at the universities of P avia (from 1543) and B ologna (from 1563). The arrest by the Inquisition in 1570 put an abrupt end to his academic career. This article focuses on some of the medical commentaries written by C ardano during his professorship in P avia and B ologna (mainly on H ippocrates, but also A vicenna, A verroes and M ondino de' L iuzzi). They shed important light on our understanding of the contemporary academic milieu. A recurrent motif in C ardano's teaching material is whether and to what extent prudentia , understood both in a ‘medical’ and a ‘civil’ sense, could be taught, and taught while commenting upon medical auctoritates .