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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2012
1 E Philipot, La vie et l'oeuvre littéraire de Noël du Fail, gentilhomme breton, Paris, Honoré Champion, 1914; R D'Amat, ‘Du Fail, Noel’, in M Barroux, M Prévost, R D'Amat, and R Limouzin-Lemothe (eds), Dictionnaire de Biographie Française (hereafter DBF), Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1933–, vol. 11 (1967), cols. 1364–5; M J Giordano, ‘Noël du Fail’, in P F Grendler (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 6 vols, New York, Scribner's, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 220–1. A longer account in English is given in the introduction to the selection of his writings included in A J Krailsheimer, Three sixteenth-century conteurs, Oxford University Press, 1966, pp. 137–49.
2 His three collections, Propos rustiques et facétieux, Baliverneries et contes nouveaux, and Contes et discours d'Eutrapel, are cited by the page and volume number in his Oeuvres facétieuses, 2 vols, Paris, P Daffis, 1874.
3 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 142, ascribing this to a natural human inclination to seek after forbidden fruit.
4 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 145–6, discussed by C D O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964, p. 49, although his translation is inaccurate and misleading in its omissions.
5 Du Fail, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 1, pp. 184–94; vol. 2, pp. 271–82, quotation from p. 272; vol. 2, pp. 224–31. Du Fail is not included in the discussion of literary representations of ‘Dame Gout’ given by Roy Porter and G S Rousseau, Gout: the patrician malady, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1998.
6 Roch Le Baillif, Le demostrion, Rennes, P le Bret, 1578, sig. b ivr–c ivv, reprinted in H Baudry, ‘Noël Du Fail, préfacier du Démostrion de Roch Le Baillif’, in Catherine Magnien-Simonin (ed.), Noël Du Fail, écrivain, Paris, Vrin, 1991, pp. 185–201, at pp. 195–8, a reference we owe to Hiroshi Hirai. As Philipot showed, Du Fail repeats in his later Contes several passages from this Préface (op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 354–81).
7 The story of his treatment of Hamilton is found in all the biographies of Cardano, e.g. J Eckman, Jerome Cardan, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1946, p. 25; A Wykes, Doctor Cardano, physician extraordinary, London, Frederick Muller, 1969, p. 129; and at greater length in C L Dana, ‘The story of a great consultation: Jerome Cardan goes to Edinburgh’, Ann. Med. Hist., 1921, 3: 122–35; M Fierz, Girolamo Cardano, 1501–1576, Boston and Basel, Birkhäuser, 1983, pp. 37–55. G Aquilecchia, ‘L'esperienza anglo-scozzese di Cardano e l'Inquisizione’, in M Baldi and G Canziani (eds), Girolamo Cardano: le opere, le fonti, la vita, Milan, Francoangeli, 1999, pp. 379–92, adds some new archival material.
8 H Cardanus, De rerum varietate 17,97, in Opera omnia, 10 vols, Lyons, Huguetan and Ravaud, 1663, vol. 3, p. 97, placing the visit on his way north from Paris. For his other comments on the unicorn, a beast he thought lived in Ethiopia, see De subtilitate 10,20, in Opera omnia, vol. 3, p. 531.
9 H Cardanus, De vita propria 29, in op. cit., note 8 above, vol. 1, p. 18: “Ex hoc congressus cum regiis medicis. pransi sumus, sed non obtinuerunt ut me audirent a prandio, quoniam ante prandium volebant me priorem dicere. prosecutus igitur iter, amice satis cum Pharnelio et Sylvio alioque Regis medico quos ibi reliqueram.” The translation is that of Jean Stoner, in Jerome Cardan, The book of my life (De vita propria liber), London, J M Dent, 1931, p. 98.
10 For Fernel (1506–1558), and Cardano's respect for him, see N G Siraisi, The clock and the mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance medicine, Princeton University Press, 1997, pp. 158–61. The third doctor was probably Nicholas Legrand.
11 This account is not recorded by Siraisi, ibid.; F Secret, ‘Cardan en France’, Studi Francesi 1966, 10: 480–5; E Kessler (ed.), Girolamo Cardano: Philosoph, Naturforscher, Arzt, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1994, the authors cited above in note 7, or any other writer on Cardano, Sylvius or Fernel we have read. Philipot, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 432, n. 1, drew attention to the (partial and inaccurate) citation by the Paracelsan physician David de Planis Campy (1589–1644), in his L'hydre morbifique exterminée par l'Hercule chimique, Paris, H Du Mesnil, 1528, p. 561, also in idem, Les oeuvres, Paris, D Moreau, 1646, p. 264. But this citation is even harder to locate than that in Du Fail, and it is hardly surprising that it has remained unknown.
12 For the nickname, see Krailsheimer, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 141.
13 He pleaded that provincial hares, not understanding Latin, should not be scared off by his voice.
14 Du Fail, Contes et discours, op. cit., note 2 above, 13, vol. 2, pp. 40–8; the Cardano story occupies pp. 42–4. Although Du Fail has been regularly accused of a lack of structure in his contes almost to the point of a “paroxysme pathologique”, this chapter is clearly organized with a theme within one section suggesting the next.
15 H Cardanus, De vita propria 29, in op. cit., note 8 above, vol. 1, p. 18, makes it clear that his return journey was by way of Belgium and the Rhine.
16 For Jacques Houillier (1500–1562), see H Blémont, DBF, vol. 17, 1989, col. 1347; for Jacques Goupil (1525–1564), see A Tétry, DBF, vol. 16, 1985, cols. 767–8; for Jacques Charpentier (1521–1574), more famous as a mathematician, see M Prévost, DBF, vol. 6, 1959, cols. 638–9; and for Jean de Gorris (1505–1577), A Tétry, DBF, vol. 16, cols. 631–2. All were in senior positions in the faculty at the time. For Parisian medicine in general, see I M Lonie, ‘The “Paris Hippocratics”: teaching and research in Paris in the second half of the sixteenth century’, in A Wear, R French, and I M Lonie (eds), The medical Renaissance of the sixteenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 155–74.
17 Throughout, Du Fail uses a series of military metaphors to describe the confrontation.
18 The French idiom means literally “taking the eel by the tail”.
19 This quotation, from the Latin poet Claudian, De bello Gildonico, I, 135, became a well-known tag, see H Walther, Proverbia sensentiaeque latinitatis medii aevi, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1964, vol. 2, no. 14891.
20 Du Fail, Contes et discours, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 42–4: “Le reputation de Cardan ce grand medecin Milanois, s'il eust seu revoir et trancher ses escrits, avoit volé par tout, dit Polygame, quand revenant d'Angleterre medicamenter un certain Milort, il fut appellé à Paris pour visiter un autre Seigneur malade, où les plus renommez Medecins de Paris, c'est à dire de l'Europe, n'y furent oubliez, estimans qu'il ne laisseroit rien à hostel, pour le discours de la maladie, et sur les points d'icelle, Sylvius,/ Hollerius, le Goupil, Fernel, Charpentier, de Gorris, le Grand, bien preparez, bandez, et esmorchez, s'estans faits instruire, par sous main, de la cause, l'estat, augmentation et declination de la maladie, s'y trouverent, et par eux mesmes fut deferé la preseance et prerogative de ceste conferance et pourparler à Cardan, lequel en la refusant, l'accepta, comme font les Evesques, nolens volo. Celuy qui avoit la charge principale du patient, ebaucha de la matiere par un long flux de paroles, où ne se souvenant du commencement, et s'estant perdu au milieu de son conte, Hollier le redressant et eschorchant l'anguille par la queue, fit la conclusion, disant que le rapporteur s'estoit peut estre par sa grande multitude de doctrine un peu escarté, n'observant ce qui a esté plusieurs fois dit, Bene, sed non hic, c'est bien dit, et avec grand eloquence et science mais mal à propos. Cardan à tous ses intervales de l'Université ne fit qu'un simple/ et petit clin de teste, à la mode de son pays, qui ont, ce disent-ils, mais on ne les peut croire, plus en leurs magazins, qu'en leur boutique.
“Ce fut pitié d'ouir les plus jeunes sur la doctrine des Grecs, Arabes, des Latins tant vieux que nouveaux. Fernel lors estimé en tout leurs escholes le plus fin pionnier et fossoieur aux creux de la Medecine et Philosophie, y apporta tout l'apparat, et ce qu'on pourroit dire. Sylvius en son ordre avec sa facilité de langage latin, qui l'avoit rendu admirable par tout, dit aussi merveilles. Mais Cardan opinant le dernier, sans autre propos, et faisant la resolution de telle et si docte deliberation, ayant bien choisi et esleu le noeud de la maladie, dit seulement, Ha besongna d'onno clystere. Ceste troupe medicinale mescontente au possible, disoit: Cardan vaut mieux loin que près, minuit praesentia famam; et luy disoit de son costé, Ingannati tutti los pedantes, io son medico non di parole, ma d'effetto.”
21 Philipot, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 442. Krailsheimer, op. cit., note 1 above, p. 142, concludes that, within Du Fail's stories one finds a substantial amount of realism, self-revelation, and a good deal of personal observation.
22 Such medical confrontations can be found in literary representations from Antiquity onwards.
23 Given what may have happened, Cardano's own reference to his relationship with Fernel and Cardano as “amice satis” (“friendly enough”), note 9 above, may be more accurate and less enthusiastic than Stoner's “on the best of terms”.
24 Hence the use of the story by Planis Campy, loc. cit., note 11 above, who introduces it with “There is nothing in the world I hate more than those who offer names and not effective action”.
25 H Cardanus, De admirandis curationibus, in op. cit., note 8 above, vol. 7, pp. 253–64, esp. p. 261, citing Galen's On prognosis.
26 Du Fail, who had seen military service in Italy, would certainly have picked up enough Italian to (re)construct an answer in Italian.
27 Above, notes 9 and 10. In the letter to Duno, written before his Paris visit, he calls Sylvius and Fernel “most celebrated”, and suggests that they be called to adjudicate between Cardano and his opponents (op. cit., note 8 above, vol. 7, p. 274).
28 Above, note 6. For this celebrated case, see D Kahn, ‘La Faculté de Médecine de Paris en échec face au paracelsisme: enjeux et dénouement réels du procès de Roch le Baillif’, in H Schott and I Zinguer (eds), Paracelsus und seine internationale Rezeption in der frühen Neuzeit, Leiden, Brill, 1998, pp. 146–221.
29 Roch Le Baillif, op. cit., note 6 above, sig, c iiiir, Baudry, p. 198. He continued to disapprove of Paracelsans whose mystifications were of no practical effect, cf. Du Fail, Contes et discours, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 46–7. See also H Baudry, ‘Contribution à l'étude du paracelsisme en France au XVIme siècle (1560–1580) de la naissance du mouvement aux années de maturité: Le Demosterion de Roch le Baillif (1578)’, Diss., Université de Paris X, 1989, pp. 129–38, a copy of which was obtained for us by Hiroshi Hirai.
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