- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: NYRB Classics (31 Oct 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1590170164
- ISBN-13: 978-1590170168
- Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 1.9 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
200,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #47 in Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Italy
- #87 in Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Italy
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.70
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Book Of My Life (NYRB Classic) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.70, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A bright star of the Italian Renaissance, Girolamo Cardano was an internationally-sought-after astrologer, physician, and natural philosopher, a creator of modern algebra, and the inventor of the universal joint. Condemned by the Inquisition to house arrest in his old age, Cardano wrote The Book of My Life, an unvarnished and often outrageous account of his character and conduct. Whether discussing his sex life or his diet, the plots of academic rivals or meetings with supernatural beings, or his deep sorrow when his beloved son was executed for murder, Cardano displays the same unbounded curiosity that made him a scientific pioneer. At once picaresque adventure and campus comedy, curriculum vitae, and last will, The Book of My Life is an extraordinary Renaissance self-portrait—a book to set beside Montaigne's Essays and Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography.
About the Author
Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was born in Pavia, Italy. A professor of mathematics at Padua, and of medicine at Pavia and Bologna, he was the the author of more than a hundred books on subjects ranging from the natural sciences to medicine, history, and music.
Anthony Grafton teaches the history of Renaissance Europe at Princeton University. His books include Joseph Scaliger, Cardano's Cosmos, and Bring Out Your Dead.
Anthony Grafton teaches the history of Renaissance Europe at Princeton University. His books include Joseph Scaliger, Cardano's Cosmos, and Bring Out Your Dead.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
MY NATIVE country is the Duchy of Milan; the town in which the family of the Cardani had its origins is twenty-four miles distant from the city. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
MY NATIVE country is the Duchy of Milan; the town in which the family of the Cardani had its origins is twenty-four miles distant from the city. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) lived a long life that covers three quarters of the XVIth century. Among mathematicians he is well-known for his publication on probability. He would be the first one to be surprised to know that he is remembered as a mathematician, for he was primarily a doctor who made a fortune drawing up horoscopes to grandees. His autobiography is unconventional and for the period extremely original. Rather than glossing over his achievements, Cardano revisits his life with scatting comments along the 54 chapters of the book. The autobiography not only described his own life, but his contemporaries and their main preoccupations thus his "meditation on the perpetuation of his name" is also a reflexion on the social mores of his time.
Chapter 39 is about "erudition or the appearance of it". It exposes the contradictory nature of Cardano, a multiple man. Extremely proud and susceptible to any criticism, he is also full of doubt about himself. As he put it the purpose of the chapter is to discover whether he actually knows anything or whether he only seems to know. Another chapter will deal with the importance of the quality of conversation (chapter 53) which is a reflexion on friendship.
Cardano is only remembered for a formula (the Cardano's formula), yet one wonders why he is not more often quoted for his moral philosophy. He is one of the few in the XVIth century to dare to declare the equality of the conditions of all beings, not only of all men but of all living creatures (chapter 44). His philosophy, inevitably, brought him into trouble with the Church and he was jailed for a few months before paying an astronomical sum to remain under house-arrest.
But then, baroque to the end, Cardano, man of science, believes in his guardian angels (chapter 47) and in things absolutely supernatural (chapter 43).
The book is a delight, the translation from Jean Stoner made in 1929 (Cardano wrote in latin) stunningly modern. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Italy. Cardano helps us understand the society that built so many architectural marvels.
Chapter 39 is about "erudition or the appearance of it". It exposes the contradictory nature of Cardano, a multiple man. Extremely proud and susceptible to any criticism, he is also full of doubt about himself. As he put it the purpose of the chapter is to discover whether he actually knows anything or whether he only seems to know. Another chapter will deal with the importance of the quality of conversation (chapter 53) which is a reflexion on friendship.
Cardano is only remembered for a formula (the Cardano's formula), yet one wonders why he is not more often quoted for his moral philosophy. He is one of the few in the XVIth century to dare to declare the equality of the conditions of all beings, not only of all men but of all living creatures (chapter 44). His philosophy, inevitably, brought him into trouble with the Church and he was jailed for a few months before paying an astronomical sum to remain under house-arrest.
But then, baroque to the end, Cardano, man of science, believes in his guardian angels (chapter 47) and in things absolutely supernatural (chapter 43).
The book is a delight, the translation from Jean Stoner made in 1929 (Cardano wrote in latin) stunningly modern. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Italy. Cardano helps us understand the society that built so many architectural marvels.
Format:Paperback
Cardano was a most interesting character. Its strange that he is not better known. For all his flaws, and he had many, he seems to have been a true innovator and we owe him much. For those interested in the early history of science and mathematics it would make a very good read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Perhaps best for rarefied tastes
21 Oct 2002
Format:Paperback
Girolamo Cardano's THE BOOK OF MY LIFE is a very typical entry into the lists of the New York Review of Books Classics: fairly obscure except to Renaissance historians, Cardano was an enormously important Italian mathemetician, scientist, and astrologer who also wrote an account of himself, his nature, and his life. Cardano's experiences in 16th-century Italy are extremely complex and colorful, and he recounts not only his problems with his children and his many enemies, but also his birthsign, his experiments, and his encounters with supernatural beings. The book isn't quite as enthralling as you hope it might be, and in the foreword Anthony Grafton comments on the limitations of this translation (which hearkens back to the 1920s)--given this, you wonder why NYRB didn't commission a new and more faithful translation. The book is intriguing enough but doesn't exactly pass the time quite in the enjoyable way the NYRB Classics seem to be intended to do.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > 1501-1700
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Italy
- Books > Biography > Medical, Legal & Social Sciences > Philosophy
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Italy
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > History of Science
- Books > Science & Nature
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
