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The Contradicentia medicorum libri by Girolamo Cardano

As Nancy Siraisi noted some years ago, ‘the Contradictiones is at once a key text for Cardano’s ideas about medical knowledge’ and ‘a prime example’ of the multiple strands in his thought. 1 It is the longest work by Cardano in medicine, and one of the longest and most important of all his writings (628 pp.). Intended as twelve books, it was never published in entirety while Cardano was alive. The first edition, in one book, appeared in 1545 (Venice: H. Scotus), the second, doubled in length, in 1548 (Lyon: S. Gryphius) and again in 1564 – 5 (Paris: J. Macé). In 1663 Charles Spon (Cardano’s Opera omnia, vol. VI, Lyon, I. A. Huguetan et M. A. Ravaud) edited ten books (books 3 – 10 from manuscripts), excluding the last two, which were in too poor a condition to be published. 2 The manuscripts are now lost. The work is a collection of citations and arguments of the most eminent ancient, medieval and contemporary medical authors, in order to show their divergences, or contradictions. Cardano aims at emulating Pietro d’Abano’s Conciliator, and at subverting its harmonizing method as well. He confirms his criticism of contemporary medicine, already expressed in De malo recentiorum medendi usu (1536), which widened his polemic with the medical institutions in the city of Milan. In 1545, as he had just received the chair of medicine at the University of Pavia (1544), he probably decided to publish a work in medical theory, which is appropriate to his appointment; but he did not give up engaging in controversy with his colleagues and the authorities followed him doggedly, principally Galen, as the best representative of the entire ancient medical tradition.