Cardano’s fortunes are coming to an end. At 16, his daughter Chiara seduces his eldest son, Giovanni, and becomes pregnant. She miscarries and remains sterile. She remains promiscuous even after marriage and contracts syphilis. Giovanni becomes a doctor but becomes known as a poisoner. His other son, Aldo, works as a torturer. When Giovanni’s wife collapses after eating a cake her husband made, the authorities arrest him. His father, Cardano, will spend all his wealth, and his fame, to save his son, who will be executed anyway. In 1563, Cardano himself is convicted of sodomy and incest and expelled from Milan. Cardano is now out of his mind and suffers alternating periods of mental confusion. The final blow comes from Niccolo’ Tartaglia who, furious because Cardano had revealed his secret method for solving certain equations, convinces Aldo to testify against his father in exchange for an official appointment as torturer for the Inquisition of the city of Bologna.
