Gerolamo Cardano, a mathematician with 131 books to his name, dies in abject poverty, largely unknown. On his deathbed, he writes an ode to his favorite son, his eldest, who had been executed 16 years earlier. He had outlived two of his three children. His surviving son will be hired as a torturer by the Inquisition, a coveted job at the time, as a reward for testifying against his father. Before dying, Cardano burns 170 unpublished manuscripts. Another 111 survive the fire. One of these, Liber de ludo alea, is the first text ever written on chance.
