Notes on Cardano's De consolatione: Ethics, Naturalism and Wisdom

Published in 1542, the De consolatione is now reedited in a critical edition and in an Italian translation. With this work Cardano, known as a doctor, begins his philosophical production, revisiting a classical and humanistic tradition on consolation. In the De consolatione Cardano develops many autobiographical ideas and affirms he composed this book essentially for himself. This script shows - although with a different emphasis - some themes that will be at the centre of his works of the sixties, such as Proxeneta. Cardano faces the question of "living well and happily" and the connected problem of the "sweet death" - which he examines from a medical, naturalistic and moral point of view -, and considers the wisdom (prudentia) as a necessary virtue, "almost a divine gift".