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91-418: The gambling game with this name goes back to the 16th century, being known to Gerolamo Cardano as primiera , which he thought of as the noblest of all card games, to François Rabelais as prime , and to William Shakespeare as primero. It is uncertain if Primero is of Spanish or Italian origin. Although Daines Barrington is of the opinion that it is of Spanish origin, a poem of Francesco Berni

182-612: A "butterfly pamphlet" about 8 September, and later expanded as Four Letters and Certain Sonnets , entered in the Stationers' Register on 4 December 1592. Harvey attributed Greene's demise to "a surfeit of pickle herring and Rhenish wine", and claimed he had been buried in "the New Churchyard near Bedlam " on 4 September. No record of Greene's burial has been found. According to The Repentance of Robert Greene , Greene

273-436: A 1936 volume of essays, authorial reviews and a play, provides a sympathetic treatment of Cardano in the section titled 'The Past'. Forster believes Cardano was so absorbed in "self-analysis that he often forgot to repent of his bad temper, his stupidity, his licentiousness, and love of revenge" (212). A chronological key to this edition is supplied by M. Fierz. Robert Greene (dramatist) Robert Greene (1558–1592)

364-467: A BA in 1580, and an M.A. in 1583 before moving to London, where he arguably became the first professional author in England. He was prolific and published in many genres including romances, plays and autobiography. According to the author Brenda Richardson , the "chief problem" in compiling a biography of Robert Greene was his name. Robert was one of the most popular given names of the era and Greene

455-448: A Fortunatus Greene was buried at Shoreditch on 12 August 1593, "whose folk-tale name might lie behind Harvey's jest". According to Newcomb, '[Greene's] works evince an inexhaustible linguistic facility, grounded in wide (if not painstaking) reading in the classics, and extra-curricular reading in the modern continental languages'. He wrote prolifically: From 1583 to 1592, he published more than twenty-five works in prose, becoming one of

546-445: A French card-maker Jehan Licl**rer. This particular shows that the cards then used were at least sometimes obtained from France. The money on the table, together with considerable heaps of gold and silver, appears to be coins of Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I. As the first Marquess of Exeter , Lord Burleigh, is said to have entirely devoted his time to business and study, taking no diversion but that afforded by his gardens, of which he

637-408: A bet, it must be withdrawn. In Rome, the full 52-card deck was used. In Florence, it is custom to leave out the 7s, 8s and 9s, keeping and vying only with the smaller cards; the "rest" ( to set up a rest means 'to win [something]', and is a phrase which occurs in almost every poem in the times of James and Charles. It is taken from terms used at primero, and perhaps other games then played) is made at

728-541: A courtesy degree". Thereafter the title pages of some of his published works bore the phrase Utruisq. Academiae in Artibus Magister' , "Master of Arts in both Universities". Greene died 3 September 1592, (aged 34 if he was the Robert Greene baptised in 1558). His death and burial were announced by Gabriel Harvey in a letter to Christopher Bird of Saffron Walden dated 5 September, first published as

819-517: A difficult time finding work after he completed his studies. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not admitted owing to his combative reputation and illegitimate birth. However, he was consulted by many members of the College of Physicians, because of his irrefutable intelligence. Cardano wanted to practice medicine in a large, rich city like Milan , but he

910-413: A few influential patients in the process. Because of this, he became one of the most sought-after doctors in Milan. In fact, by 1536, he was able to quit his teaching position, although he was still interested in mathematics. His notability in the medical field was such that the aristocracy tried to lure him out of Milan. Cardano later wrote that he turned down offers from the kings of Denmark and France, and

1001-539: A great Enquirer of Truth, but too greedy a Receiver of it. He hath left many excellent Discourses, Medical, Natural, and Astrological; the most suspicious are those two he wrote by admonition in a dream, that is De Subtilitate & Varietate Rerum . Assuredly this learned man hath taken many things upon trust, and although examined some, hath let slip many others. He is of singular use unto a prudent Reader; but unto him that only desireth Hoties, or to replenish his head with varieties; like many others before related, either in

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1092-599: A horoscope of Jesus . Cardano was imprisoned for several months and lost his professorship in Bologna. He abjured and was freed, probably with help from powerful churchmen in Rome. All his non-medical works were prohibited and placed on the Index . He moved to Rome, where he received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V , who died in 1572) and finished his autobiography. He

1183-460: A letter allegedly written by Greene to his wife in which he addresses her as "Doll". However, "[E]xtensive searches of London and Norwich records by successive biographers have failed finally to locate the record of Greene's marriage". After his move to London, Greene published over twenty-five works in prose in a variety of genres, becoming "England's first celebrity author". In 1588, he was granted an MA from Oxford University , "almost certainly

1274-469: A myth of prodigal decline that cannot be taken at face value". His plays earned himself the title as one of the " University Wits ", including John Lyly , George Peele , Thomas Nashe , and Christopher Marlowe . Richardson makes a similar argument, concluding that Greene's later works 'prejudice the examination of all the work before them', and that the prose works prior to the coney-catching and repentance pamphlets establish that 'initially at least Greene

1365-414: A pedantic scholar of the obsolete, Don Ferrante, as a great admirer of Cardano. Significantly, he values him only for his superstitious and astrological writings; his scientific writings are dismissed because they contradict Aristotle , but excused on the ground that the author of the astrological works deserves to be listened to even when he is wrong. English novelist E. M. Forster 's Abinger Harvest ,

1456-407: A player is satisfied with his cards, he may knock on the table, calling out: Vada (go!), which brings an immediate showdown won by the best hand. If no one bets, the stakes are carried forward to the next deal; but if one stays in, at least one other must contest the pot, this obligation ultimately falling upon the player immediately ahead of the last bettor if everyone else has folded. In a showdown,

1547-404: A turn, but not both. Once a player knocks, he may no longer draw. When two players have knocked, the play stops, and cards are shown. Betting starts after the two cards are dealt, and may continue after these two cards have been dealt, and then at every round, just before the dealer's turn. The dealer always bets first. Players may match, raise, or fold any time during wagering. If all players refuse

1638-478: A wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille , a cryptographic writing tool, in 1550. Significantly, in the history of education of the deaf , he said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to speak first. He

1729-399: Is according to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians most likely falsely attributed to Cardano and is by another writer. Cardano also dabbled in composing, writing the motet Beati estis which is scored for 12 voices and contains four overlapping canons . Cardano's work with hypocycloids led him to Cardan's Movement or Cardan Gear mechanism, in which a pair of gears with

1820-585: Is alleged to have written Groatsworth during the month prior to his death, including in it a letter to his wife asking her to forgive him and stating that he was sending their son to her. No record of Greene's son by his wife has been found; however, in Four Letters , Gabriel Harvey claimed that Greene kept a mistress, Em, the sister of a criminal known as " Cutting Ball " hanged at Tyburn . Harvey described her as "a sorry ragged quean of whom [Greene] had his base son Infortunatus Greene". According to Newcomb,

1911-413: Is allowed to discard, but not both cards after "pass" is once said; nor can this be done with the two cards of the rest , as it is usual in other places. The most essential operation of this game may be its two principal hands, the flush and the primera , and a third, derived from the first, which is called punto ; from these three are deducted all the varieties which daily occur at primero, as

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2002-403: Is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum , is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. Greene evidently complains of an actor who believes he can write as well as university-educated playwrights, alludes to

2093-407: Is represented playing at cards with three other persons, apparently of distinction, each having two rings on the same fingers of both their hands. The cards used are marked as at present, although they differ from those of modern times for being narrower and longer. Eight of the cards lie on the table with the blank side uppermost, for the cards at that time had blank backs, while four remain in each of

2184-577: Is still very much played in central Europe and Spain with Italian-suited cards, under the name of goffo or bambara , remaining the major native vying game of Italy. Alessandro Striggio 's madrigal dramatizing a party of the game "II gioco di primiera" was published in 1569. This old game of cards was called prime in France, primera in Spain, and primiera in Italy. All names derived from

2275-457: Is the earliest known writing to mention the game; it affords proof that it was at least commonly played in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century. His work entitled Capitolo del Gioco della Primiera , published in Rome in 1526, and believed to be the earliest extant work describing a card game, contains some particulars on primero. According to David Parlett , the game's card-point system is found in other Italian games but nowhere else. The game

2366-414: Is to underbid their hands; for as Cardano puts it: "If anyone wins with the greatest point, he is obliged to show another card; otherwise he loses his deposit because he could have a 'Flush'... Similarly, if he 'vies' on the basis of point, he is obliged to show two different cards and one of a matching suit, so that no one may suspect him of having a 'Flush' or 'Prime'." A player may either knock or draw in

2457-456: Is used in vehicles to this day. He made significant contributions to hypocycloids - published in De proportionibus , in 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids, later named "Cardano circles" or "cardanic circles", were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses . Today, Cardano is well known for his achievements in algebra . In his 1545 book Ars Magna he made

2548-647: The University of Pavia . Against the wish of his father, who wanted his son to undertake studies of law, Girolamo felt more attracted to philosophy and science. During the Italian War of 1521–1526 , however, the authorities in Pavia were forced to close the university in 1524. Cardano resumed his studies at the University of Padua , where he graduated with a doctorate in medicine in 1525. His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had

2639-476: The binomial theorem in the Western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science. Cardano partially invented and described several mechanical devices including the combination lock , the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints , which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and

2730-441: The prime , a sequence of the best cards and a good trump, is sure to be successful over the adversaries – hence the game's name. Because this is a gambling game, the first step is for all players to ante into the pot. The deal is counter-clockwise, starting with the dealer. Each player receives 4 cards dealt in 2's from a 40-card deck ranking K Q J 7 6 5 4 3 2 A. Anyone dealt a winning combination calls for an immediate showdown, and

2821-515: The trick-taking game maw , the favorite card game of James I, and alluded by Harington as supplanting primero. According to Charles Cotton , primero, which by the time of the Restoration in 1660 had already evolved into many other variations, some of six cards, rapidly went out of fashion with the introduction of the Spanish game of Ombre . The object of the game, as in poker, is to attain

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2912-532: The 129 students at the university. It was "rare for a student to migrate to another college (as Greene did) after he had received the baccalaureate", and no record of Greene's transfer to Clare College has been discovered, nor does his name appear in the Clare Hall Buttery Book for 1580–84. Greene's claim to association with Clare College is found in the second part of Mamillia , which was not published until 1593, after Greene's death, in which

3003-480: The 7 is the 6, which counts for 18; then the 6, which counts for 15. The ace is equivalent to 6 points, but the 2 (deuce), the 3 (trey) and the 4 count only for their respective numbers. To these cards may be added, if the players choose, the quinola , for which the jack of hearts is most commonly chosen, and of which he may make what card and what colour he likes. After which each of the players show their four cards, and he whose cards are all of different sorts wins

3094-477: The Darcy, Portington, Lee, Stapleton, and Rogers families, all centred at Snaith , East Yorkshire; according to Richardson, the Robert Greene from Norwich who was an innkeeper may have been an immigrant from Yorkshire connected to 'a large family of Greenes' who lived in the parish of Snaith, and may actually have left Norwich to reside at Snaith from 1571 to 1577. There is no record of Greene's having taken part in

3185-462: The Inquisitor of Como, who targeted Cardano's De rerum varietate (1557). The inquisitors complained about Cardano's writings on astrology , especially his claim that self-harming religiously motivated actions of martyrs and heretics were caused by the stars. In his 1543 book De Supplemento Almanach , a commentary on the astrological work Tetrabiblos by Ptolemy , Cardano had also published

3276-540: The Latin primarius , 'first'. In English literature, besides the occasional use of the foreign names, the game is designated primero (and also prima-vista, a probable variant), with the usual corruptions in spelling of the early days. According to Stephen Skinner , primero and prima-vista are one and the same game. As for John Minshew, primero and prima-vista ( Primum et primum visum , that is, first and first seen, because he that can show such an order of cards, wins

3367-584: The Original or confirmation, he may become no small occasion of Error. Richard Hinckley Allen tells of an amusing reference made by Samuel Butler in his book Hudibras : Cardan believ'd great states depend Upon the tip o'th' Bear's tail's end; That, as she wisk'd it t'wards the Sun, Strew'd mighty empires up and down; Which others say must needs be false, Because your true bears have no tails. Alessandro Manzoni 's novel I Promessi Sposi portrays

3458-453: The Queen of Scotland. Gerolamo Cardano was the first European mathematician to make systematic use of negative numbers. He published with attribution the solution of Scipione del Ferro to the cubic equation and the solution of Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari to the quartic equation in his 1545 book Ars Magna , an influential work on algebra. The solution to one particular case of

3549-500: The actor with a quotation that appears in both the True Tragedy quarto and Shakespeare's Folio version of Henry VI, Part 3 , and uses the term "Shake-scene", a unique term never used before or after Greene's screed, to refer to the actor. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that it is "Of uncertain or vague meaning: used by Greene in his attack on Shakespeare". Some scholars have hypothesised that all or part of Groatsworth

3640-436: The better equal combinations are those with the highest point. Thus, a quartet of aces (4x16=64) beats a quartet of 5s (60), but it's beaten by four 6s (72). Four kings will not beat four queens or jacks, as these hands all count 40. Such ties are broken in favor of the eldest hand competing. Players vie or vye by stating how high a hand they claim to have, and may bluff by overstating it. What they apparently must not do

3731-463: The chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former sojourn of the sea upon the mountains. In 1552 Cardano travelled to Scotland with the Spanish physician William Casanatus, via London, to treat the Archbishop of St Andrews who suffered of a disease that had left him speechless and

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3822-553: The clown Lancelot in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice confides in this father that "for mine own part, as I have set up my rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have sun some ground" (2.2.91-92). To "set up [one's] rest" alludes to a type of gamble in the Italian version of primero ( see below ). Among the epigrams of John Harington we have one which describes "The Story of Marcus' Life at Primero", in which many of

3913-432: The cubic equation a x 3 + b x + c = 0 {\displaystyle ax^{3}+bx+c=0} (in modern notation) had been communicated to him in 1539 by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long dispute) in the form of a poem, but del Ferro's solution predated Tartaglia's. In his exposition, he acknowledged

4004-484: The decision to execute his son was influenced by Gerolamo's battles with the academic establishment in Pavia, and his colleagues' jealousy at his scientific achievements, and also because he was beset with allegations of sexual impropriety with his students. He obtained a position as professor of medicine at the University of Bologna . Cardano was arrested by the Inquisition in 1570 after an accusation of heresy by

4095-568: The dedicatory epistle to Robert Lee and Roger Portington is signed "Robert Greene. From my Studie in Clarehall the vii. Of Julie". According to Newcomb, "Other events of [Greene's] youth must be derived from autobiographical remarks that may not be reliable". In The Repentance of Robert Greene , written in the first person, Greene claimed to have travelled to Italy and Spain; however, no evidence of Greene's continental trip has been found, "or—unless we take merely his word for it—that he ever made

4186-733: The dramatic productions at Cambridge in 1579 and 1580, although 18 of his classmates and Fellows of the Cambridge colleges acted in Hymenaeus , and 46 in Richardus Tertius . His academic performance as an undergraduate at Cambridge was mediocre; on 22 January 1580, he took his BA, graduating 38th out of 41 students in his college, and 115th out of the total university graduating class that year of 205 students. He "apparently transferred to Clare College for his 1583 MA", where he placed 5th out of 12 students in his college, and 29th of

4277-549: The existence of what are now called imaginary numbers , although he did not understand their properties, described for the first time by his Italian contemporary Rafael Bombelli . In Opus novum de proportionibus he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem . Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, Liber de ludo aleae ("Book on Games of Chance"), written around 1564, but not published until 1663, contains

4368-500: The first authors in England to support himself with his pen in an age when professional authorship was virtually unknown. Greene's literary career began with the publication of a long romance, Mamillia , entered in the Stationers' Register on 3 October 1580. Greene's romances were written in a highly wrought style which reached its highest level in Pandosto (1588) and Menaphon (1589). Short poems and songs incorporated in some of

4459-426: The first systematic treatment of probability , as well as a section on effective cheating methods. He used the game of throwing dice to understand the basic concepts of probability. He demonstrated the efficacy of defining odds as the ratio of favourable to unfavourable outcomes (which implies that the probability of an event is given by the ratio of favourable outcomes to the total number of possible outcomes). He

4550-632: The first systematic use of negative numbers in Europe, published (with attribution) the solutions of other mathematicians for cubic and quartic equations , and acknowledged the existence of imaginary numbers . Cardano was born on 24 September 1501 in Pavia , Lombardy, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano , a mathematically gifted jurist , lawyer, and close friend of Leonardo da Vinci . In his autobiography, Cardano wrote that his mother, Chiara Micheri, had taken "various abortive medicines" to terminate

4641-598: The frequent mention of it by many writers of that time. Already during the reign of Henry VII, notices of money issued several times for the King's losses at cards appear in the Remembrance's Office, dated December the 26th, in the ninth year of his reign. There, an entry is made of one hundred shillings paid at one time to him for the purpose of playing at cards. The private expenses of Princess Mary, Henry VIII's daughter and later Queen, also contain numerous items of money "for

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4732-406: The game), are two different games of cards. Whichever opinion these two seventeenth-century lexicographers might have had on the origin of primero, it seems fairly plausible that the game being played in different parts of Europe had to acquire similar names as it migrated from one country to another, or from one region to the other, notably in Italy and Spain. And with the addition of new rules to

4823-420: The greater and lesser flush , the great and little prime , and more or less points; this diversity gives rise to numerous controversies and disputable points. Another excellent hand in this game is four-of-a-kind; four court cards, four aces, etc., beat both the flush and primera . Jacob Le Duchat , in a note on that chapter of Rabelais, in which the games Gargantua played at are enumerated, has described

4914-486: The highest possible hand, or at least bluff your competitors out of betting against you. There are no existing written rules for the 16th-century primero, only descriptions. However, a number of reconstructions of the game have been made, primarily on the basis of books describing playing strategy and references in period literature. Primero is played with a 40-card deck, and there are special decks made for this game. It works best with four to six players. The player who holds

5005-596: The history of woodwind instruments because of its discussion of instruments from that family. The second treatise was published in 1574, and a copy of it is held in the Vatican Library . The work is valuable for studies in harmony for its discussion of the use of microtones . It is also of interest to scholars of historically informed performance practice for its details on 16th century performance. The later treatise of music Della natura de principii et regole musicali which has been attributed to Cardano by some,

5096-547: The mode of playing primero, and a similar account may be gathered from the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy. According to Duchat, there are two kinds of primero, the greater and the lesser; the difference between them is that the former is played with the figured cards, while at the latter the highest card is the 7, which counts for 21. Each player has four cards, which are dealt one by one. the next card in value to

5187-465: The model for Shakespeare's Falstaff . His quotation has also been used as the title for the 2016 sitcom Upstart Crow on Shakespeare's life, written by Ben Elton , its story commencing in 1592 (the year the quotation was written) and featuring Greene as a character (played by Mark Heap ). In the Ben Elton -written sitcom, Upstart Crow , he is portrayed by Mark Heap as being alive following

5278-406: The most exhaustive examination of Greene's dramatic canon, concluding that Greene is the most likely author of Locrine and that he co-authored Selimus . Greene is most familiar to Shakespeare scholars for his pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit , which alludes to a line, "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide", found in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 ( c. 1591–92): ... for there

5369-454: The most points in one suit wins. Fond Marcus ever at Primero playes, Long winter nights, and as long Summer dayes: And I heard once, to idle talke attending; The Story of his times, and coines mis-spending. ... Gerolamo Cardano Gerolamo Cardano ( Italian: [dʒeˈrɔːlamo karˈdaːno] ; also Girolamo or Geronimo ; French: Jérôme Cardan ; Latin : Hieronymus Cardanus ; 24 September 1501– 21 September 1576)

5460-410: The next is the punto (supremus), consisting of the quinola , 7, 6, and ace, which count for 55; then the primera , or prime, which is four cards of different suits. Should two persons have flushes, the player who counts the highest number, or the greatest flush wins, and the same regulation holds good in regard to the prime. But should there be neither flush nor prime, the one who can count

5551-438: The original set of rules, or even variations on the rules that the game devised, it finally reached a level of development that made them become separate games, despite their common origin. So, as the Italian writer Berni said: "The game is played differently in different places." Daines Barrington described an Elizabethan card party painted by Federico Zuccari that originally belonged to Lord Falkland in which Lord Burleigh

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5642-457: The other players hands. A particular in this painting is that one of the players is seen showing his cards, which are: the jack (knave) of hearts, the ace, 7 and 6 of clubs. The cover of the pack lying on the table displays two lions supporting a shield, upon which is what appears to be a heraldic rose (the crest of the Tudors), and underneath, though indistinctly, the partially illegible name of

5733-550: The perspective of a repentant former rascal, have been considered autobiographical, and have been thought to incorporate many facts of Greene's own life thinly veiled as fiction: his early riotous living, his marriage and desertion of his wife and child for the sister of a notorious character of the London underworld, his dealings with players, and his success in the production of plays for them. However, according to Newcomb, in his later prose works "Greene himself built his persona around

5824-540: The playe at cardes". But despite the records, it is not certain that primero found its way to England previously to the marriage of Queen Mary I with Philip II of Spain , although there is no doubt that his coming to England from the court of Charles V would have cause it to be more generally known and played. William Shakespeare also speaks of Henry VIII playing at primero with his brother-in-law Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk , and makes Falstaff say: "I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero." Additionally,

5915-410: The player with the best hand wins the pot. Two cards go to each player, which is followed by the next phase of betting, and two more cards are dealt to each player. Then either eight cards are dealt face down on the table or the remaining cards are left out as a draw pile or stockpile. In the eight-card version, eight cards are laid out on the table, and players may draw and discard from only these. When

6006-483: The plays published under his name after his death, Greene has been proposed as the author of several other dramas, including a second part to Friar Bacon which may survive as John of Bordeaux , The Troublesome Reign of King John , George a Greene , Fair Em , A Knack to Know a Knave , Locrine , Selimus , and Edward III , and even Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Henry VI plays. Authorship attribution specialist Darren Freebury-Jones has provided

6097-455: The pregnancy; he said: "I was taken by violent means from my mother; I was almost dead." She was in labour for three days. Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the Plague ; her three other children died from the disease. After a depressing childhood, with frequent illnesses, and the rough upbringing by his overbearing father, in 1520, Cardano entered

6188-549: The prime, if they are all of one colour he wins the Flush. Meanwhile, according to the Great Spanish Dictionary , is played by dealing four cards to each player; the value of the 7, 6 and ace, are the same; but the 2 is said to count for 12, the 3 for 13, the 4 for 14, and the 5 for 15, the figured cards are each equivalent to 10. The best hand is the flush, that is, four cards of high numbers and one of one colour;

6279-534: The relevant years are lost. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge , provided scholarships for students from the Norwich grammar school, and for this reason, Greene's matriculation as a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge , has been considered "strange". A reason offered for Greene's enrolment at St John's is that some of the gentry of South Yorkshire attended St John's, and among the dedicatees of, or authors of commendatory verses for Greene's books were members of

6370-481: The romances attest to his ability as a lyric poet. One song from Menaphon , Weep not my wanton, smile upon my knee , (a mother's lullaby to her baby son), enjoyed immense success and is now probably his best-known work. In his later " coney-catching " pamphlets, Greene fashioned himself into a well-known public figure, telling colourful inside stories of rakes and rascals duping young gentlemen and solid citizens out of their hard-earned money. These stories, told from

6461-463: The second card, and when the first player say "pass", every one is obliged to discard, notwithstanding any one may have an ace or a 6 in hand. In Venice, for instance, the mode of playing may be different; in Lombardy, Naples, France and Spain, so many countries, so many customs. But of all the modes, none can be superior to that of the court of Rome. There, the 7s, 8s and 9s are not withdrawn; there it

6552-506: The smaller being one-half the size of the larger gear is used to convert rotational motion to linear motion with greater efficiency and precision than a Scotch yoke , for example. He is also credited with the invention of the Cardan suspension or gimbal . Cardano made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain

6643-433: The so-called Cardano's Rings , also called Chinese Rings, but it is very probable that they predate Cardano. The universal joint , sometimes called Cardan joint , was not described by Cardano. As quoted from Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology : The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, De Subtilitate (corresponding to what would now be called transcendental philosophy ), would lead us to expect, in

6734-492: The social ambitions of Greene's early works. Both the Norwich cordwainer-turned-innkeeper and the Norwich saddler left wills, proved in 1591 and 1596 respectively, but neither will mentioned a son named Robert. However, Greene himself implied that he had been disinherited by his father. Greene is thought to have attended the Norwich Grammar School , although this cannot be confirmed as enrolment documents for

6825-541: The stake is two shillings and the rest, eight. The text is self-explanatory, explaining also the meaning of the name primero. Primero appears to have been one of the earliest card games played in England during the Renaissance and the Tudor dynasty , and certainly it continued to be one of the most fashionable games throughout the reigns of Henry VIII , Edward VI , Mary I of England , Elizabeth I and James I , due to

6916-424: The terms of the game are developed in detail. Judging by the pattern of succession of games during the Renaissance, many of the card games played throughout Europe, ascended in popularity to be later replaced by another type of game, again brought into England by the court gamester of that time. So that, by the last quarter of the 16th century, primero had already decreased in popularity, and was gradually replaced by

7007-522: The trip at all". Further doubt is cast on Greene's continental journey by Norbert Bolz, who after undertaking a computer analysis of the vocabulary of The Repentance , concluded that " The Repentance of Robert Greene was in fact not written by Robert Greene". In The Repentance , Greene claimed to have married a gentleman's daughter, whom he abandoned after having had a child by her and spent her dowry, after which she went to Lincolnshire , and he to London. In Four Letters (1592), Gabriel Harvey prints

7098-407: Was a common surname. L. H. Newcomb suggests that Robert Greene "was probably the Robert Greene, son of Robert Greene, baptized on 11 July 1558 at St George's, Tombland, Norwich ." Greene later described himself as from Norwich on his title-pages, and the year is appropriate for the Robert Greene who enrolled at St John's College, Cambridge , as a sizar on 26 November 1575. The author's father

7189-449: Was a gambling game. But a person who objects to cards, might make such a remark with respect to any card game, whether a gambling game or not. Judging from the partial descriptions of the game which remain to us, it might seem that primero was played for either large or small stakes, as agreed upon. John Florio describes primero played by two persons for "one shilling stake and three rest (pool)." In Minsheu's "Spanish Dialogues", four play;

7280-519: Was accepted into the Royal College of Physicians, and as well as practising medicine he continued his philosophical studies until his death in 1576. The seventeenth-century English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne possessed the ten volumes of the Lyon 1663 edition of the complete works of Cardan in his library . Browne critically viewed Cardan as: that famous Physician of Milan,

7371-406: Was also aware of the multiplication rule for independent events but was not certain about what values should be multiplied. Cardano was a music theorist who studied music privately in Milan in his youth. He wrote two treatises on music, both of which were titled De Musica . The first was published within his 1663 work Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis Opera Omnia . It is of interest to scholars on

7462-494: Was an English author popular in his day, and now best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance , widely believed to contain an attack on William Shakespeare . Greene was a popular Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer known for his negative critiques of his colleagues. He is said to have been born in Norwich . He attended Cambridge where he received

7553-477: Was an Italian polymath whose interests and proficiencies ranged through those of mathematician, physician , biologist , physicist , chemist , astrologer , astronomer , philosopher , music theorist , writer , and gambler . He became one of the most influential mathematicians of the Renaissance and one of the key figures in the foundation of probability ; he introduced the binomial coefficients and

7644-455: Was arrested in 1560 for having poisoned his wife, after he had discovered that their three children were not his. Giovanni was put to trial and, when Cardano could not pay the restitution demanded by the victim's family, was sentenced to death and beheaded . Gerolamo's other son Aldo Urbano was a gambler, who stole money from his father, and so Cardano disinherited him in 1569. Cardano moved from Pavia to Bologna, in part because he believed that

7735-505: Was both fond and proud, it is to be supposed that this painting was not actually a portrait of him, though mistaken for his, as was the ownership of the old manor-house of Wimbledon. So, there seems to be little doubt here as for which game the artist meant to describe, and that the person exhibiting his cards to the spectators had won a lush, for his three clubs are the best cards for counting. A passage in an old play by Robert Greene has been quoted by several writers as evidence that primero

7826-547: Was denied a license to practice, so he settled for the town of Piove di Sacco , where he practised without a license. There, he married Lucia Banderini in 1531. Before her death in 1546, they had three children, Giovanni Battista (1534), Chiara (1537) and Aldo Urbano (1543). Cardano later wrote that those were the happiest days of his life. With the help of a few noblemen, Cardano obtained a mathematics teaching position in Milan. Having finally received his medical license, he practised mathematics and medicine simultaneously, treating

7917-406: Was familiar with a report by Rudolph Agricola about a deaf-mute who had learned to write. Cardano's medical writings included: a commentary on Mundinus ' anatomy and of Galen 's medicine, along with the treaties Delle cause, dei segni e dei luoghi delle malattie , Picciola terapeutica , Degli abusi dei medici and Delle orine, libro quattro . Cardano has been credited with the invention of

8008-425: Was probably one of two Robert Greenes found later in parish records: either a saddler who lived modestly in the parish until 1599, or a cordwainer who kept an inn in Norwich from the late 1570s until his death in 1591. The saddler appeals to biographers who attribute the writer's later low-life sympathies to a humble birth; the innkeeper, a more prosperous man possibly related to landowners, interests scholars who note

8099-754: Was respectable'. Richardson considers that Greene: claimed from the outset a moral or civilizing purpose in his writing. His tales repeatedly illustrate the disastrous disruptions caused in life by passion and laud the life of restraint. His views are basically conservative ... He equivocates and hesitates over the defence of the values of a conservative culture, virginity, true devotion, strict moral probity. In addition to his prose works, Greene also wrote several plays, none of them published in his lifetime, including The Scottish History of James IV , Alphonsus , and his greatest popular success, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay , as well as Orlando Furioso , based on Ludovico Ariosto 's Orlando Furioso . In addition to

8190-651: Was thought incurable. The treatment was a success and the diplomat Thomas Randolph recorded that "merry tales" about Cardano's methods were still current in Edinburgh in 1562. Cardano and Casanatus argued over the Archbishop's cure. Cardano wrote that the Archbishop had been short of breath for ten years, and after the cure was effected by his assistant, he was paid 1,400 gold crowns. Two of Cardano's children — Giovanni Battista and Aldo Urbano — came to ignoble ends. Giovanni Battista, Cardano's eldest and favourite son

8281-526: Was written shortly after Greene's death by Henry Chettle or another one of his fellow writers, hoping to capitalise on a lurid tale of death-bed repentance. Hanspeter Born argues that Greene wrote the whole of Groatsworth , and that his deathbed attack on the "upstart Crow" was provoked by Shakespeare's interference with a play attributed to Greene, A Knack to Know a Knave . Greene's colourful and irresponsible character has led some, including Stephen Greenblatt , to speculate that Greene may have served as

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