Chapter 2

Nicolo Tartaglia’s story begins in the north of Italy, in the late fifteenth century. In the city of Brescia, fifty miles east of Milan, a baby boy has been abandoned in a haycart. The baby is taken to a home for waifs run by local nuns and they name him Michele. The boy grows, but not much: Michele is so small he becomes known as Micheletto.

Eventually, the sisters find Micheletto a kitchen job with a local dignitary. He is clearly resourceful: he manages to have himself transferred from the kitchen to the stables, and then, somehow — no one knows how — reaches the almost miraculous position where he owns a horse. Within a short time, he is known as Micheletto the Rider. Very quickly, the horse proves its worth when it enables Micheletto to become the local postman. He is the most reliable man to carry letters around the lakes, hills, and valleys of the Lombardy region of northern Italy, riding at good speed between Brescia, Verona, and Bergamo.

One of Micheletto’s journeys takes him to the house owned by a gentleman of Verona, where he encounters a serving girl called Maria. Evidently, Micheletto and Maria hit it off, because in 1496 they are married. In a short while, they have three children. It is the middle child, Nicolo, that is to become Jerome’s nemesis.

These are not happy times in Italy, but Maria and Micheletto are happy enough for their part. Tragically, however, their love is to become the victim of political intrigue.

Ten years into their marriage, the world around them is falling apart. The French control the Lombardy region, but rumours abound that the Brescians are beginning to stir against the occupying force. Keen to nip the rebellion in the bud, France’s commander for the region, General Gaston de Foix, orders that letters from Brescia be intercepted so that any plans for an uprising can be discovered. The postman’s days are numbered.

Shortly after the order is given, Micheletto is ambushed by Gaston’s men in the foothills of the Lombardy Alps. They find nothing incriminating: Micheletto’s mail sacks contain only a handful of dull missives on trade agreements and the everyday correspondence of Brescian nobles. But the French soldiers kill him anyway.

Maria is devastated. Not only is her heart broken, but her household is stripped of its income and the family is thrown into poverty. And then, just when it looks like things can’t get any worse, they do.

General Gaston’s suspicions about the Brescians were well founded. By the time Nicolo is twelve, the simmering discontent has boiled over. In an act of supreme courage, the Brescian community of weavers and blacksmiths rises up and drives out the French soldiers stationed in the city’s garrison. But not for long.

Gaston returns to Brescia with his entire army, and shows no mercy. In seven days of slaughter and arson, the French kill 46,000 Brescians, most of the city’s inhabitants. The survivors — including Maria and her family — seek sanctuary in the cathedral. However, the French have no respect for the claim of sanctuary. Gaston’s men burst in, brandishing swords and knives, and set upon the women and children. Though a screaming Maria does her best to protect her family, Nicolo takes an appalling blow to the face that cuts through his lips and palate and takes out most of his teeth.

Without Maria’s care, Nicolo would have died. She has no money for professional medical help, but she has seen dogs lick their wounds and decides to follow that instinct. She bathes her son’s cuts in her own saliva and keeps his injuries as clean as is possible in the aftermath of such brutal slaughter. Nicolo is hideously disfigured and robbed of the ability to speak. But he recovers. Once his strength has returned, a ruthless ambition kicks in. It is first manifest in his education. His schooling had stopped years earlier, immediately after his father’s death, because there was no money. Aged fourteen, however, Nicolo arranges fifteen days of schooling on credit. This is only enough time for Nicolo to learn to form the letters of the alphabet up to k and he is thrown out once it becomes clear to the tutor that the pupil can no longer pay. Not, however, before the student has stolen his teacher’s textbook. Returning home with his loot, Nicolo sets about instructing himself in the basics of literacy and numeracy. Then he learns everything else he can: ‘I continued to labour by myself over the works of dead men, accompanied only by the daughter of poverty that is called industry,’ is how Tartaglia describes that self-education.

When he is old enough, Nicolo covers his scars with as much beard as he can grow. He teaches himself to communicate as well as his wounds will permit. His associates come to know him as ‘Tartaglia’: The Stammerer. Thanks to Micheletto’s illegitimate origins, he has no proper surname and he takes his new moniker with a defiant pride. It suits the young man to wear his grim brush with death as a badge of honour. Nicolo Tartaglia is not easily overcome.

ψ

In Milan, fifty miles to the west, Jerome is afforded opportunities which The Stammerer will never have. Jerome’s parents are learning to live together under the same roof — they even marry, eventually — and his father teaches him Latin for an hour every morning. This is the language of scholars and debate, the language of learning, which no one teaches Tartaglia. That is why Tartaglia’s writings will not be granted space in the academic libraries; The Stammerer will feel forever inferior because he can read and write only in the clumsy Venetian dialect of his youth.

Yet as Jerome learns Latin, he also learns about his culture. He studies horoscopes, unicorns, the rules of dice games, the features of the natural world, and more. He is taken to the houses of the great and good of the Italian Renaissance. He even remarks upon his father’s elevated contacts in his journal: ‘My father’s reputation as a scholar was such that he was consulted by superior persons,’ the twelve-year-old writes (rather pompously). He develops an appreciation for music and takes every opportunity to surround himself with musicians and singers. The shadow that comes with being born out of wedlock hangs over him, but does not seem to rob him of respectability.

For all his father’s attentions, however, Jerome only attends university because of his mother.

It is 1519. Fazio is seventy-four, and every year seems to weigh heavier upon his stooped shoulders. Jerome is now eighteen and keen to fly free, but Fazio wants — deserves, the old man thinks — to keep his son at hand as a porter and scribe. Eventually, he reasons, Jerome can train as a lawyer, following in his father’s footsteps. Fazio can even arrange for his son to inherit his annual one hundred crown stipend from the city courts. It is not a large sum, but it is something on which the boy could build a business. These are austere times and it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, the son is not sensible. Jerome is not motivated by money and the desire for life’s comforts. A life as a small-town lawyer is no path to greatness and that is the path he intends to walk. And so Jerome refuses to listen to his father’s pleading. He wants to study medicine at his father’s alma mater in nearby Pavia instead. Aware of the rift opening up between the men of her household, Chiara jumps in. Perhaps she wants her son to be happy or perhaps she is simply keen for Jerome to supplement the household income. Whatever the reason, she implores Fazio to let Jerome strike out on his own, leave Milan, and study at Pavia. They throw the idea back and forth, each hoping to score a palpable hit. And then, one afternoon, matters come to a head. In the middle of an argument over their son’s future, Fazio hits Chiara across the shoulders with his staff. She falls, knocking her head on the table before she collapses onto the stone floor.

Unfortunately for Fazio, Chiara’s sister, Margarita, is living with them. She witnesses the assault and begins to curse Jerome and his father, threatening criminal proceedings against her sister’s assailant. Chiara, not terribly wounded and ever wily, sees her chance. She wipes the blood from her forehead and extracts a promise from Fazio: if she brings no charges, will he relent, and send their Jerome to the university to study medicine?

This moment of violence and calculated manipulation defines Jerome’s path. Fazio has no choice but to concede and the youth enrols at Pavia in the medical school. Finding that he needs money to pay his way, however, Jerome takes up gambling. It is for this reason that he becomes the first person to apply mathematics to the problem of winning at cards and dice. His notes, which lay out what we now know as the mathematical rules of probability, give him a reliable means of beating his opponents. Erudite as they might seem with five hundred years of hindsight, those probability calculations did not begin as a noble venture in pure mathematics. They were simply Jerome’s best chance of paying the bills.

ψ

Night has fallen. It may be the same night; it may be another. All I know is that I am here and Jerome is aware that I am sitting on the straw in the corner of his cell. There is moonlight and every now and then I see him look up from his writing and turn his head towards me. He no longer looks at all disturbed by my presence; he seems to welcome it.

‘Tell me something,’ I say. ‘Did you exaggerate the story about Senator Lezun? Did he really fish you out of the canal after you had attacked him?’

The hint of a smile moves across Jerome’s lips, but he says nothing.

‘I bet you weren’t really wearing armour,’ I say.

His weak eyes light up at the word. ‘I accept your bet,’ he says. ‘What are the stakes?’

I hesitate. Is it foolish to gamble against the inventor of probability?