It would be incomplete to simply list Girolamo Cardano as an Italian physician and mathematician. To reflect the true character of his life, one would have to add that he was the illegitimate son of a noted lawyer, a compulsive gambler, a popular astrologer, a one-time prisoner of the Inquisition, and the father of a convicted murderer. Despite the sordid nature of many aspects of his life, Cardano was also a brilliant physician and mathematician, as well as the author of more than 200 works on human medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, natural science, and music. His contributions to mathematics were mainly in the area of algebraand included the first generalized solution to cubic (third degree polynomial) equations as well as the solution to certain quartic (fourth degree polynomial) equations, even though some of the solutions had been borrowed from others. Cardano was also one of the first to...