The door, small and with two wings, had ornaments too. I was looking at my instruments for star observation: an astrolabe, an armillary sphere, dried and stuffed animals, among them a large lizard which I still remember well; many books and manuscripts.

In a corner, in a somewhat disorderly arrangement, I noticed some ampollae, distillers and medicinal plants in jars and hung on hooks. On the table, a large book on the wooden reading stand, still open to a page containing an illustration indicating the planets dominating the geographic regions of the world.

The work, written and printed in Latin, displayed my name as doctor: Hieronymus Cardanus. Leafing through the volume, I remember that there were some square horoscopes and part of a title de astrorum judiciis. In the vision I was no longer conscious of myself as a child of 9-10 years of age. I was happy to have succeeded in having that treatise printed, and I rubbed my hands in a nervous impulse of fulfilled ambition.

I was dressed in red, in red velvet, with chiseled sword and dagger. A bit untidy, the white collar not very clean. I was fair-haired, with blue eyes. I noticed these things by looking at myself, and also because I saw myself reflected in a wall, that was not a mirror. Today I would say I was seeing in two ways, as subject and as observer.

On one wall was a planetarium I had made, a movable picture that gave me the calendar date, the phases of the Moon and other astronomical positions. I do not remember well the day and the month indicated on that calendar, but the year was 1542. The vision dissolved, I came to, feeling very tired, and full of wonder and perplexity. At that age I did not know who Cardan had been: I found out some years later, looking for the biographical information in a dictionary of my mother. I remained with that impression for years and years. A long time went by, then, after a stay in Tripoli in Libya, later in Syracuse, I experienced new phenomena in Turin, when I was already inclined towards the studies that impassioned Cardan.

In Turin, while looking for works on astrology and ancient medicine, I happened to buy from an antiquarian, in 1940, the very volume I had seen as a child in Catania, in the regressive state of memory. In the bookshop, I feverishly leafed the pages to find anew the illustrations that had so impressed me during the vision: there they were, that was the book, there was no doubt. I took it away happily.

Third episode: as soon as I got home, I was caught in a series of slips into paranormal states, in which I re-lived not only the scene already described, but even further numerous dramatic episodes of my life: the beheading of my son Giovanbattista, he too a doctor and involved in a trial, with the charge of having administered poison to his wife. I re-lived all
the despair of a father stricken by misfortune. During my experiences some friends were present, who became convinced of the identity of soul between me and Jerome Cardan. One of them, during those days, gave me a biography of the personage, because the resemblance of character and aptitude was perfect.

We were in my dwelling in Via San Secondo, near Porta Nuova, which I decided to abandon even before the beginning of the war’s bombings, since I was sure of it collapsing. In fact, that building did crumble under a bomb. Exactly as had happened centuries before in Milan in Via della Chiusa, because there was a ruin also then, and a reconstruction.

Among my fragmentary memories of my life as Cardan, there was a terrible rite of curse against my enemies and those who had had my son executed; but then I thought about the consequences of such a projection of forces, since I had been born with a stutter because of the Karma prior to my birth, as I still stutter today, in the same way as Cardan. It is important the way vocal chords are used, woe betide him who uses them for cursing!

Since I often described the house in Milan, the witnesses, and among these was also Doctor Arnò, the donor of the already mentioned Autobiography, suggested that I go there to check with my own eyes. Frankly, I did not know where to start: Milan is big, I had never visited it as Palamidessi, but I went all the same, also because I had to deliver the manuscript of one of my treatises, “The Course of the Stars and the Human Illnesses”, to the publishers, Fratelli Bocca, who printed it.

Well, while walking around the streets of Milan, I suddenly found myself in a road which gave me the impression that I had been there before. Then, all at once, I was overcome by an intense emotion, a lump in my throat, I broke into a cold sweat, and I felt ice-cold water snaking around my legs. I thought it was a rhabdomantic phenomenon. It was not so: raising my eyes I realized that the street was named “Via della Chiusa”, and turning to the other side I saw a municipal memorial plaque indicating a building, to commemorate that this had been the house of Jerome Cardan, great mathematician and physician.

I was dumbfounded. Recovering from my surprise, I ran to the house of some astrologer-friends to tell them what had happened, the previous phenomena, the finding of the book .... but they laughed in my face. Then I compelled them to come along with me to Via della Chiusa. We arrived at the place, and having gone up to the first floor, I knocked on a door with total confidence. The tenant came to open the door, a tailor, who kindly let us visit the old home of Cardan.

Unfortunately everything had been modernized, inside and outside. I asked him about a certain room, which could be reached only by going through a dark corridor. The tailor was amazed by my request, but he led us to the place, that I recognized because in that time, in 1940, the room still held some remains of the medieval (the door, the floor). The window, however, was not an embrasure. I pointed this out, but the tailor said that the landlord had had it enlarged some years before. My friends were astonished, but still skeptical and confused.

Only I remained convinced of being the reincarnation of Jerome Cardan, and I think also my friends of Turin, who had been present at the sittings.