Scenes from a Life #1

In general, then, I had four extremely perilous encounters. In a word, such hazards, that if I had not in some way circumvented them, it would have been a question of my life. The first was the danger of drowning; the second, mad dogs; the third and lesser because it was only an incipient danger, the falling mass of masonry; and last, the quarrel in the house of the Venetian noble.

Girolamo Cardano, The Book of My Life
Ch. 30: "Perils, Accidents, and Manifold, Diverse, and Persistent Treacheries."