Gerolamo (or Girolamo, or Geronimo) Cardano (Italian: [dʒeˈrɔlamo karˈdano]; French:Jérôme Cardan; Latin:Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501 – 21 September 1576) was an Italian polymath, being a mathematician, physician, biologist, physicist, chemist, astrologer, astronomer, philosopher, writer, and gambler. Often considered to be the greatest mathematician of the Renaissance, Cardano was one of the key figures in the foundation of probability and the earliest introducer of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem in the western world. He wrote more than 200 works on science.