On August the 10th we rode out into the country with certain gentlemen of the city who had lent us horses. All round about I saw a vast number of delightful villas for the distance of three or four miles, built with porticoes and loggias, which add greatly to their beauty. One had a very large loggia, arched all along inside, and clad without by the branches and tendrils of vines which were planted and trained over certain supports, the effect being one of coolness, verdure, and natural beauty.
The pain in the head would sometimes leave me for five or six days or even longer, but I could never feel myself safe from it. I was taken with a fancy to study the Florentine tongue, and I gave much time and trouble thereto, in return for which I reaped very little profit. The heat this summer was much greater than usual. On the 12th I went outside the city to visit the villa of Signor Benedetto Buonvisi, a fairly pleasant house. Amongst other things there I marked certain fair little thickets planted in sloping ground. They plant some fifty paces apart clumps of trees of that sort which holds green all the year round, and they surround these with shallow ditches, and construct certain covered ways within, and in the middle of each is a station for the fowler who, by means of a silver whistle and a quantity of captive thrushes trained for the purpose, and by setting limed twigs at every corner, will catch in a single morning two hundred thrushes at a certain season of the year, to wit, in the month of November. Such sport is only to be found in one district near a certain quarter of the city.
On Sunday the 13th I left Lucca, having settled to hand over to Signor Ludovico Pinitesi fifteen crowns for the hire of his house, making one crown per diem, a sum with which he was fully satisfied. We saw on our way a vast number of villas belonging to the gentle-folk of Lucca, handsome, neat, and graceful houses with abundance of water, but the supply is intermittent and does not come from natural springs. It is indeed wonderful to see so little running water in a land mountainous as this. Their habit is to tap the rivulets by small channels, and lead the water through fountains, vases, and grottoes and other devices of the sort for the ornamentation of the gardens. That same evening we arrived in time for supper at the villa of the Signor Ludovico aforesaid, his son Signor Oragio having been of our party on the journey. He gave us excellent entertainment, regaling us with a most sumptuous supper at night, set out under a wide portico exquisitely cool and open on every side, and giving us fine bed-chambers with clean delicate linen like that we had rejoiced over in his father’s house at Lucca.
We left early on Monday morning and rode without dismounting for fifteen miles to Bagni della Villa, where we arrived at dinner-time. On our way we halted a short time to see the villa of the bishop who was there in residence. We met with the kindest reception from the whole household, and were pressed to take our dinner with them. On our arrival we were heartily welcomed by all the residents; indeed, it seemed as if I had returned to my own home. I had lodging in the same apartment as before, at twenty crowns a month and the same other conditions.
On Tuesday, August 15, I spent a short hour in the bath. I seemed to get chilled sooner than before, and I did not perspire at all. On returning to these baths I felt myself not merely well, but full of health and spirits, and on the 16th I went to the ladies’ bath, which I had never before used, in order to be by myself. It was too hot for my taste, and, whether from the actual heat thereof, or from the relaxing of the pores in yesterday’s bath, I soon became very warm. I used the same bath on the two following days, and on the 19th I went again and remained there two hours, rather later in the day in order to allow a lady of Lucca the first turn, a just and proper rule being here observed to give the ladies the use of their bath at their convenience. The people here do not keep the feasts of religion so closely as we do, especially the Sunday; but the women get through the greater part of their work before dinner.
In the morning I wrote out my journal, and immediately after dinner I was seized with colic, and in order to keep me still more on the alert, a violent toothache began in my left jaw, a pain I had never felt before. Finding the discomfort intolerable I went to bed after three or four hours’ agony, and in a short time the pain left me. The next morning I felt myself much better, the flatulence and colic being abated; but I was very weak though free from pain. I took some food without any relish, and I drank without tasting what I swallowed, though I was very thirsty; and almost immediately the toothache returned and troubled me greatly up to supper-time. I had a good night’s rest, but I awoke in the morning somewhat indisposed, weary, the mouth parched with roughness and bad taste, and breath like one in a state of fever.
It would be too great cowardice and ischifiltà[93] on my part if, knowing that I am every day in danger of death from these ailments, and drawing nearer thereto every hour in the course of nature, I did not do my best to bring myself into a fitting mood to meet my end whenever it may come. And in this respect it is wise to take joyfully all the good fortune God may send. Moreover there is no remedy, nor rule, nor knowledge whereby to keep clear of these evils which from every side and at every minute gather round mans footsteps, save in the resolve to endure them with dignity, or boldly and promptly make an end of them.[94]
On August the 25th my kidney troubles abated, and I found myself about as well as before, save that I had frequent pain both by day and night in my left cheek, but it did not last long. I remember to have been troubled with the same pain when at home.
On the 27th I was so sharply troubled with toothache after dinner that I sent for the doctor, who, when he had taken account of all the symptoms, and had marked especially that the pain subsided while he was there, decided that this was no material fluxion, but one extremely subtle, and little else than wind which ascended from the stomach to the head, and, having mixed itself with the humours there, caused this disorder. This opinion seemed to me reasonable, seeing that I had often suffered from similar seizures in other regions of my body.
On Monday the 28th of August I went at dawn to the Bernabo spring and drank over seven pounds thereof. I am sure this draught gave me the vapours and made my head ache, and on Tuesday I drank nine pounds from the common spring and felt my head affected immediately after. In sooth my head was in very bad case, having never recovered from the effects of the first bath I took. It has pained me less often of late, and in a different way, as it has not weakened me or dazzled my eyes as it did a month ago. I suffered chiefly in the back, and pain never attacked my head, but it flew to my left cheek, affecting all parts thereof, the teeth down to the very roots, the ear, and a portion of the nose. The pang would be brief, but as a rule sharp and burning, and wont to attack me frequently both night and day. This is how my head fared at this juncture.