[41] The silk manufacture of Lucca goes back beyond all record. In the time of Castruccio Castracane a large number of citizens, offended at his usurpation, emigrated to other Italian cities and took their art with them. It was thus that the art of brocade-making was introduced into Florence.
[42] Essais, ii. 37: “À cette cause j’ay choisi jusques à cette heure, à m’arrester et à me servir de celles où il y avoit plus d’amœnité de lieu, commodité de logis, de vivres et de compagnies, comme sont en France, les bains de Banieres: en la frontiere d’Allemaigne et de Loraine, ceux de Plombières: en Souysse, ceux de Bade: en la Toscane, ceux de Lucques: et specialement ceux Della Villa, desquels j’ay usé plus souvent, et à diverses saisons.”
[43] A tributary of the Serchio, which rises near Pistoia.
[44] In earlier times the season used to begin on the first Friday in March, when, according to tradition, an angel descended and blessed the springs.
[45] Montaigne speaks of the douche as an Italian speciality. “Comme les Allemans ont de particulier, de se faire generalement tous corneter et vantouser, avec scarification dans le bain: ainsi ont les Italiens leur doccie, qui sont certaines gouttières de cette eau chaude, qu’ils conduisent par des cannes, et vont baignant une heur le matin, et autant l’après disnée, par l’espace d’un mois, ou la teste, ou l’estomach, ou autre partie du corps, à laquelle ils ont affaire” (Essais, ii. 37).
[46] Montaigne held La Boetie in the highest esteem. “Et le plus grand que j’aye cogneu au vif, je dis des parties naturelles de l’ame, et le mieux né, c’estoit Estienne de la Boetie.”—Essais, ii. 17, and in ii. 27 he again writes at length in praise of his lost friend.
[47] “De acquis lucensibus, quæ vulgo Villenses appellantur,” by G. B. Donati. The author was a physician of Lucca, who studied at Pisa and Padua. Franciotti, also a Lucchese doctor, wrote a treatise, “Tractatus de Balneo Villensi in Agro Lucensi posito.”
[48] From this point the Journal is written in Italian.
[49] This spring had only recently come into fashion. It had always been used by the country people for skin diseases, and about the middle of the sixteenth century it acquired great fame through the cure of a certain Pistoian of a loathsome skin disease which had been treated ineffectually at every other spring. There are many springs on this range of hills: Corsena, Bagno Rosso, Bagno di S. Giovanni, Bagno della Villa, Bagno di Bernabo, and Bagno Cardinali.
[50] Ascension Day.