I tarried in Lucca the Friday and Saturday and left it on Sunday after dinner, of which I did not partake, as I was fasting. The hills nearest to the town are thickly set with pleasant houses. Our way for the most part lay along a low-lying road, fairly level, and running between the mountains, which are well wooded and peopled throughout, the river Serchio flowing beside us. We passed several villages and two strong towns, Reci and Borgo, and we crossed likewise the river aforesaid, which was on our right hand, by a bridge of unwonted height, which spans almost the entire width of the stream with a single arch. We saw several other bridges of this kind on our way, and arrived at Bagni della Villa,[42] sixteen miles distant, two hours after noon.
X
THE BATHS OF LUCCA
All the country round this place is hilly. In front of the bath and along the river the ground is level for some three or four hundred feet, and above this the bath-house is built upon the side of a hill of moderate height, at somewhat the same elevation as the spring at Banieres, where the patients drink the water close to the town. The bath itself stands on a level site and includes thirty or forty houses, excellently appointed for the purpose, with beautiful rooms, which are all private and entirely at the disposition of the hirer, and with an inner cabinet. Each apartment has two doors, one for communication with other chambers, and the other for separate use. I inspected almost every house before I made my bargain, and fixed ultimately on the one which commanded the fairest view, that is, with regard to the chamber I selected. From this I could look over the whole of the little valley, the course of the Lima,[43] and the mountains, which enclose the valley aforesaid, all beautifully cultivated and green to the summit, thick set with chestnuts and olives, and in some places with vines, which they plant all round the mountains, letting the circles rise one above the other in terraces. The outside edge of each terrace is varied somewhat and is planted with vines, while the lower portion of the same is under corn. In my chamber I could hear all night long the soft ripple of the river below.
Near to the houses a space is set apart for promenade, open on one side, and built terrace fashion, with a trellis constructed at the public cost. From here may be discerned, lying two hundred feet below on the bank of the stream, a pretty little village, where also baths may be had when the crowd of visitors is great. Most of the houses therein are new, a fine road leads to it, and it possesses a handsome public place. Nearly all the inhabitants congregate in this village during the winter, and keep shop there, notably the apothecaries, to which calling they almost all belong. My host was a Captain Paulini, who was also an apothecary, and he agreed to let me have a sitting-room, three bed-chambers, a kitchen, and a penthouse for the servants; and in addition to provide eight beds, two of them with hangings, salt, clean napkins every day, and a clean tablecloth every third day, all cooking utensils and candlesticks, for eleven crowns—which sum is a few soldi more than ten demipistoles—for fifteen days. All earthen pots, dishes, and plates, as well as glasses and knives, we had to buy. We were able to get as much meat as we wanted, but were usually obliged to content ourselves with veal or goats flesh. At all the lodging-houses they offer to provide you with what you may require; and I imagine that by this method it would cost about twenty soldi a head per diem. Any one wishing to adopt this system would find in every house some man or woman capable of acting as cook. The wine is mostly bad, but visitors who may be so minded may get other wine brought from Pescia or Lucca.
I was the first to arrive at the baths except two gentlemen of Bologna, who came with no large following; so I had free choice of quarters; and, from what these gentlemen said, I judged I made a much better bargain than would have been possible in the full season when the crowd was wont to be great. Here the season does not begin till June and ends in September.[44] In October every one goes away. People often meet for conversation as the sole amusement. This indeed was the case in the early part of the season, according to our experience. It is a most unusual thing for visitors who have already passed a month at the baths to return thereto, or to visit them at all in October. One of the lodging-houses, called the “Palace,” is vastly more luxurious than the others; it is certainly very fine, and belongs to the Signori Buonvisi. There is a beautiful fountain playing in the hall and divers other conveniences. They offered to give me in it an apartment of four rooms or the whole house if I wanted it. The price for the four furnished rooms for fifteen days was twenty crowns of the country, but I was not inclined to give more than a crown per diem considering the season of the year. My landlord is not bound by his bargain beyond the month of May, and if I stay longer I must make a fresh one.
The water here is used for drinking and for bathing also. There is a covered bath, which is vaulted, somewhat dark, and half the width of my hall at Montaigne. They use a certain appliance called a Doccia,[45] which is composed of a number of tubes, through which hot water is turned on to various parts of the body and notably the head. These streams, by striking continually on one particular part, stimulate warmth in it, and then the water runs away by a wooden trough like that used by washerwomen. There is another bath, vaulted and just as dark, used by women, all the water being brought from the fountain where the patients drink, which is somewhat awkwardly situated in a corner, as to reach it, it is necessary to descend several steps.
On Monday, May the 8th, in the morning, I took with great reluctance some cassia which my host gave me. He was assuredly lacking in intelligence, compared with my apothecary at Rome, for I could not finish my dinner three hours later, and the drug brought on a fit of vomiting. I suffered also from great pain in the stomach and from flatulence for well-nigh four-and-twenty hours, and made a vow to take no more of this stuff. I would rather suffer from colic than have my stomach thus upset, my taste ruined, and my general health deranged by cassia. When I arrived here I was in excellent condition; so much so that on the Sunday after supper (the only meal I took) I set out with light heart to visit the bath of Corsena, a good half mile distant, and situated on the other side of this same mountain, wherefore I was forced first to go uphill and then to descend to the level of these baths, or thereabout. This place is famed for the use of the bath and of the doccia. At our bath the only course of treatment which has received the approbation of the faculty or of custom is that of drinking the water; they say, moreover, that the fame of Corsena goes back to a much earlier date. However, no trace of this antiquity, which we may suppose goes back to the times of the Romans, is visible at either bath. At Corsena there are three or four large baths, with arched roofs, unseemly and dark, save for one aperture in the middle of the vaulting, which serves as a ventilator. Two or three hundred paces away, and on somewhat higher ground, is another hot spring called after Saint John, where they have built a house with three covered baths. There is no lodging to be had near, but you may contrive to spread a mattress whereon to rest awhile. At Corsena the waters are not drunk at all, but in other respects there is considerable variety in the treatment. Some take the cold baths, others the hot; some undergo the cure for this malady, others for that; and a thousand wonderful stories are told; in short, the legend is that at Corsena relief may be found for every illness under the sun. There is one fine establishment with many chambers, and a score of others with little to recommend them. The advantages of this bath cannot be compared with those of the other, nor is the prospect so fine though the same river flows close by, and the view down the valley is more extensive. The charges are vastly higher, and many of the patients who drink at Bagno della Villa go there for the bathing. For the moment Corsena is all the fashion.
On Tuesday, May 9, 1581, I went early in the morning before sunrise to drink at the hot spring itself, and took seven glasses one after the other, the water weighing about three pounds and a half, as they reckon it here. The water is lukewarm, like that at Aigues Caudes or Barbotan, with less taste than any water I have ever drunk. All I could remark was its warmth and a slight sweetness, and I found it very tardy in taking effect; but some of the visitors told me I had taken too little, seeing that the physicians often prescribe a whole fiasco, sixteen or seventeen of our glasses or eight pounds’ weight. My opinion is that the water, finding my stomach empty on account of my recent purge, assimilated itself to nutriment. The same day I received a visit from a Bolognese gentleman, a colonel commanding two hundred foot in the pay of the State, stationed four miles distant. He made divers offers to serve me, and stayed with me about two hours, having directed my landlord and all others in the place to use all their efforts to make me comfortable. This government makes a practice of employing strangers as officers, and puts a colonel in command. One will have a larger, another a smaller troop under his charge. The colonels are paid, but the captains, who are people of the country, only get pay during war, when they take command of their own companies as occasion may demand. This colonel had for pay sixteen crowns a month, and had no other duty than to be always in readiness.
People live more by rule at these baths than at our own, and abstain rigorously, especially from drinks. At no other bath, except at Banieres, have I ever been so well lodged, and Banieres equals it in beauty of situation, but is the only bathing-place that does.
I am of opinion that this water is very mild and has little strength, wherefore it is safe and free from danger for those unaccustomed to such treatment, or for the delicate. It is taken for the strengthening of the liver and for the removal of eruptions on the face; a fact of which I made careful note as a service I would fain render to a most estimable French lady. The water of Saint John’s spring is largely used in making cosmetics, as it is impregnated with oil. I remarked that much of it was sent away in casks, and still more of the water which I was drinking. It is carried on mules’ and asses’ backs to be drunk in Reggio, Modena, and Lombardy. Some take it in bed, the physicians giving special directions to keep the stomach and the feet warm, and to avoid all fatigue. People of the neighbourhood have it conveyed to their houses three or four miles distant. As a proof that this water is not strongly aperient it may be noted that the apothecaries here keep a certain water brought from a spring near Pistoia, sharp on the palate and very hot when drawn from the well, which they give to patients before taking the native water, alleging that quicker and more efficient result is thereby induced.