Amongst others at my ball was the deputy-judge, who holds legal office here. The work of the district is done by a judge appointed for six months—such as the government appoints in all other places—who adjudicates in the first instance in civil cases which involve small amounts only. Another official attends to criminal business. I made to the deputy-judge a suggestion, which I deemed only reasonable, that the government should make certain regulations—of which I gave him an example, easy to carry out, and admirably fitted for the end in view—to be enforced with regard to the vast crowd of traders who resort hither to carry away the water of these springs into all parts of Italy. These regulations would oblige them to show a voucher for the genuine character of the water they retail, and thus put an end to knavery, an instance of which I gave him from my own experience. One of these hawkers came to my landlord, a private citizen, and begged him to write a certificate to the effect that he (the hawker) was taking away twenty-four mule loads of this water, the fact being that he had only four. At first my landlord refused to do anything of the kind, on account of this discrepancy, but the fellow went on to declare that in four or six days’ time he would return to fetch the other twenty loads. I informed the judge that this muleteer had never come back. He took my suggestion, and he tried his best to learn from me what my authority was, who was the muleteer, and what he and his beasts were like, but I told him nothing. I also informed him that I was minded to begin here a custom prevalent in all the famous baths of Europe, to wit, that all persons of a certain position should leave behind a copy of their coat-of-arms as a testimony of the efficacy of the waters. In the name of the government he thanked me for this suggestion.
In certain places they now began to cut the hay. On the Tuesday I remained two hours in the bath, and held my head under the douche for a good quarter of an hour.
At this time a Cremonese merchant living at Rome came to the bath. He was afflicted with divers strange infirmities, nevertheless he could talk and walk about and seemingly enjoyed his life. His chief infirmity lay in the head, his memory having perished, so he said, through some weakness thereof; for instance, after a meal he would not be able to say what dishes had been put before him. If he happened to leave the house on any business he must needs always come back ten times to inquire where was the place to which he was bound. He could hardly ever get through the paternoster. When he did get to the end of it he would begin it again a hundred times, never perceiving at the end thereof that he had begun, or at the beginning that he had finished. He had suffered from blindness, deafness, and toothache, and had, moreover, such an access of heat in the reins that he always wore a piece of lead over that region. For many years he had observed most strictly the rules laid down by his physicians in his case.
It diverted me to consider the various prescriptions given by physicians in different parts of Italy, so great was their antagonism, and this was especially marked in the matter of these baths and douches; indeed, out of twenty opinions no two were found to agree,[54] but, on the other hand, the authors accused each other of murders of all sorts. The aforesaid patient suffered great trouble through the strange action of wind, which was wont to issue from his ears with such force that he could not sleep, and when he yawned great volumes of wind would burst out from the same place. He declared that he could best ease his stomach by using as a clyster four large coriander comfits after moistening and softening them in his mouth, the relief being sure and speedy. He was the first person I ever saw wearing one of those big hats of peacock’s feathers and covered with light taffetas; the crown, a good palm’s height, was thick, and had within-side a coif of sarcenet made to fit the head so that the sun might not strike upon it. It was surrounded by a curtain a foot and a half wide, to serve the purpose of our parasols, which indeed are very inconvenient to use on horseback.
Seeing that I have often repented that I did not more particularly note down details of other baths I have used, I am now minded to enlarge somewhat on this subject and to gather together certain rules for the benefit of my successors. On Wednesday, when I finished bathing, I was hot and sweated more than usual. I felt weak, with a dry, harsh sensation in my mouth and a certain giddiness akin to what befell me through the heat of the water at Plomieres, Banieres, and Preissac. I never felt it at Barbotan nor at these baths until this occasion, and it might have arisen because I went earlier than was my wont, or because the water was hotter than usual. I remained in the bath an hour and a half, and used the douche to my head for a quarter of an hour. I broke the rules by thus using the douche in the bath, for the prescription particularly declares that first one and then the other is to be used; and again by having a douche of this water at all, for almost all take the douche at the other bath. There they have it from this or that spout, some from the first, others from the second, and others from the third, according to the physician’s order. I used to drink and bathe on alternate days, while others would drink several days together and then take a spell of the bath. I paid no heed to periods of time, while others would drink for ten days at the most, and bathe twenty-five, though not perhaps in succession. I bathed but once a day, while all the rest bathed twice. I used the douche a very short time, while the others used it an hour at least in the morning and the same in the evening. And as to shaving the head, the custom here with all was to be shaven, and then put a piece of satin on the head, held only by a sort of net, but my smooth pate had no need of this.
This same morning I received a visit from the deputy-judge and the other chief personages of the State, an attention equivalent to that which had been paid to me in other baths where I had sojourned. Amongst other matters he told me a singular story about himself, how, through pricking the ball of the thumb with an artichoke some years ago, he had like to have died from inanition, how on this account he fell into such a wretched state that he lay in bed five months without moving. As he lay all this time on the reins, they became so inordinately heated that a discharge of gravel was produced from which he had suffered for more than a year and from colic as well. At last his father, the governor of Velitri, sent him a certain green stone, which he had got from a friar who had been in India, and while he had this stone about him he suffered neither from gravel nor pain. He had been in this state for two years. As to the prick aforementioned the thumb and the greater part of the hand were useless, and besides this the arm was so much weakened that he came every year to the baths of Corsena to treat the arm and thumb with the douche, as he was now doing.
The common people here are very poor. At this season they eat green mulberries, which they collect while gathering the leaves for the silkworms. I had left in doubt the hire of my lodging for the month of June, wherefore I now deemed it meet to come to an agreement with my landlord, who, when he perceived that I was sought after by all the neighbours and especially by the owner of the Palazzo Bonvisi, who had offered me lodging for a gold crown a day, decided to let me have my rooms as long as I liked for twenty-five gold crowns a month, the term to begin on the first of June, up to which day the old agreement was to be in force.
The people here are consumed with envy and secret deadly spite one against the other, though they are all akin. A lady repeated to me the following proverb:—
“Chi vuol, che la sua donna impregni
Mandila al bagno, e non ci regni.”