This morning I passed another stone somewhat larger and looking as if it must have been detached from one much larger. God knows whether it is so. Let it be as He wills. We made the same terms at the inn as at Pisa, four giuli a day for ourselves and three for the servants. But on the 28th, being in a way compelled by the most courteous proposals of Signor Ludovico Pinitesi, I went to occupy a ground-floor apartment in his house. It was very cool, excellently arranged, and contained five chambers, a dining-room and a kitchen, the furniture of all sorts, of the finest and handsomest style, being supplied to me according to Italian custom, which in many ways equals our own and in some surpasses it. These fine large lofty arched ceilings are in truth great ornaments in Italian houses. They give a pleasant and dignified aspect to the entrances, because all the lower storeys are built in this fashion with wide and lofty doorways. In the summer all the gentle-folk of Lucca take their meals in public in these entries in full sight of the passers-by.
I may declare with truth that wherever I have stopped in Italy I have been lodged, not to say well, but excellently, except in Florence—and there I did not leave the inn in spite of the discomforts I had to endure, especially in the summer heat—and in Venice, where we lodged in a noisy ill-kept house, as our sojourn was to be a very brief one. My chamber here was apart, supplied with everything I could need, convenient and perfectly quiet. I rejoiced that the people of the place did not call upon me—or only one or two—for even civility sometimes becomes irksome. I slept and read as I was inclined, and when I went abroad I always found conversation in plenty with the people in the streets, who would be ready for a chat at any hour of the day; and then there were the shops, and the churches, and the market-place. Going about like this, from one country to another, I was never at a loss for material for the satisfying of my curiosity. And all this time I felt my mind at ease, as much as ill-health and old age would allow, and little prone to seize opportunities for disturbing itself from the outside world. The only loss I felt was that of a sympathetic companion, for, being alone, I had to enjoy all these pleasures by myself, and could not share them with another.
The people of Lucca are greatly given to, a game called Pallone, and they often meet for matches. Men seldom ride on horseback through the streets, and it is the rarest sight to see one in a coach, but ladies go on mule-back with a foot-servant. Strangers coming here have great difficulty in finding houses to let, the city itself being very thickly populated and the travellers visiting it very few. For an ordinary house with four furnished chambers, a dining-room, and a kitchen I was asked a rent of seventy crowns a month. It is hard to find any society in Lucca, for the reason that all the people, even the very children, are taken up with business incessantly, and with winning riches by means of traffic. On this account Lucca is somewhat unpleasant as a residence for foreigners.
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 ischifiltà93 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.
I am firmly convinced that the fumes of this water both in drinking and in bathing—though I hold drinking to be the worse—are very bad for the head, and even worse for the stomach. And on this account the patients here are forced to take medicines to correct the action of the water. On the Thursday I gave up drinking and rode in the morning to see Costrone, a large village in the mountains. I found many fine and fertile level spaces and pasturage to the very tops of the mountains. To this village are attached several hamlets with comfortable houses roofed with stone. On my way back I made a long circuit through the hills.
My head meantime continued in its usual condition—to wit, a bad one; I began to get weary of these baths, and if I had received from France news for which I had been waiting—indeed for four months I had heard nothing at all—I should have set forth at once and finished my autumn cure in some other bath. In travelling towards Rome the baths of Bagno Acqua, Siena, and Viterbo would lie but little off the main road; and towards Venice I should pass near those of Bologna and Padua.
In Pisa I had had my arms drawn in fine colours and gilded for the cost of a French crown and a half, and I now pasted the drawing on wood—it was done on canvas—and this wooden tablet I caused to be carefully nailed to the wall of the chamber I had occupied, with the understanding that the device should be held to be given to the room itself, and not to Captain Paulino the proprietor, and that it should not be taken down whatever might befall the house in the future. This the captain promised, and confirmed his promise with an oath.
On Sunday, September the 3rd, I spent more than an hour in the bath, and was much troubled by wind, but without pain. In the night and on Monday morning I had toothache so badly that I feared it must arise from a decayed tooth. I chewed mastic all the morning without relief.
During the night I sent for an apothecary, who gave me some aqua vitæ, and bade me hold it to the spot where the pain was sharpest. The relief I got was marvellous; for, as soon as I took it into my mouth, the pain ceased; but as soon as I spat out the spirit the pain returned, wherefore I was forced to keep the glass always at my lips. I could not keep the spirit in my mouth continually, for, as soon as the pain was reduced, I would through weariness fall into a heavy sleep, and then some drops of the spirit would run down my throat and choke me so that I was forced to get rid of it. Just at daybreak the pain seemed to leave me.
On the Tuesday morning all the gentlemen staying at the bath came to see me as I lay in bed. I afterwards caused a plaster of mastic to be put on my left temple, where the throbbing pain had been worst, and had less pain during the day. At night they applied lint to the cheek and the left side of the head, and my sleep was painless though disturbed.
On the Wednesday I had constant toothache and pain in the left eye, and on Thursday I spent an hour in the large bath. This same morning there came to hand, by way of Rome, a letter from M. de Tausin, written from Bordeaux on August 2nd, in which he informed me that, on the preceding day, I had been chosen to be Mayor of that city by public choice, and begged me that, out of my goodwill for the city, I would take up this burden.95
On Sunday, September 10th, I spent an hour in the ladies’ bath, which, being rather hot, caused me to perspire, and after dinner I went on horseback to visit some places in the neighbourhood, and a little town called Gragnaiola, situated on the top of one of the highest mountains of this group. As I rode along these heights the slopes around appeared to me the fairest and most fertile that the world could show. In course of conversation with some of the peasantry I inquired of a very old man whether the baths were much used by the inhabitants; whereupon he answered that the people about Lucca were like those living near the Madonna of Loreto, who very rarely go on pilgrimages to the shrine there; in like fashion the baths of Lucca enjoyed little favour, except from foreigners and people coming from afar. Moreover, there was one matter which gave him disquiet, to wit, that for some years past there had appeared manifest signs that the baths had done more harm than good to those who used them. He declared the cause of this to be that, whereas in former days there was no apothecary in the whole district and physicians were rarely seen, these gentry, now swarmed; and, having an eye to their own gain, established the doctrine that the baths would prove of no service unless the patient take medicine, not only before and after but at divers times during the operation of the waters, which would not easily assimilate if taken by themselves. He declared that the clearest proof of this appeared in the fact that, of the people who used these baths, more died than were cured; and that in a short time the place would fall into disrepute and neglect.
On September 12th, 1581, we set forth early from Bagni della Villa and arrived at Lucca in time for dinner, after riding fourteen miles. They were just beginning to gather the grapes. The feast of Santa Croce is the great one of this city, and during eight days all who may be proscribed on account of debt are suffered to return without hurt to their homes, so as to attend to their devotions. In all Italy I have never found a barber who could shave me or cut my hair properly.
On Wednesday evening we went to hear vespers and see the processions in the cathedral, where a vast multitude of the citizens were assembled. There was an exhibition of the Volto Santo, which is here held in the highest reverence because of the antiquity of the cultus, and of the many miracles due thereto; indeed the cathedral was built especially for the sake of this relic, and the little chapel where it is preserved still stands in the centre of the great church in an incongruous position, and in violation of all the canons of architecture.96 As soon as the vespers were ended the whole of the congregation went to another church, which was formerly the cathedral.97
On Thursday I heard mass in the choir of the cathedral, when all the government officials were present. The people of Lucca take great pleasure in music and sing in unison, but it is rare to hear a fine voice. There was a full choir for this mass, but it was not a great performance; a high altar, very lofty in construction, had been specially built of wood and cardboard, and covered with images, and large silver candlesticks and vessels, the last being arranged with a basin in the centre and four plates around it. The altar was decorated in this fashion from top to bottom, and made a fine and imposing spectacle.
Whenever the bishop says mass (as he did on this occasion), at the Gloria in excelsis he sets light to a bunch of tow suspended in a grating in the middle of the church, especially contrived for this purpose.
In this district the weather was already very wet and cold. On Sunday the 18th of September took place the ceremony of the change of the gonfaloniers of the city, and I was a spectator of the same at the palace. Here they work on Sundays as much as on week days, and many shops are open.