The baths of Petriolo in the physicians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Gentile da Foligno († 1348), On baths (i)

Venice 1553, f. 181v · Latin text

Translation

On the baths of Petriolo. The bath of Petriolo is of a sulphurous and aluminous complexion, and there is more alum in it, which I have seen by experience; and if some hold the contrary, they need not be heeded. Its effects are these: it helps the catarrhous, the gouty and those whose nerves are weak; and it is above all good for catarrhs and for those who have a cold head, and for this this bath chiefly serves, and in our time it has done much, and notably. The water must be led over the head, and for this one should go from the month of September to February, always after a general purging of the head, as has been said.

Gentile da Foligno, On baths (ii)

Venice 1553, f. 182r · Latin text

Translation

The baths of Petriolo, in the county of Siena, have much sulphur with a gross substance, and are strong in drying and in heating. The bath that is near it (and is called le Caldanelle) has the virtue of iron with a subtle substance; it therefore helps the laxity of the [members] of nutrition, by drying and binding, without noticeably heating or cooling. The bath of Macereto, near Petriolo itself, has sulphur that is not very sharp.

Ugolino da Montecatini, Treatise on baths (c. 1417–1420)

Venice 1553, f. 51r · Latin text

Translation

On the baths of the county of Siena. The baths that are said to be in the county of Siena I have never seen. But, instructed by most learned men, among whom were masters Marco and Francesco, physicians of Siena, with whom I have kept company in various places, I can write about them at length. I have also understood everything that Gentile reports about them.

The baths of Petriolo are held to be the chief of them all. They are very sulphurous, with a very gross substance, and they heat a great deal, and dry, and thin and resolve the humours. They are good for pains in the joints and for cold ailments of the nerves. They also help sciatics greatly, and those who have a cold head: for the head is placed where the water comes out of a lion's mouth, and its fall should strike first the front of the head and then run down towards the back, without any blow. It dries, indeed, the humidities of the head, and helps so much in this that it is believed to go on heating and drying for the following three years; and it is a bath of great fame.

The time for using it is September and October, and March and April. I have rather recommended going in March and April, because those who do otherwise sometimes come back in times of cold, rain and snow; and since their pores and passages are open from the use of the bath, they easily come to harm: through the altered air, too, if any resolution [of humours] were flowing out through the pores because of the baths, it is driven back and stopped when the pores close. So I have seen some come to a bad end who went at that time, when most people used to go, and even, before my own eyes, in the month of December.

Michele Savonarola, On baths, rubric XIII (c. 1450)

Venice 1553, ff. 22v–23v · Latin text

Translation

On the famous baths of Siena. This city glories greatly in its baths, both for their number and for their virtue, more abundant than that of others, because they are more excellent.

And first I take up the bath of Petriolo, more famous than the rest, which took its name from the nearby castle and is fifteen miles from the city. Its mineral is so sulphurous that it gives off a smell of sulphur half a mile away, and on the surface there is sometimes a sulphurous foam, or something oily which burns when thrown into the fire; and it partakes of alum.

Nature. It is hot and dry in the fourth degree. Operations. It heats strongly, resolves, dries and dissolves humidities, as was discussed for the baths of Porretta. Choice [of season]. September and October are chosen for its heat; some praise April and May, because those who go then seem to come to less harm; for those who come back in the first months [of the cold], with the cold and rain that follow, are harmed by the opening of the pores they have acquired in the bath. Consider what is said below, in the question on the baths of Carpi. For the return from the baths is certainly a thing to be much considered, and deserves care.

Members of the head. Its shower greatly helps deafness, ringing in the ears, paralysis, spasm, tremor and even epileptics. It is very good for a cold and moist catarrh, when no excessive heat goes with it, and for an old headache that comes from cold. But those who are weak in head and body should not readily enter this bath, nor receive its shower in this way, because it is strong in resolving and drying, lest, the strength being weakened by a strong resolution, a greater harm follow. So let the advice of Mesue on the restless be heeded, in [the chapter] on cold headache (soda). Let us begin, as is our custom, with the weaker: let such people first try gentler showers.

Members of the chest. It dries and resolves the humidities of the chest and takes away its coldness. Members of nutrition. The Prince [Avicenna]: sulphurous waters loosen the stomach and take away the appetite, as above on the baths of Monte Grotto; and look there yourself, for it is a place for study. It harms a hot liver, and so those who go in should protect themselves beforehand, as in the passage cited. It softens a hard spleen and reduces a swollen one. Members of expulsion. It resolves the winds of the intestines, helps hardness of the womb, and harms hot kidneys. Wounds and sores. It is good for scabies and cold sores, bothor, albaras and morphea.

Members of the joints. It resolves the humidities of the joints and helps sciatica and its pains. And here it is asked whether that bath also serves to protect the joints from an attack of gout, as some advise every day. I think it must be said that those whose joints are weak by complexion and by composition should in no way go to sulphurous and strong baths for such protection, because in this way they are weakened further, by the resolution of the heat and of the natural moisture on which the heat feeds. But those whose joints are robust and broad in composition, and abounding in moisture, may go to them safely. For the former, though, it is wiser to enter iron baths. And in all of these the length of stay must always be watched, because a long stay works a great resolution. And let the saying of the Prince be noted, [book] one, [fen] two, for the second group: that a sulphurous bath makes superfluities run easily down to the members where there is weakness, as above on the bath of Monte Grotto, in its section. Members of nutrition. And let us remember that what is dry should not be dried further (one, three). And enough of this. And burnt-choleric people, before they enter such a bath, should take good advice, since they are prone to fevers, and this bath with its heat greatly prepares bodies already prone to fevers (one, two, on the dispositions of waters; and the Canon, in the second: sulphurous waters bring on fevers).

Beside this bath there is another, near the river, called la Farina, which has little heat, and which people enter first, beginning in this way, by the order written by Mesue, with the easier; and it helps scabies by its whole nature.

Close to this is the bath de Cornetis, mild or gentle in heat, so called because cupping glasses or horns are applied in it without fire; its water falls into the river. I have not found its mineral in writing, nor have I experience of it. It is like a hot bath of sweet water, and I have not read that it is credited with any notable effects.

And there is another bath covered with stones, whose mineral is iron and sulphur, and the heat of this water is such that people can hardly stay in it, because its heat rests on a dense substance: the power of a thing is to be judged by the abundance of its form. It heats and dries, and its drying is greater than its heating; so it is very powerful in cold illnesses, and still more in moist ones. And you, enquirer, go through the sections, as was done for the others, which I do gladly. This [bath] was built in this way, with its stone vault, by lord Rodolfo, the elder, lord of Camerino. Members of the joints. It helps the pains of gout, and wonderfully preserves the joints from gout to come. That is why, I think, that lord cared for this bath as he did.

From this one flows another bath, uncovered, not so hot, in which people can stay better; they use it for a bad complexion of the stomach and spleen arising from a cold and moist cause.

In front of these four baths there is a notably hot bath, with three showers at its end, which in my judgement partakes much of sulphur; they fall into the bath, where [people] receive them naked. This one inflames greatly; so those who have a hot liver, and hot kidneys, should protect themselves with cold [remedies], as was discussed for the bath of Monte Grotto. And it weakens the digestive [virtue] more than the others. In virtue and properties it is like the first bath of Petriolo already described.

And next to this, some way off, there is another that flows from it, and which, because of the length of its course, is milder in its qualities. There is a covered room there where people receive the shower lying on a bench, with perforated caps on their heads, so that the water strikes only the uncovered part of the head. And let them not go to this or to any other without first cleansing the body of the offending humour.

On the other side of the bridge are the baths called the ladies' baths, of the same virtues. Members of expulsion. They are of the greatest help for coldness of the womb. Members of nutrition. It helps the stomach and its cold and moist ailments. Members of the head. Its pain. Members of the joints. Gout and the like, as above for the first.

Beyond the river, three crossbow shots away, there is a bath called the Caldane, covered with a stone vault, whose water is very clear. Its mineral, they say, is iron and alum; so in its heat it is almost temperate, but it dries a great deal: it therefore binds and tightens the members strongly, helps the laxity of the members of nutrition, and does not heat much; hence [what] the Prince [says], one, two. And iron [waters] resolve the spleen and help those who cannot have intercourse. And I think it should greatly help those who are weak in the joints. And of this [water] some drink and some have enemas given, to remove the roughness left by the bath of Petriolo, for people stay first in the baths of Petriolo, which leave a roughness because of the sulphur. And for the two days before they leave they come to this one twice a day, so that the digestive virtue, weakened by the first, may be restored by this one. And in this place there are two baths: the first called the men's, the other the ladies'.

Mengo da Faenza (Mengo Bianchelli), On baths (mid fifteenth century)

Venice 1553, f. 76r · Latin text

Translation

On the baths of Siena, and first on the bath of Petriolo. Of the baths of Siena we shall report first what Gentile says, then what Ugolino says; afterwards we shall discuss what they said. Perhaps you will say: why do you leave out Savonarola? We say that we leave him out because he says nothing about them that these two do not report, and also because he speaks of them so confusedly that nothing good can be drawn from him. We shall speak first, then, of the bath of Petriolo, because among the ancients it was the more famous. The bath of Petriolo is fifteen miles from the city of Siena, towards the south.

Of this bath Gentile said in his first treatise: 'The baths of Petriolo, in the county of Siena, have much sulphur in a gross substance, and are strong in drying and heating.' And in the second treatise he says: 'The baths of Petriolo, in the county of Siena, are sulphurous baths; they also have much of the aluminous; they are good for the scabious, the gouty, the catarrhous, those weak in the nerves and those who have a cold and moist head.' So he says.

Ugolino seems to agree with Gentile's first treatise, when he says: 'The baths of Petriolo, which are very sulphurous and of a very gross substance, heat a great deal and dry, and thin the humours and resolve them in those who have pain in the joints and in cold ailments of the nerves; they are also good for sciatics and for those who have a very cold head; and they heat the head for three years, and dry it.' So he says.

We, for our part, say of the qualities of this water that it is clear, hot, and gives off a strong smell of sulphur. Of its mineral we say first that it holds sulphur and alum, as Gentile says in the second treatise; and in the first he says the same implicitly, since he says that it has much sulphur in a gross substance; but since every substance of sulphur is subtle, as Serapion says, when he says 'in a gross substance' he gives us to understand that it keeps company with something that makes the substance gross: and that is alum, for it cannot reasonably be anything else.

Of its effects we say first that this bath has lost much of the effect it used to have, because of the mixing in of some cold water; the sign of this is that few Sienese ask for that bath, and the cause of the bath's failing is the mixing of sweet waters with it, as has been said. We say second that, this notwithstanding, it still helps somewhat in the ailments mentioned, by drying the humidities, heating and strengthening the members; and it also helps the nerves and the joints somewhat, resolving their humidities and strengthening them.

Notes

• Complexion, gross or subtle substance, degrees: terms of Galenic and Arabic medicine. Each water has a dominant mineral (sulphur, alum, iron, salt, nitre) that gives it its qualities (hot, dry…) and its strength. «Hot and dry in the fourth degree» is the highest degree.
• The Prince: Avicenna. «One, two» refers to his Canon, book I, fen 2. Mesue: the author of pharmacology of that name. Serapion: Serapion the Younger, author of a book on simple medicines.
• Soda: in medical Latin, headache (from the Arabic ṣudāʿ).
• «Ducia» (here, «shower»): the stream of water that falls on one part of the body. Italian doccia comes from this word, and from it, by way of French, English douche.
• Bothor, albaras, morphea: skin diseases with Arabic names (pustules, white patches, spots).
• Where they disagree:
  • when to go (Gentile: September–February; Ugolino: September–October or March–April, preferring spring; Savonarola: September–October, though «some» prefer April–May);
  • whether sulphur or alum dominates.
• Rodolfo of Camerino: Savonarola says antiquior, «the elder» or «the earlier». He is one of the lords of the Varano family; without another source, it cannot be said which.
• «Ladies»: Savonarola writes balnea dominarum, «of the ladies», not mulierum, «of the women». Italian keeps the word: donna comes from domina.
• The order of Gentile’s two treatises: Mengo attributes to the «first treatise» the sentence that in 1553 opens the Tractatus secundus. Here the order and titles of the 1553 edition are kept.