I know not, she writes, whether it is thanks to these doctors or to thy letter received last night, but this morning I felt so well that I hope to set forth in three days. Maestro Girolamo will tell thee exactly the state of my health, which I think will content thee. I only lament the many annoyances I have caused thee on my journey. But believe me, wherever I might have been I should have been ill, for I have brought up much phlegm and nastiness which must have been there for a long time. Commend me to Mona Contessina and beg her to have patience, for soon, as soon as it pleases these doctors, I shall return to her and maybe she will take better care of me, though here, thanks be to God, I have wanted for nothing. I know not whether I should even have had such conveniences at home, certainly not at Rome. If it seems good to thee that I should send back Messer Gentile for Giuliano let me know before we start.[112] I shall wait to get quite well as thou sayest, and to recoup. Meanwhile and always I commend myself to thee and beg thee to be patient with me.--In Foligno, May 4, 1467, at 1 o’clock. Thy Lucrezia. Yesterday and last night I slept, as the Maestro will have told thee, as though quite well.[113] After her return to Florence the doctors sent Lucrezia early in September to Bagno a Morba, a place already mentioned in earlier pages. But here, where several letters are given written by Lucrezia from that celebrated spring, a few words may be added on the bathing habits of the fifteenth century to show how large a part they played in the social life of the time. For it is a delusion to think that the frequent use of water, cold or hot, is a modern virtue. It is true that from the middle of the sixteenth century till the end of the eighteenth men and women washed but sparingly. Marguerite de Valois could say to her lover, “See these fair hands. Though they have not been washed for eight days, they are cleaner than yours.” Manuals of Etiquette, published in 1667 and in 1782, recommend ladies and gentlemen to clean their faces with a dry white linen cloth, because to wash the face with water makes it more susceptible to cold in winter and to tan in summer. But in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the use of water was nearly as common as it is now. The whole population, whether north or south of the Alps, rejoiced in bathing. They used cold baths, hot baths, and steam baths; they gathered to bathe in mineral water; above all they delighted in baths when the water came from hot springs, and those were most prized which were strongly impregnated with sulphur, as was the case at Morba. The site of many an Italian monastery was selected simply because it was near enough a hot spring for the monks to enjoy what was looked on almost as necessary to healthy living. Indeed one of the punishments inflicted on unruly members of the