The famous baths are not far off. They had been largely deserted, conduits broken, bathing-houses tumbling down, everything neglected and falling to ruin. The sulphureous springs, left to find their way through the rocks and the soil, were wasted and produced nothing but evil-smelling ooze. When the Florentines became masters of Volterra they sent Doctor Ugolino da Montecatini with their Chancellor Colucci da Salutati to report on the virtues of the waters in 1388. Something was done to render the baths useful and productive. The village with its small castle was rebuilt and surrounded with a sheltering wall. Visitors were protected from the sudden assaults of the robber nobles whose castles crowned neighbouring heights, and who swooped down on the bathers in hopes of plunder and ransom. The baths regained some of their old prosperity, and gouty or rheumatic Florentines braved the discomforts of the road to make use of the waters. Cosimo Pater Patriæ visited them frequently, and on a memorable occasion a favourite pair of scissors were left in his lodgings, which Contessina tells her son Giovanni to send back to Florence (p. 55). The probability is, however, that the arrangements were anything but luxurious when Lucrezia first tried and found the benefits of the healing springs. She soon saw the advantages of the position, and after buying the village and baths of Morba in 1477 from the Commune of Florence, in true Florentine fashion at once made plans which would benefit the place, its visitors, her own health, and her pocket. The valuable water was largely wasted; cisterns were needed; more springs might be discovered. Accordingly experts were engaged, the ground was investigated, and work was carefully planned. The known springs were cleared, the water was carefully collected and brought into a great covered cistern built of well-burnt bricks and covered with tiles according to the most approved pattern of the day. Search was made for other springs; the streamlets were followed back to their sources in neighbouring rocks. Soon the supply of water was more than doubled. Meanwhile the bathing-houses with their twelve separate baths were rebuilt. Old engravings enable us to form some idea of these Italian baths, which were made much more luxurious than those north of the Alps. There is no trace of that promiscuous bathing so common in Germany. Either the sexes had separate bathing-houses or, what is more probable, used the same baths at different hours. We see a room with one or more oblong baths set in the floor, and to each bathroom was attached a smaller apartment with a bed for the hour of repose enjoined after bathing. The bathing establishment was a long row of such bathrooms completely separate from each other. At first the same stream of water served all the baths at Morba, but it was found that those nearest the cisterns were too hot, while those furthest from them were too cold. The defect was remedied by an ingenious system of