I have heard what has been ordered to Your Magnificence as to the water and what the effect has been. First I must make an examination and Your Magnificence will cease taking it. It will be better not to wait until winter begins to lay in the usual provision, and Your Magnificence can take first Morba for a week and then Villa for another week. The less interval there is between the two the better. During this time I will make a trial of the said water which has arrived here in safety. I have not been able to do so on account of being occupied with lectures until the first August: then I had to go to Venice to pay my duty to the Doge and the Signoria. As soon as I have settled the Venetian business I shall make a trial at Padua of that water for a purpose of my own, for I need it, and according to the effect obtained I shall see whether we have something different from _arzente_[392] water; if I find it is different, as I think, when I have tried it, I will see how to make it suit the case of Your Magnificence. If it be _arzente_ water, we shall have unmasked it, which will not be at all unpleasing to me. Your Magnificence can take the Morba water without further advice, except when the wind is northerly, for then it is of little or no use. Let us hope the weather will soon be fine again and then Your Magnificence is to ride fast and far after drinking the water when fasting, morning and evening. Beware of cold and damp feet, of moonlight, and of the air at sunset, and do not eat pears or swallow grape pips. I received Proculus, which has given me the more pleasure that I have long wished to possess it, and finding that it is as excellent as I supposed I shall have it translated. When finished I will do as Your Magnificence says. I have heard that Lascari found in Calabria a commentary by Proculus on the Heraclitus of Plato. I beg Your Magnificence, when you know where this commentary is, to try and get it, or to tell me so that I may try. It must be valuable because the matter in itself is good and the author is the most competent man there is in such things. No more at present. I commend myself to Your Magnificence.--Padua, August 19, 1491.[393] Matteo Franco _at Rome to_ Ser Piero Dovizi _at Florence_