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.