Editing Viterbo (section)

=== Baths of Viterbo ===
[[File:Bagno del Papa.jpg|thumb|Bagno del Papa in Viterbo]]
In the valley of the Arcione River just to the west of Viterbo are a number of springs celebrated for the healing qualities of their waters, and in use since Etruscan and Roman days.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.minorsights.com/2014/08/italy-hot-springs-near-viterbo.html |title=Hot Springs Near Viterbo |access-date= 14 July 2015 |publisher=Minor Sights}}</ref> In fact, the imposing ruins of a great Roman bath are still to be seen and were drawn in plan and perspective by Renaissance artists including [[Giuliano da Sangallo]], [[Michelangelo]], and [[Giorgio Vasari|Vasari]].<ref>Mack, 1988, pages 197–98</ref> One of the most famous were the thermal springs known as the "Bullicame", or bubbling place, whose reputation had even reached the ears of the exiled poet [[Dante Alighieri]]. Canto 14 (lines 79–81) of Dante's ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'' describes how:
[[File:Viterbo Aroundly App.jpg|thumb|"The Awakening" by Seward Johnson in Viterbo]]
<blockquote><poem>
In silence we had reached a place where flowed
a slender watercourse out of the wood—a stream
whose redness makes me shudder still.
As from the Bullicame pours a brook [[History of cannabis in Italy#Grand Duchy of Tuscany|whose
waters are then shared by prostitutes]], so did this
stream run down across the sand.<ref>Mack, 1988, p. 198</ref>
</poem></blockquote>

Not far from the Bullicame, whose waters were apparently always taken in the open, is the Terme dei Papi ("Bath of the Popes"). Almost totally concealed within the structure of a modern luxury spa hotel are the remains of a Renaissance bath palace that attracted the attention of two popes.<ref>Mack, 1992</ref> Actually, the origins of this bathing establishment date to the Middle Ages when it was known as the Bagno della Crociata (named either after a Crusader who supposedly discovered the spring or from a corruption of the Italian word for crutch). Early 15th-century documents describe a bath building that covered three distinct thermal springs all under one roof.<ref name="Mack, 1992, 46">Mack, 1992, 46</ref>

[[File:FontanagrandeViterbo.JPG|thumb|upright|The Fontana Grande ("Grand Fountain") in the eponymous square]]
This bath house was transformed circa 1454 by the [[Pope Nicholas V]], who commissioned a bath palace (according to Nicholas's biographer, [[Giannozzo Manetti]]) "with such magnificence and with such expense that it was not only deemed suitable for a stay and salutary for the sick but seemed an edifice destined to have rooms fit for princes and for living regally".<ref name="Mack, 1992, 46"/> A more precise description of Pope Nicholas' palace was described by the Viterbese chronicler [[Niccola della Tuccia]] in the 1470s, who stated the new Bagno del Papa as a battlemented building, resembling a fortress, about 30 x 20&nbsp;m in size with high towers at the corners of its southern façade. Located outside Viterbo, the spa would have been an easy target for assaults had the building not assumed a militant character, which also affirmed papal authority.  Aside from the regal apartments described by Manedtti there were vaulted chambers at the lowest level to accommodate the patrons of the several thermal springs.<ref name="Mack, 1992, 46"/>

Manetti and Vasari both named the Florentine architect and sculptor [[Bernardo Rossellino]] as the architect of the project in Viterbo.<ref>Valtieri</ref> There is, however, no documentation or architectural evidence to connect Rossellino directly with the construction of the Bagno del Papa. To the contrary, Vatican payment records from 1454, preserved in the state archives in Rome, identify a stonemason from Lombardy, named Stefano di Beltrame, as the builder who "had done or was doing in the house ordered by the pope at the bagni della Grotta and Crociata of Viterbo."<ref>Mack,1992, 46–47</ref>

Construction at the Bagno del Papa was continued on through the reigns of several popes after Nicholas V. The Vatican accounts mention of payments "for building done at the bath palace of Viterbo" during the reigns of [[Pope Callixtus III|Calixtus III]], [[Pope Paul II|Paul II]], and [[Pope Sixtus IV|Sixtus IV]]. There also is evidence [[Pope Pius II]] was responsible for the addition of a western wing to the building.<ref>Mack, 1992,47</ref>

Travelers' descriptions, etched views, and local guidebooks chronicle the fate of the Renaissance Bagno del Papa over the years and through several rebuildings resulting in a general assumption that most of the original 15th-century structure had vanished. A guide to Viterbo from 1911 does note that some remnants were still to be detected in basement piers and vaults. In operation as a thermal hospital in 1927, the building was blown up by retreating German forces in 1944.<ref>Mack, 1992, 47–49</ref>

Despite all the travails, much of the original Bagno del Papa built by Popes Nicholas V and Pius II survives, including the corner towers and the vaulted chambers where Renaissance patrons once bathed.<ref>Mack, 1992, 50. For a general discussion of medieval and Renaissance thermal bathing practices and the architectural environments in which the waters were taken see Charles R. Mack, "The Wanton Habits of Venus: Pleasure and Pain at the Renaissance Spa," ''Explorations in Renaissance Culture'', 26,2 (Winter), 2000, 257–76</ref>