The journal of Montaigne's travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581, Volume 3 (of 3) — Themes and Context

Health, Baths, and the Body

Montaigne's own physical condition is a recurring thread. At the Baths of Lucca he notes that '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.' His treatments are described with precision: on August 15 he 'spent a short hour in the bath' and 'seemed to get chilled sooner than before, and did not perspire at all.' Yet upon returning to these baths he felt 'not merely well, but full of health and spirits.' The journal also records the practical arrangements for such cures—renting a house for 'seventy crowns a month' with four furnished chambers, a dining-room, and a kitchen. These details reveal a traveler who is both patient and manager of his own care.

Villas, Gardens, and the Lucchese Landscape

Around Lucca, Montaigne finds 'a vast number of delightful villas for the distance of three or four miles, built with porticoes and loggias.' He describes one with 'a very large loggia, arched all along inside, and clad without by the branches and tendrils of vines.' The gardens are engineered with 'shallow ditches' and 'covered ways' for fowling, where a silver whistle and trained thrushes are used to catch 'two hundred thrushes at a certain season.' Yet he also notes a scarcity of natural springs: 'it is indeed wonderful to see so little running water in a land mountainous as this.' The contrast between the artifice of the gardens and the dryness of the terrain is a recurring pattern.

Commerce, Cost, and Social Life

Montaigne's eye for expense is sharp. He pays 'thirty-three pistoles for the hire of eight horses as far as Lucca' and later 'fifteen crowns for the hire of his house, making one crown per diem.' At Ancona he notes that a bark to Venice might be hired for 'six crowns, or a little more.' The social fabric of Lucca is described as dominated by business: 'all the people, even the very children, are taken up with business incessantly, and with winning riches by means of traffic.' This makes the city 'somewhat unpleasant as a residence for foreigners.' Yet he also enjoys the hospitality of local gentlemen, who lend horses and offer 'excellent entertainment' with 'clean delicate linen' and 'a most sumptuous supper.'

Readers will find that Montaigne's journal resists a single focus: it is part medical diary, part travelogue, part account book. The translator W. G. Waters provides notes that clarify historical references, but the text itself rewards attention to the small, concrete observations—the price of a quail, the design of a loggia, the method of trapping thrushes. These details, rather than grand themes, give the volume its particular texture.