Spencer Coll. MS. 65: an Italian herbal abundant with swallowtail merlons

[Filli]

I believe I have identified the castle in this illustration:



It is Toscanella (today known as Tuscania): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It has these baths preserved from inside the castle:





Compare this with the baths in the illustration:



I looked in historical records and the castle used to be a very impressive Ghibelline style fortress with long rows of swallowtailed walls:





Today the castle does not exist any more:



But a sketch from a few hundred years ago reveals its extent:



The village was known in the middle ages for having abundant sulfurous hot springs that were famous bathing places.

I'm getting excited...

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Sources:

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This is my first post, so sorry if I get the formatting wrong, but from what I can tell the text below identifies it as the baths of "petuoli". The next illustration shows the Bagni San Filippo, which, from a quick google search, are still well known today, unless there's some other baths of "san filipo" I don't know about. There's a wikipedia page about De balneis puteolanis, a poem about the baths of pozzuoli, where this section: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. not only gives a source which says that it was continually used throughout the middle ages, but also that the volcanic region spans from the bay of "Puteoli", which resembles the "petuoli" spelling. Wikipedia's not the most reliable source, of course, but a good starting point.