Spa
Aquas Volaternas
Bagno al Morbo bei Montecerboli
Listen to the story
Aquas Volaternas, the waters of Volterra, were hot springs in a landscape that still steams: at Montecerboli, near Larderello in Tuscany, hot salt lakes, columns of vapour and hissing vents of scalding air rise from the ground, feared since antiquity and mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan. The map draws a strikingly large bath building here, beside a lake that probably stands for the whole field of steaming pools. The Romans already used the boric acid from these springs, above all for the fine glaze of their red tableware. No road leads to it on the map.