Thermal baths in Italian history

In Italy, hot water rising from the ground has been used for healing and for socialising for over two thousand years. The oldest springs are those the Romans found already in use, in the Campi Flegrei, in Sardinia, in Tuscany, and turned into public buildings. After the fall of the empire the baths did not disappear: they changed clientele, passing from senators to pilgrims, to popes and princes, and in the nineteenth century they became whole towns, with the casino, the grand hotel and the cure prescribed by the doctor. This page follows that line through time and tells you where to see the remains and the palaces today.

Ancient Rome: baths as a public service

For the Romans, bathing was a daily habit. The buildings followed a sequence of rooms: the changing room (apodyterium), the cold room (frigidarium), the warm one (tepidarium), the hot one (calidarium). Hypocaust heating, with hot air circulating under the floor, can already be seen in the Stabian Baths of Pompeii, built around 125 BC and today among the oldest examples preserved in the Roman world. The complex had separate sections for men and women, a gymnasium with a swimming pool and shops on the street.

At Baia, in the Bay of Naples, the hot volcanic water attracted the villas of the rich from 100 BC. Around 80 BC it was the fashionable resort of the Roman aristocracy; Julius Caesar had a villa, Nero built one, and the emperor Hadrian died there in 138 AD. The bath buildings of Baia include the so-called Temple of Mercury, which was the cold room of a public bath: its dome, 21.5 metres in diameter, is the oldest surviving concrete dome. Bradyseism, the rising and falling of the ground, has sunk the lower part of the town: since 2002 the Submerged Archaeological Park has protected the remains underwater.

In Rome the baths were imperial constructions. The Baths of Caracalla were built between 212 and 216 AD and inaugurated in 216: the enclosure measures about 337 by 328 metres, the central building 114 by 220 metres and the circular calidarium has a diameter of about 34 metres. After them came the Baths of Diocletian: begun in 298 under the emperor Maximian and opened in 306, they covered almost 14 hectares and could hold 3,000 people at once. Both complexes ceased to function in 537, when the Gothic king Vitiges cut the aqueducts.

Outside Rome the hot springs became provincial baths. At Fordongianus, in Sardinia, the Romans built Forum Traiani over waters already mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD as Aquae Ypsitanae. The first bath, in trachyte blocks without mortar, probably dates from the 1st century AD and had a central pool of 13 by 6.5 metres fed by the spring, which still emerges today at a temperature between 54 and 56 degrees according to the sources; the second, artificially heated with two wood-fired furnaces, probably dates from the 3rd century.

The Middle Ages: pilgrims, the sick and saints

After the 6th century the great urban baths were abandoned (Caracalla became a dwelling, a hospice, a cemetery and a vineyard), but the springs remained in use. The baths moved to the countryside, near the pilgrim roads. At Bagno Vignoni, in the Val d'Orcia, beside the Via Francigena, the rectangular pool of Piazza delle Sorgenti is of sixteenth-century origin and still receives hot, steaming water; among the visitors, the reference text mentions Pope Pius II, Catherine of Siena and Lorenzo de' Medici.

At Petriolo, in the Siena area (Monticiano), the water gushes out at 43 degrees along the Farma stream. The present name dates from the thirteenth century, and at the start of the fifteenth century the first masonry bath complex was built, with stone walls and a loggia, which has a fortified look. The Medici, the Gonzaga and Pius II came here. In 1907 Petriolo entered the official list of Italian mineral waters of the Ministry of the Interior.

Renaissance and eighteenth century: the prince and the doctor

In the Renaissance the baths became court venues. The practice remained medical: people went for gout, kidney stones, the skin. Fiuggi shows this well: Pope Boniface VIII credited the water of the area with curing his kidney stones in the fourteenth century, and two centuries later Michelangelo too praised its effects.

At Montecatini a document of 1340 already speaks of salt extracted from the water. The area, however, was marshy and malarial: Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo began the drainage in 1772. The Tettuccio, the largest open-air establishment, had its first pavilions designed by Gaspare Maria Paoletti between 1779 and 1781.

Nineteenth century and Art Nouveau: the spa town

In the nineteenth century thermal bathing became an industry. Ferdinand III handed the baths of Montecatini over to the community in 1817 and in 1818 a committee took over management. In 1902 the Padiglioncino Tamerici was built, in Art Nouveau style. In 1907 the first casino opened, the Excelsior, designed by Giulio Bernardini (rebuilt in 1968).

Salsomaggiore began to attract visitors in the first half of the nineteenth century under Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma. Here the water is salt-bromine-iodine and cold (about 16 degrees), and comes from artesian wells 800 to 1,200 metres deep. The symbol of the town is the Terme Berzieri, decorated in Art Nouveau style by Galileo Chini in 1923. San Pellegrino Terme, in the Val Brembana, has instead the casino, the Grand Hotel and the spa building, Art Nouveau buildings from the early twentieth century. Fiuggi, which was called Anticoli di Campagna, took its name from the water at the start of the twentieth century, when thermal tourism had become its main activity.

Twentieth century: from elite tourism to mass treatment

The twentieth century widened the clientele. In 1958 the State took the Montecatini baths back into its hands, and from the 1970s visitor numbers fell: the nineteenth-century spa towns, built for an elite public, struggled to find a new role. Meanwhile thermal treatment had entered the National Health Service, which with the doctor's prescription makes mud, baths and inhalations accessible (see treatments and health). The relaunch of the 1990s brought Montecatini to a recovery around 2000, and in 2021 the town was included in the transnational UNESCO site "The Great Spa Towns of Europe" for its springs and for its spa architecture from the 18th to the 20th century.

Today: from treatment to spa

Today's thermal baths sell wellness more than treatment: circuits of pools, saunas, massages, daily entry tickets. The Saturnia thermal park, to take one example, presents for summer 2026 a new Roman bath with an infrared sauna and a redesigned Turkish bath. The pools of Bagno Vignoni and Fordongianus still receive the water that warmed pilgrims and legionaries.

Timeline

1. c. 125 BCConstruction of the Stabian Baths of Pompeii, among the oldest preserved, with hypocaust
2. c. 80 BCBaia becomes the holiday resort of the Roman aristocracy
3. 1st century ADAt Fordongianus (Forum Traiani) the first bath in trachyte blocks
4. 79 ADThe eruption of Vesuvius buries Pompeii and Herculaneum, and their baths with them
5. 138Hadrian dies in his villa at Baia
6. 216Inauguration of the central building of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome
7. 306The Baths of Diocletian open in Rome, for 3,000 bathers
8. 537The Gothic king Vitiges cuts the aqueducts: the great baths of Rome cease to function
9. 1340At Montecatini a document mentions salt extracted from the water
10. 1560The frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian becomes a church (Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri)
11. 1779The first pavilions of the Tettuccio are completed at Montecatini (1779-1781)
12. 1817Ferdinand III hands the baths of Montecatini over to the community
13. 1923Galileo Chini decorates the Terme Berzieri at Salsomaggiore
14. 1958The State takes the Montecatini baths back
15. 2002The Submerged Archaeological Park of Baia is established
16. 2021Montecatini Terme enters the UNESCO site "The Great Spa Towns of Europe"

Where to see the remains: hours and tickets

At Caracalla tickets are bought online, with the Musei Italiani app and without advance-booking fees, or at the totems at the entrance. For Baia, Herculaneum and Pompeii the official sources are cultura.gov.it, ercolano.cultura.gov.it and pompeiisites.org; at Pompeii Oplontis, Boscoreale and the Museo di Stabia stay at 8 euros, and the annual MyPompeii Card costs 45 euros. The Baths of Diocletian can be seen with the ticket of the Museo Nazionale Romano. If you want to bathe instead of looking at ruins, you will find the choice on the pages about Tuscany, central and southern Italy and Ischia.

1. Terme di Caracalla, Roma: Inaugurated in 216
2. Terme di Diocleziano, Roma: Opened in 306
3. Baia (archaeological park): Roman villa and baths
4. Terme Stabiane, Pompei: Hypocaust, c. 125 BC
5. Ercolano, archaeological area: Forum and Suburban Baths
6. Fordongianus, Roman baths: Forum Traiani
7. Bagno Vignoni, Piazza delle Sorgenti: Saint Catherine, Pius II
8. Petriolo, baths on the Farma: 43 degrees, Medici and Pius II
9. Montecatini Terme: Tettuccio, Excelsior, UNESCO 2021
10. Salsomaggiore, Terme Berzieri: Art Nouveau by Galileo Chini
11. San Pellegrino Terme: Art Nouveau casino and Grand Hotel
12. Fiuggi: Water of Boniface VIII