Best Western
Hotel Viterbo

History - Thermal Spring of the Popes

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The area around the city of Viterbo has been famous for its hypo-thermal waters from the numerous springs, from the time of the Etruscans.

Still today, in the Tuscia area, the mysterious history of the Etruscans, that according to legend were those who discovered the properties of these thermal waters sent down by the gods that brought miraculous benefits.
When the Romans arrived in the area, all of the Etruscan centers were destroyed but the imprint of the culture of a refined thermal springs remained and various thermal structures were built in the three majot areas of Aque Passeris, Paliano, and Bullicame. The Thermal springs kept the name of the Etruscans up until the time of the Emperor when the Romans who conquered Viterbo and Tuscia in 310 B.C., The thermal baths were abandoned in the Barbaric époque up until the 12th century when they were begun to be used again by the Popes.
Popes like Gregory IX, and in particular Pope Boniface IX who in 1404 received an invitation by the Priors of Viterbo to come to the baths to treat the pain in his bones with spring water and mud, Pope Pio II and Nicolò V, who used the springs and in 1450 also constructed a beautiful palace where he could stay while being treated.. The restructuring and enlargement of the thermal installation by various popes throughout the years is the reason that the thermal springs are called “Thermal Spring of the Popes”.
The benefits of the sulphuric springs were also appreciated by other known figures including Dante who described the most popular spring, Bullicame, in a poem of his celebrated Inferno, and Michelangelo Buonarroti who also did two designs of the spring Bacucco, found in the Vicar Muesum if Lille in France.
From the Renaissance up t the 1800’s the springs saw periods of high and low until the final increasing interest of their business value which have brought the thermal baths to be an avant-garde center of well being.
The modern structure holds a pool designed for vascular gymnastics as well as another indoor pool which includes hydro-massage mechanisms.
Rooms for inhalation treatments, mud therapy, saunas, massages, magnet therapy, and lymphatic- drainage are also found. Specialty visits including analyses, electrocardiograms, and others can also be reserved.
The center of the springs is the famous spring of Bullicame ( 58° C) and the most appreciated in Hydrologic cures. The spring feeds an enormous pool of over 2,000 square meters and the treatments are aimed at the respiratory tract and osteo-articulation, but also skin illnesses, kidney stones, digestive tract, ecc. Qualified specialists and staff from the University of Viterbo are part of the team who execute the therapies and treatments.
Besides the two famous springs mentioned above, the Gigliola, Oliveto, (60° C), Crociata (56° C), and the Bagnaccio( 32° C) are also part of these Thermal Baths.

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