I shall conclude with Scaliger: “We are by no means whole human beings, but parts of one. Something can be made from us all together, and not very much at that; from each of us separately, almost nothing.” Besides, as Nazianzen puts it, “God has willed that many things should remain hidden from us.” And with Seneca, chapter 35, On Comets: “Why are we surprised that such rare spectacles of the world have not been brought under fixed laws and are not yet understood? Many peoples know the sky only by its outward appearance. Perhaps a time will come when the passage of days, through the patient work of a longer age, brings to light what is now hidden. One age is not enough; posterity,” and so forth.

When God sees fit, he will reveal these mysteries to mortal men and at last show a few what he has concealed so long. For I share the view that Columbus did not discover America by chance: God directed him to discover it at that time. To Columbus it was contingent, but to God necessary. He reveals and conceals to whom he will and when he will. And as one writer said of history and the records of former times, “God, in his providence, checks our presumptuous inquiry by wrapping everything in uncertainty, shutting us out from remote antiquity, and confining our search to the span of a few ages.”

Many good things once used by our predecessors have been lost, as Panciroli will explain more fully; many new things are invented daily for the public good. So kingdoms, people, and knowledge ebb and flow, are hidden and revealed; and when all is done, as the Preacher concluded, “There is nothing new under the sun.” But my melancholy spaniels give tongue, my quarry has been flushed, and I must come down at once and follow.

Jason Pratensis, in his book On Diseases of the Head, in the chapter on melancholy, gives these words from Galen: “Let them come to me to learn what food and drink they should use. Besides that, I shall teach them what quality of surrounding air to choose, which winds and countries to seek, and which to avoid.”

From these lines we may gather that, among other things, improving the air is necessary to this cure of melancholy. This is done by correcting either natural or artificial air. Natural air is what we have the power to choose or avoid: either broadly, in countries and provinces, or particularly, in cities, towns, villages, or private houses. I have already shown the harm that extremes of heat and cold do in this illness. The mean must therefore be good: air that is temperate, clear, calm, and free of bogs, fens, mists, all kinds of decay, and infectious, filthy, offensive smells.

All geographers praise the Egyptians as “cheerful,” a witty and merry nation: I can attribute this to no cause but the clarity of their air. Hector Boece and Cardano record that those who live in the Orkneys are fair in complexion, long-lived, exceptionally healthy, and free from every kind of bodily and mental infirmity because of the sharp, purifying air that comes from the sea. The Boeotians in Greece were dull and sluggish—“thick-witted Boeotians”—because of the foggy air in which they lived,

(You would swear he was a Boeotian born in thick air.)

The people of Attica were exceptionally quick-witted, agreeable, and refined. Climate changes customs, manners, and minds less than it changes bodily constitutions and temperament itself, as Aristotle in Politics VI.4, Vegetius, Plato, and Bodin in Method of History, chapter 5, have demonstrated at length. In every province experience confirms it: as the air is, so are the inhabitants—dull, sluggish, witty, subtle, neat, clean, rustic, sick, or healthy.

In Périgord in France the air is fine and healthy, with scarcely any plague or contagious disease, though the land is hilly and barren; the people are healthy, nimble, and vigorous. But in parts of Guyenne, full of moors and marshes, the people are dull, sluggish, and subject to many infirmities. Who fails to see a great difference between Surrey, Sussex, and Romney Marsh, or between the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Fens?

Anyone who values his health, therefore, must change places often, if his means allow, choosing places that are wholesome, pleasant, and suitable. Nothing is better for this illness, and for health in general, than a change of air: moving from place to place like those Zamolhense Tartars who live in hordes and take advantage of times, places, and seasons.

The kings of Persia had summer and winter houses: at Sardis in winter, at Susa in summer; now at Persepolis, then at Pasargadae. Cyrus spent seven cold months at Babylon, three at Susa, and two at Ecbatana, Xenophon says, and so enjoyed a perpetual spring. The Great Turk stays sometimes at Constantinople, sometimes at Adrianople, and so forth. The kings of Spain have the Escorial in summer’s heat, Madrid as a healthy residence, Valladolid as a pleasant site, and so on: a variety of retreats, as all princes and great men have, with their several journeys between them for this purpose.

The Roman Lucullus had houses at Rome, Baiae, and elsewhere. When Gnaeus Pompeius, Marcus Cicero, and many noblemen visited him in summer, Plutarch says, Pompeius joked over supper that it was an elegant, pleasant villa, full of windows, galleries, and every service room suitable for a summer house, but, in his judgment, quite unsuitable for winter. Lucullus replied that the master of the house had the wit of a crane, which changes its country with the season: he had other houses furnished and built for that purpose, every bit as comfortable as this one.

So Cicero had his Tusculan villa and Pliny his Laurentine villa, and every gentleman of any standing in our day has something similar. In former times the bishop of Exeter had fourteen separate houses, all furnished. In Italy, although people stay in the cities in winter, as befits a gentleman, they spend the summer at their country houses, refreshing themselves.