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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
and many cities of France, in Languedoc especially, and Provence, those southern parts:
Montpelier, the habitation and university of physicians, is so built, with high houses, narrow
streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus commends, lib. 15. Annat., as most
agreeing to their health, "because the height of buildings, and narrowness of streets, keep away
the sunbeams." Some cities use galleries, or arched cloisters towards the street, as Damascus,
Bologna, Padua, Berne in Switzerland, Westchester with us, as well to avoid tempests, as the
sun's scorching heat. They build on high hills, in hot countries, for more air; or to the seaside, as
Baiae, Naples, &c. In our northern countries we are opposite, we commend straight, broad, open,
fair streets, as most befitting and agreeing to our clime. We build in bottoms for warmth: and that
site of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, in the Aegean sea, which Vitruvius so much
discommends, magnificently built with fair houses, sed imprudenter positam unadvisedly sited,
because it lay along to the south, and when the south wind blew, the people were all sick, would
make an excellent site in our northern climes.
Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed: if the plan of the dwelling
may not be altered, yet there is much in choice of such a chamber or room, in opportune opening
and shutting of windows, excluding foreign air and winds, and walking abroad at convenient
times. Crato, a German, commends east and south site (disallowing cold air and northern winds
in this case, rainy weather and misty days), free from putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck-hills. If
the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have his patient not to stir at
all, if the wind be big or tempestuous, as most part in March it is with us; or in cloudy, lowering,
dark days, as in November, which we commonly call the black month; or stormy, let the wind
stand how it will, consil. 27. and 30. he must not "open a casement in bad weather," or in a
boisterous season, consil. 299, he especially forbids us to open windows to a south wind. The
best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are north, east, south, and which is the worst,
west. Levinus Lemnius, lib. 3. cap. 3. de occult. nat. mir. attributes so much to air, and rectifying
of wind and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to make a man sick or well; to alter body
and mind. "A clear air cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind; a thick, black, misty,
tempestuous, contracts, overthrows." Great heed is therefore to be taken at what times we walk,
how we place our windows, lights, and houses, how we let in or exclude this ambient air. The
Egyptians, to avoid immoderate heat, make their windows on the top of the house like chimneys,
with two tunnels to draw a thorough air. In Spain they commonly make great opposite windows
without glass, still shutting those which are next to the sun: so likewise in Turkey and Italy
(Venice excepted, which brags of her stately glazed palaces) they use paper windows to like
purpose; and lie, sub dio, in the top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of
heaven. In some parts of Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out of hollow caves,
and disperse the same through all the chambers of their palaces, to refresh them; as at Costoza,
the house of Caesareo Trento, a gentleman of Vicenza, and elsewhere. Many excellent means are
invented to correct nature by art. If none of these courses help, the best way is to make artificial
air, which howsoever is profitable and good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned
with sweet perfumes, pleasant and lightsome as it may be; to have roses, violets, and sweetsmelling
flowers ever in their windows, posies in their hand. Laurentius commends water-lilies, a
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