Photo by Rino Adamo on Pexels
🇮🇹 Italy · Lazio
♨ Temperature
58°C
⛰ Altitude
—
⚗ pH
—
💧 TDS
—
🌊 Flow rate
—
📅 Established
Etruscan period
✓ Verified on 2026-07-28
The Bullicame spring lies about 2.5 km from Viterbo along the ancient Via Cassia, emerging at 58°C from a fissure linked to a roughly 12-km crustal fracture. Its fluorinated sulphur-sulphate-bicarbonate-alkaline-earth water was documented by classical writers including Strabo, Tibullus, Symmachus, Martial, and Scribonius Largus, physician to the emperor Tiberius. Dante Alighieri referenced the sulphurous Bulicame in Canto XIV of the Inferno, and a stone stele near the source today bears the relevant verses. Michelangelo is said to have sketched the baths during his trips to Rome between 1496 and 1536, with those drawings preserved in a French museum. The site includes two open bathing pools fed by natural geothermal flow, free of charge.
Known since the Etruscan period, Bullicame's importance is documented across classical antiquity by writers including Strabo, Tibullus, Symmachus, Martial, and Scribonius Largus, physician to Emperor Tiberius. Dante Alighieri gave it lasting fame by referencing its sulphurous waters in Canto XIV of the Inferno.
A stone stele near the spring today bears the relevant lines from Dante's Inferno. Michelangelo is said to have sketched the baths during his journeys to Rome between 1496 and 1536, drawings now preserved in a French museum.