GROSSETO, a town of Italy, at the head of the province of the sιrne name, is situated in the Maremma district, near the right bank of the Ombrone-Senese, with a station on the railway between Florence and Rome. It is well built and surrounded with solid walls about 2 miles in circuit, and among its public edifices is a spacious cathedral with a marble façade; but the principal interest of the place results from the great hydraulic labours by which the surrouuding swamp—the Lacus Prelius of Cicero— has gradually been drained and rendered capable of tillage. Drinking water, of which the town was formerly almost destitute, has been supplied by an artesian well of enormous depth, bored since 1833. About 3⅛ miles to the N.E. lie the sulphurous baths of Roselle (Aquoe Iiusel-larum), and about 2 miles further off are the ruins of the ancient Etruscan city of Rusellae, the walls of which are about 2 miles in circumference. Roselle continued to be inhabited till the close of the 13th century, but its unliealthi-ness gradually constrained the inhabitants to remove to Grosseto, which is first distinctly mentioned in 830 in a document of Louis I., and became a bishop’s see in 1138. For some time Grosseto was under the sway of the Aldobrandini family, and it was afterwards subject to the republic of Siena, which treated it badly. Francis I. furnished it with a fortress and walls, and Ferdinand I. made it a regular place of arms. At present the climate is so unhealthy in summer that the provincial authorities remove to Scansano. The population of Grosseto in 1871 was 3290 in the town proper, 4151 including the suburbs, and 6316 in the commune.