Romans had known about the curative properties of sun and sand since ancient times, so they used to alternate sun exposures with sand treatments. Due to Giuseppe Barellai, a Florentine pediatrician, the first house of marine cure and treatments is built in Grado in 1873 and, subsequently, Grado is officially ascertained as spa destination by force of the curative virtues of its thermal baths. These virtues were ascertained even under Austro-Hungarian rule, in 1892, the moment when the first marine cure management commission was founded.