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Excerpt from History the City of Rome, Vol. 1: In the Middle Ages I shall never forget the pleasure with which, while spending a winter in Rome fourteen years ago, I first made acquaintance with Gregorovius's History. The book seemed to open up a whole world of interest, and long centuries that had before been hid in darkness became suddenly peopled and alive with stirring scenes. The desire to translate the work and to make it known to others of my compatriots, who had not the leisure, or perhaps the necessary acquaintance with German to read it in the original, crossed my mind even then. But my friends did not encourage the idea, and circumstances prevented me from following the promptings of ambition. The charm that the book possessed for me fourteen years ago it possesses still, and each successive visit to Italy but deepens my gratitude to the author whose work has revealed a thousand years of its past, and has served to link the memory of almost every town of the kingdom, no less than that of every corner of its capital, with some picture of its history. Nearly four years ago I began the translation, of which the present volume is the first instalment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.