Excerpt from Italian Travel Sketches It is a pleasure to acknowledge the ready and generous help which I have received during my years of wandering in Italy. This aid includes, not merely valuable directions for travel and letters of introduction from friends, both Italian and half Italianate English, but useful information and personal guidance cordially tendered, alike on the Continent and in Sicily, by local officials, such as directors of Museums and Antiquities, ecclesiastics, and military officers in charge of buildings where interesting remains of old architecture or fresco painting are preserved. Among these helpers on the road I wish to acknowledge special obligations to Cav. Cesare Pinzi, of Viterbo; Comm. Ettore Pais, formerly Director of the Museo Nazionale, Naples, and now Professor in the R. Universita, Rome; Dr. Giuseppe Pitre, the expert on Sicilian folk-lore, of Palmero; Cav. Capponi, Director of the Museo, Terracina; and Canon Filippo Muzzi, of the Duomo, Spoleto. It is to talks and walks with these and others, in whom special knowledge is fired with the enthusiasm of the con scious dweller among beautiful things, that I trace the livelier interest out of which has grown the idea of my book. While preparing these Sketches I have received valuable assistance from officials and from friends: among others, Dr. Thomas Ashby, of the British School, Rome; and my two assiduous friends, the Marchese selvatico-estense, of Padua. 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.