Excerpt from The Art of the Precursors: A Study in the History of Early Italian Maiolica With Illustrations I am only too well aware of the disadvantage of being obliged to use qualifying phrases, consequent on the necessity of frequently having to balance remote probabilities, the results then only permitting conjectural conclusions. My chief source of consolation is the conviction that the reader will prefer being brought face to face with the perplexing problems still unsolved, rather than be amused with theories, however ingeniously woven. And I venture to hope that much may be pardoned so long as the endeavour is made to avoid being misleading. 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.