i ] DGr 



PREFACE. 



BY the claffical education received in our 

 infancy we are imperceptibly acquain- 

 ted with Italy ; and, being favoured by na- 

 ture, or infpired by faihion, with a tafte for 

 Arts and Sciences, it is with pleafure and 

 improvement that we afterwards travel over 

 the Alps, and perufe the defcriptions of this 

 beautiful country. Happy in its climate, and 

 diftinguifhed by the ingenuity of its inha- 

 bitants, it has twice, under the Romans and 

 Popes, with an almoft univerfal fway, pre- 

 fided over the better part of the world. At 

 two different periods it has nurfed and im- 

 proved the Arts and Sciences. In former 

 times, it handed them down by the Roman 

 Colonies to difrant barbarous nations. Since 

 the laft Gothic ages, they revived again in 

 the genius of Petrarch, Dante, Boccace, 

 a Raphael, 



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