Ixxx authoe's preface. 



wholly in Catalogues of Bulls and Decretals, and of other 

 Species of base allays, which have been a hundred times 

 examined, and a hundred times confuted witli a Manuscript 

 of poor Vacca} which till now was despis'd by every Body : 

 Wliat cou'd he do ? He cou'd -write tolerably in Latin, add 

 Ehapsodies to his Trifles, and give them a Latin Pass-port, 

 and a Latin Dress. 



But had he not done better if he had written in his own 

 Tongue, Judiciously, Civilly, Wisely, and Briefly ? Or 

 rather if he had not written at all. What had the Turha 

 Eruditorum," which he explains so ill, and yet with so much 

 Pomp and Variety, to do with his Journal ? There's but 

 very little in it that deserves to be publish'd ; and that that 



1 " I have borrowed much, and that not contemptible, from Writers I 

 lighted on, that have not been made publick, the chiefest whereof is 

 Flaminius Vacca^ a Roman Carver. This ]Man collected many Obser- 

 vations of his own and Friends on Roman Monuments found in his 

 Time, and before it, and presented them to Auastasius Siraonetta of 

 Perugino^ Avho was compiling a very accurate Work of the Roman 

 Antiquities. 



'■^ Ftaminhis' Observations being in no Order, but intermixed as they 

 happened to occur .... I thought fit to translate his Papers. . . 

 Flaminius was a noble Roman Carver, whose Skill is visible in many 

 Works to be seen in Roman Churches and Homes. He flourish'd in the 

 sixteenth Century and seems to have lived to the seventeenth. His 

 Tomb is to be seen in the Church of Santa Maria Rotunda.'" {The 

 Travels of the learned Father Montfancon from Paris thrd Italy, 1698. 

 Made English. London, 1712, p. 111.) 



2 " This is the place where I design'd to entertain my Reader for some 

 Time, with certain Passages of the Relation that D. Bernard de Mont- 

 faucon (a Benedictine Monk) has published of his Travels in Italy, 

 under the Title of Diarium, etc. But since he makes a Show of a 

 Dissertation, with a Sort of Ostentation to the Eyes of the Turha 

 Eruditorum, whom he pretends to inform, after a decisive Manner, 

 concerning the famous Manuscript which is kept so preciously in the 

 Treasury of St. Mark.'''' (Max. Misson, Pref., Voyage to Itahj.) 



"... And as I have formerly applied myself with Care to search 

 after those things which have been the Occasion of his Publishing a 

 Volume by the Title of Palxoyraphla Grceca, etc. . . ." (Ibid.) 



