Excerpt from History the City of Rome, Vol. 1: In the Middle Ages Germany, of the appearance of which I was in the beginning unaware, obliged me to go over a great part of the book a second time. But the pleasure that the work afforded, and the delight of living in thought at least again in Rome - which, in spite of all the changes of recent years, exercises over me a fascination little less than it exercised over the pilgrims of the Middle Ages - made me regardless of hindrances, and over came every consideration. It is only now, while watching the progress of these volumes through the press, that a sense of my presumption in undertaking so ambitious a task has come home to me. In justice to myself, however, I must remind the reader that Gregorovius's History has been allowed to remain untranslated and practically unknown in England for more than thirty years; and, judging from the nature and length of the work, it seemed little likely any accomplished scholar, such as those who have given us Curtius or Mommsen, would come forward to give us the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. Two quali fications for the task also I at least possessed command of the necessary leisure, and an intense interest in the subject dealt with. 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.