I shall never forget the pleasure with which, while spending a winter in Rome fourteen years ago, I first made acquaintance with Gregorovius's History. The book seemed to open up a whole world of interest, and long centuries that had before been hid in darkness became suddenly peopled and alive with stirring scenes. The desire to translate the work and to make it known to others of my compatriots, who had not the leisure, or perhaps the necessary acquaintance with German to read it in the original, crossed my mind even then. But my friends did not encourage the idea, and circumstances prevented me from following the promptings of ambition. The charm that the book possessed for me fourteen years ago it possesses still, and each successive visit to Italy but deepens my gratitude to the author whose work has revealed a thousand years of its past, and has served to link the memory of almost every town of the kingdom, no less than that of every corner of its capital, with some picture of its history. Nearly four years ago I began the translation, of which the present volume is the first instalment. The work has suffered from many interruptions, and the publication of a fourth edition in 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.