Handbook for travellers in northern Italy : comprising Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Parma, Modena, and Romagna

Front matter

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HANDBOOK

Preface

Since the publication of the last edition of this work, the Editor has again had occasion to revisit most of the localities described in it, and, while correcting some omissions and inaccuracies that remained, to add much new information useful to the traveller.

The changes that have taken place in the political map of the Peninsula, arising out of the great events of 1859 — the establishment of an United Italy — the extension of Eailways — and the reclassification of several of the most important Public Collections connected with the Fine Arts — have rendered considerable changes necessary ; not only as regards the general arrangement, but in the description of most of the great centres of population.

For the greater convenience of the travelling public, it has been considered advisable to adopt a different arrangement of the materials contained in the two first volumes of the Handbooks of Italy, Instead of including Tuscany as heretofore in that of Northern, and the Eomagna in that of Central Italy, it has appeared more useful to confine the present volume to the great natural division of the Peninsula, the Valley of the Po, embracing the countries between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic ; and to the Ligurian Provinces.

The Handbook of Central Italy will, therefore, in future embrace Tuscany and the off-lying Islands, the Island of Sardinia, the Eastern Legations or Marches, the great Province of Umbria, and the portion of the Peninsula which is still held by the Holy See, always excluding Eome itself, ever the Capital of Italy, with the classical region that surrounds it, and the districts between Eome and Naples.

Great care has been taken to insert the latest and most correct information on the several lines of communication, especially by means of Eailways ; to obtain the most trustworthy reports respecting Hotels (often conflicting) and accommodation for travellers generally ; to bring down the descriptions of the different public and private Collections of Works of

VI

PREFACE.

Art so as to include the most recent changes effected in their arrangement, &c. ; Plans of the few Cities and Galleries omitted in former editions have been now inserted ; and all the Railways in operation, or projected, have been laid down on the Maps, from the most trustworthy sources.

It has been the Editor’s endeavour to render the Handbooks of Italy as complete guides, to the countries they profess to describe, as exist in any language; and it is his duty again to express his acknowledgments to the numerous friends both in Italy and at home, and to the several correspondents, who have aided him in his task by the information they have transmitted to him. It is in a great measure by such means that works of this nature can lay claim to that degree of accuracy which the travelling public has a right to expect ; and he begs still to solicit of travellers, who may use these Handbooks, to transmit to him through his Publisher, any alterations they may consider advisable to make hereafter, founded upon information of a practical and useful nature obtained on the spot.

London, March, 1866.