*

PREFA CE.

HERE is certainly no place in the

THE

world, where a man may travel with greater pleasure and advantage, than in Italy. One finds fomething more particular in the face of the country, and more aftonishing in the works of nature, than can be met with in any other part of Europe. It is the great fchool of mufic and painting, and contains in it all the nobleft productions of ftatuary and architecture, both ancient and modern. It abounds with cabinets of curiofities and vaft collections of all kinds of antiquities. No other country in the world has fuch a variety of governments, that are fo different in their conftitutions, and fo refined in their politics. There is fcarce any part of the

nation

nation that is not famous in hiftory, nor fo much as a mountain or river, that has not been the scene of fome extraordinary action.

As there are few men that have talents and opportunities for examining fo copious a fubject, one may obferve among those who have written on Italy, that different authors have fucceeded beft on different forts of curiofities. Some have been more particular in their accounts of pictures, ftatues, and buildings; fome have fearched into libraries, cabinets of rarities, and collections of medals; as others have been wholly taken up with intcriptions, ruins and antiquities. Among the authors of our own country, we are obliged to the Bishop of Salisbury, for his masterly and uncommon obfervations on the religion and governments of Italy Laffels may be useful in giving us the names of fuch writers as have treated of the several states through which he paffed: Mr. Ray is to be valued for his obfervations on the natural productions of the place. Monfieur Miffo has wrote a more correct account of Italy in general than

any

ary before him, as he particularly excels in the plan of the country, which he has given us in true and lively colours,

There are ftill feveral of thefe topics that are far from being exhaufted, as there are many new fubjects that a traveller may find to employ himself upon. For my own part, as I have taken notice of feveral places and antiquities that nobody elfe has fpoken of, fo, I think, I have mentioned but few things in common with others, that are not either fet in a new light, or accompanied with different reflexions. I have taken care particularly to confider the feveral paffages of the ancient Ports, which have any relation to the places or curiofities that I have met with; for before I entered on my voyage I took care to refresh my memory among claffic authors, and to make fuch collections out of them as I might afterwards have occafion for. I muft confess it was not one of the leaft entertainments that I met with in travelling, to examine these several defcriptions, as it were upon the fpot, and to compare the natural face of the country with the landfkips

that

that the Poets have given us of it. Howe ver, to avoid the confufion that might arite from a multitude of quotations, I have only cited fuch verses as have given us some image of the place, or that have fomething elfe befides the bare name of it to recommend them.

MO

MONACO,

GENOA,

&c.

Ο

N the twelfth of December, 1699, I fet out from Marseilles to Genoa in a tartane,

and arrived late at a fmall French port, called Caffis, where the next morning we were not a little surprised to fee the mountains about the town covered with green olive-trees, or laid out in beautiful gardens, which gave us a great variety of pleafing profpects, even in the depth of winter. The most uncultivated of them produce abundance of fweet plants, as wild-thyme, lavender, rosemary, balm, and myrtle. We were here fhewn at a distance the deferts, which have been rendered fo famous by the penance of Mary Magdalene, who, after her arrival with Lazarus and Jofeph of Arimathea at Marseilles, is faid to have wept away the rest of her life among these folitary rocks and mountains. It is fo romantic a scene, that it has always probably given occafion to

fuch