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TO THE READER.
I doubt not but many of them who shall take delight and pleasure in reading the Romane storie above∣written, will presently grwo into a liking of the very place, which hath affourded so worthy persons and rare examples. The love whereof hath moved many a man to undertake a voiyage to Rome, onely to see the river Tyberis, those seven hils, and the monuments remaining of that famous ci∣tie. The journie they have found, for way long and tedious; for ex∣pense of money heavie and chargeable; for hazard of religion, con∣science and good manners, exceeding dangerous: so farre degenerate are the inhabitants now from that auncient people, so devoute, so vertuous and vncorrupt, in old time. To satisfie the readers in this behalfe, and to avoid the perill of that travaile, I thought it not amisse to bring Rome (as it were) home to them, even to represent unto their eye the topographie thereof, that is to say, the descripti∣on of the paces, with the memorable edifices, or rather the ruines of those antique buildings, mentioned in the storie aforesaid. And for as much as Bartholmew Marlian hath herein taken paines, and made a treatise therof, worthy in his conceit to be dedicated unto that noble Prince of famous memorie, Francis the French king, the first (I take it) of that name: and for that those learned men, who last set Livie forth in print, have thought good to adjoine thereto, as a ne∣cessarie dependant, the foresaid treatise; I for my part, having struggled with the difficulties of the Alpes & in some sort overcome thē; crossed Rhosne and the Po; passed over the hils Olympus and Aemus, & scrawled throgh the rough streights of Thermopylae and Tempe, seeme now I would not in my returne to stick at the pleasant mounts, Palatine, Capitol, Aventine, &c. with the plains and vallies between, or the river Tybre & Mars field underneath thē, beautified especially with such stately temples, triumphant arches, glorious pal∣laces, Theatres, Cirques, Columnes, & Colosses; wonders of the world. And albeit I found Marlian far unlike himself, & the book that goeth in his name much corrupt in the print, yet by conference with other authors, I have reformed the faults, and endevoured that our En∣glish edition might in some measure be answerable to the Latine.