Nardini, Donatus, &c., which fill the fourth volume of the Roman
Antiquities of Graevius. 2. I next undertook and finished the Italia
Antiqua of Cluverius, a learned native of Prussia, who had measured,
on foot, every spot, and has compiled and digested every passage of the
ancient writers. These passages in Greek or Latin authors I perused in
the text of Cluverius, in two folio volumes: but I separately read
the descriptions of Italy by Strabo, Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, the
Catalogues of the Epic poets, the Itineraries of Wesseling's Antoninus,
and the coasting Voyage of Rutilius Numatianus; and I studied two
kindred subjects in the Measures Itineraires of d'Anville, and the
copious work of Bergier, Histoire des grands Chemins de I'Empire Romain.
From these materials I formed a table of roads and distances reduced
to our English measure; filled a folio common-place book with my
collections and remarks on the geography of Italy; and inserted in my
journal many long and learned notes on the insulae and populousness of
Rome, the social war, the passage of the Alps by Hannibal, &c. 3. After
glancing my eye over Addison's agreeable dialogues, I more seriously
read the great work of Ezechiel Spanheim de Praestantia et Usu
Numismatum, and applied with him the medals of the kings and emperors,
the families and colonies, to the illustration of ancient history. And
thus was I armed for my Italian journey.

I shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this tour, in
which somewhat more than a year (April 1764-May 1765) was agreeably
employed. Content with tracing my line of march, and slightly touching
on my personal feelings, I shall waive the minute investigation of the
scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and described by hundreds,
of our modern travellers. ROME is the great object of our pilgrimage:
and 1st, the journey; 2d, the residence; and 3d, the return; will form
the most proper and perspicuous division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and
descended into the plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant,
but on a light osier seat, in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid
chairmen of the Alps. The architecture and government of Turin presented
the same aspect of tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was
regulated with decent and splendid oeconomy; and I was introduced to his
Sardinian majesty Charles Emanuel, who, after the incomparable Frederic,
held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo