Excerpt from A Child of Tuscany Day have the good fortune to know the quaint and beautiful city where I have laid the scene of this little story; for among all the cities of Europe there is none more interesting, and which people learn to love better, than Florence, Florence, the fairest and most famous of the daughters of Rome! As Dante calls her. You have doubtless seen on your maps that Florence is situated in the northern part of Italy. It is a city of noble antiquity, having existed, some historians tell us, as early as the Roman period. In the twelfth century it was already the most important town of Tuscany, and after wards became the capital of the independent duchy of that name; and there the princes and dukes held their court. In 1861 all the provinces of Italy were united into one kingdom under Victor Emmanuel, and the court was removed to Rome, 1870. But Florence is still visited every spring by many of the nobility of Europe, on account. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.