Excerpt from The North American Review, Vol. 48

But no part Of his early studies was so advantageous to him, as the long series Of diligent researches, which he carried on upon the Site of the principal Cities of Ancient Italy fre quently directing in person the excavations from which his materials were to be derived, and pursuing with his own eyes the numerous topographical investigations, the neglect of which had hitherto formed one of the Chief obstacles to a Satisfactory history of that remote period. An attentive Study of numismatics strengthened and confirmed the views, which these preparatory researches had suggested and, when he first put his hand to the composition of his history of Italy before the Roman Conquest, there was hardly a spot of the peninsula which he had not visited, or an important monu ment which he had not examined.

This work was published in Florence, in 1810, in four volumes octavo, together with a folio Atlas, containing sixty plates, illustrative of the manners and customs of the ancient Italians. Its object was as important as its plan was new. Ancient Italy had till then been the subject of puerile fables, or of researches purely antiquarian. Micali was the first who ventured to engage in the bold and hazardous task of separating the false from the true, in the fragments which have come down to us Of the old writers, and of restoring the history of this primitive civilization, by drawing from its numerous monuments their varied and enigmatic records. His work was divided into two parts. The first is devoted to a descriptive examination of the original divisions and Of the primitive inhabitants of the country. The second is a narrative of their revolutions and of the various incidents of their history.

The History of Italy before the Roman Conquest, preceded the Roman History of Niebuhr, and, if we may be allowed to judge by the rank which these two celebrated works seem now to have permanently taken, has survived it.

Niebuhr himself, who had attacked many of the positions of Micali in his first edition refracted his accusations in the last.

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