Of special histories there are several. One of the best and latest is that of _The Lombard Communes_, by Prof. W.F. Butler (1906). Captain H.E. Napier, in the preface to his _Florentine History_ (1846, 6 vols.) rightly contended that "no people can be known by riding post through their country against time"; but his six learned volumes are ill-written and ill-assimilated. The best complete history of Florence, the typical Italian Republic, is the long _Histoire de Florence_ by F.T. Perrens (9 tom. 1877-84; Eng. tr. of one vol. by Hannah Lynch, 1892). T.A. Trollope's _History of the Commonwealth of Florence_ (1865, 4 vols.) is less indigestible than Napier's, but is gratuitously diffuse, and is written in large part in unfortunate imitation of the pseudo-dramatic manner of Carlyle. It is further blemished by an absurd index. Neither this nor Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt's _History of the Venetian Republic_ (1860, 4 vols.; new ed. in two large vols. 1900) has much sociological value, though the latter is copious and painstaking, albeit also diffuse. The _Genoa_ of J. Theodore Bent (1881) is an interesting sketch; but the well-read author fails in orderly construction. A good short manual is the _Italy_ of Mr. Hunt (Macmillan's Historical Course); and an excellent compendium is supplied by the two treatises of Oscar Browning (1894-95), _Guelphs and Ghibellines_ (covering the period 1250-1409) and _The Age of the Condottieri_, covering the Renaissance, to 1530. Bryce and Hallam are alike helpful to general views; and it is still profitable to return to the condensed _History of the Italian Republics_ by Sismondi (written for the English "Cabinet Cyclopædia" in 1832), though it needs revision in detail. In his two volumes entitled _The Fall of the Roman Empire_ (1834) that author has given a useful conspectus of the period covered by Gibbon's great work. Sismondi's larger and earlier _Histoire des républiques italiennes_ has never ceased to be well worth study, though the _Geschichte von Italien_ of H. Leo (1829) improves upon it in several respects. It has been revised and condensed (Routledge, 1 large vol. 1906) by Mr. William Boulting. For the early period the most comprehensive survey is the _Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter_ of Ludo Moritz Hartmann (3 Bde. in 5, 1897-1911) which comes down to the tenth century.