Where events follow their forerunners with extreme rapidity, where it is sometimes necessary to record circumstances which are simultaneous, it requires the greatest care and discrimination to avoid confusion, and to present the subject clearly to the reader’s mind. The utmost pains have been taken in these volumes to maintain correct chronological order: dates are almost always given, so that no doubt shall arise and no uncertainty exist as to the time of action. Should quotations appear at any time too copious or prolix, the author asks the indulgent reader to impute this to his idea of the importance of perspicuity in dealing with an intricate subject. With these remarks we enter upon our arduous but pleasant task, with a profoundly sincere hope that from a life of so much energy and perseverance, our readers may extract for themselves an example worthy of admiration and imitation. Men have not lived in vain when, either by indomitable spirit they have left behind encouragement for their fellow-men to enter as keenly as themselves into the battle of life, or have proved in their own persons how strict integrity and undeviating rectitude finally bring their reward; and such an example, we venture to declare, was the subject of this memoir. In the territory of Modena, on the right bank of the River Po, stands an ancient town formerly called _Brixellum_ or _Brexillum_, _hodie_ Brescello. Father Bardetti (Lingua dei primi abitatori d’Italia) informs us that the name of “_Brescello_” is derived from the remote Gallo-Germanic words _Brig_, a bridge, and _sella_, to observe. With all due respect to the learned father, to his skill in philology, and to his knowledge of the Gallo-Germanic dialect, our opinion is that the names _Brixellum_ and _Brescello_ are simply the common diminutives of _Brixia_ and _Brescia_ respectively, a town not one hundred miles from Brescello. However that may be, it is certain that Brescello is a place of most respectable antiquity, for according to Pliny the younger it was a Roman colony, founded during the period of the Republic. It is equally certain that Brescello has, from the time of its foundation, undergone as many of the vicissitudes of fortune, and suffered as much from the horrors of war, as many towns of far greater size and importance in the eyes of the world. A brief notice of its history will, however, cause our readers to marvel, not so much at the ruin and destruction which has fallen with such persistent recurrence upon Brescello as at the almost miraculous power possessed by this phœnix among cities of straightway rising again from its own ashes.