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                      A DECADE OF ITALIAN WOMEN.

[Illustration: VITTORIA COLONNA.]

_From an Original Painting in the Colonna Gallery at Rome_




                               A DECADE

                                  OF

                            ITALIAN WOMEN.

                                  BY

                         T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE,

           AUTHOR OF "THE GIRLHOOD OF CATHERINE DE' MEDICI."

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:
                  CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
                                 1859.

               [_The right of Translation is reserved._]




                                LONDON:
               RADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.




PREFACE.


The degree in which any social system has succeeded in ascertaining
woman's proper position, and in putting her into it, will be a very
accurate test of the progress it has made in civilisation. And the