BRIENZA

I concluded the previous chapter with the words “My Journal”, the title I chose for these sketches.
It is a statement of purpose, explaining how, here, day by day, I will record my impressions, my most important adventures, and the wandering flights of my soul.

The work, then, will grow over time, and for the moment no proper judgment can be made, as I myself do not know where it will lead; but if it is to reach any conclusion, I dedicate it in advance to my dearest friends and family, whose kindness and indulgence I can always count on. And to whom else could I dedicate it, if my late-blooming talent and my literary studies, barely begun, offer little hope that my pen will produce a work of vigor worthy of universal readership?