George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

In the North of Italy, therefore, he accomplished little beyond obtaining the transactions of learned societies. Meantime, his correspondence became laborious, for he was obliged to keep up active communication with many points in Europe, as well as with many persons at home, merely on the business of the Library. Consequently, he did not, as before, keep a journal of his daily experiences, and his more private correspondence also suffered in consequence of his constant occupation.

In Florence he established an agency in the autumn, and attended again to its affairs in the spring. He determined, after some preliminary correspondence with an old acquaintance in Florence, Mr. Sloane, ‘to go to the Baron von Reumont, Prussian Minister in Tuscany, whom Humboldt at Berlin had described to me as a historical writer, whose works he valued very highly, and whom he advised me strongly to visit as a person who would receive me kindly, and give me the best of literary help about Italian affairs and books, as he has lived in Italy above twenty years.’ Mr. Ticknor had known Baron von Reumont in Rome twenty years before, when he was attache to the legation of Baron Bunsen, and he says of him, ‘in all sorts of ways he has turned out an invaluable friend.’ On his recommendation, he selected Professor Eugenio Alberi as the agent of the Library, ‘after hearing much good of him from many persons, and among the rest from the Grand Duke and the Marquis Gino Capponi.’ Thus Mr. Ticknor's former associations with literary and distinguished persons gave him valuable aid in his present undertakings.

In Rome, where he passed the winter, he had no need, of course, to search for agents; but he busied himself in buying books, keeping a young man constantly employed in seeking out whatever was curious and cheap, receiving daily reports from him, and paying him day by day; also going himself much to libraries and bookshops, superintending the packing of books at his own lodgings, and really working hard as a collector for the Library at home. He says: ‘The best places I have yet found for buying books are Florence and Rome. The books that have been thus far bought by me in Brussels, Berlin, and Rome, or ’