Bonaparte, Felicia. 1979. The Triptych and the Cross: The Central Myths of George Eliot’s Poetic Imagination. New York: New York University Press. That the writing of Romola cost the author much we have from her own testimony: “I took unspeakable pains in preparing to write Romola — neglecting nothing that I could find that would help me to what I may call the “idiom” of Florence, in the largest sense one could stretch the world to.”

The following description is adapted from the 1961 J.M. Dent edition of Romola: A tour de force, if not a masterpiece Romola, set in Renaissance Florence, is Eliot’s challenging middle work. Written in the 1860s, its tall, dreamy, red-haired heroine would not be out of place in a pre-Raphaelite painting. In this ambitious novel Eliot flexed her creative powers, assembling a hybrid cast of fictional and historical characters – the philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, the artist Piero di Cosimo, the firebrand monk Savonarola. Impress your friends by explaining how this highbrow novel uses its 15th-century setting to explore grand Victorian themes: the loss of faith, the fragility of patriarchal power. Just make sure you pronounce “Romola” right – as Eliot told one of her fans, stress the first syllable, and the second “o” is short. (Think “gondola”, not “tombola”.) contains chapter after chapter of description and political exposition that doesn't move the plot forward even an inch, Dino de' Bardi (aka Fra Luca) – Estranged son of Bardo de' Bardi. His father had hoped that Dino would also study classical literature, but instead Dino became a Dominican friar, estranging him from his non-religious family. Just before his death, he warns Romola against a future marriage that will bring her peril. Her relationship to Lewes was something she regarded as “a sacred union”, sanctioned by an assertion in Ludwig Feuerbach’s treatise The Essence of Christianity (which, as a young woman, she had translated from the German) that marriage was something based in a “free bond of love” rather than a blessing conferred by a priest.There was nothing “open” or provisional about her ménage, however. Rigorously identifying herself outside her writings as “Mrs Lewes” (rather than Mary Ann Evans, the name she was christened with), Eliot can sound sanctimonious in her pronouncements about monogamy and her condemnation of “light and easily broken ties”. She made her choice, and fortunately her leap proved a very successful one – Lewes may have been “tactless, vain and a little vulgar” (as a contemporary called him), but he also made an unfailingly loyal, kindly, protective and cheerful partner, who negotiated Eliot’s depressions sensitively and whose tastes and interests she shared. His successor, Cross, positively worshipped her. The Florence of Savonarola— a world of vibrant life, evil, and tumult overshadowed by the dark figure of the great Dominican — is the scene of this unusual novel by George Eliot.

Niccolò Machiavelli – In this story, Machiavelli often talks with Tito and other Florentines (particularly in Nello's shop) about all matters political and philosophical in Florence. His observations add a commentary to the ongoing events in the city. sceptic, Matteo Franco, who wants hotter sauce than any of us.’‘Because he has a strong opinion of himself,’ flashes out Luigi,

Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Republic of Florence

Romola was the only George Eliot novel illustrated in its first edition, and this gallery, curated in collaboration with the George Eliot Archive, features the original illustrations by Sir Frederic Leighton. Eliot had requested that a talented artist illustrate the novel, and Leighton was known for his historical genre paintings, especially his Florentine Renaissance scenes. He seemed an ideal illustrator for a novel set in fifteenth-century Florence. While Eliot was pleased with his work overall, there were some conflicts. At one point, she wrote to Leighton, "I am quite convinced that illustrations can only form a sort of overture to the text" (Barrington 1906, 4: 55-56). We invite you to consider the relationship between text and image-- as well as the relationship between an author and an artist corresponding throughout the installments of a serial publication-- and we offer this gallery as an artifact for multi-disciplinary inquiries in Victorian studies.

The final blow comes to Romola when her godfather, Bernardo Del Nero, the only person in the world she still loves, is arrested for helping the Medicis in their plotting to return to Florence. Romola knows that Tito has been a spy for both political factions; he has gained his own safety by betraying others. Romola reveals to Tito her knowledge of Baldassare’s story and the truth of the old man’s accusations against him. Romola tries to prevent Bernardo’s execution by pleading with Savonarola to intervene and gain his release, but the preacher refuses. Disillusioned and sorrowful over her godfather’s death, Tito’s betrayals, and Savonarola’s falseness, Romola leaves Florence to seek a new life. Romola is the only work by George Eliot in the Durning-Lawrence Library, which is largely devoted to Sir Francis Bacon in the widest sense. It does also hold a few specimens of current literature read by its Victorian/Edwardian owners. Later, as he walks through the crowded streets, Tito rescues Tessa from some jostling revelers. When he leaves her, he meets the strange monk he had seen gazing at him from the crowd earlier in the afternoon. The monk, Fra Luca, gives him a note that has been brought from a pilgrim in the Near East; Tito wonders why he finds the monk’s face so familiar. The note is from Baldassare, who pleads with Tito to rescue him from slavery. Unwilling to give up his happy life in Florence, Tito ignores his foster father’s plea.The information that we collect and store relating to you is primarily used to enable us to provide our services to you. In addition, we may use the information for the following purposes: Its dense language has tested the patience of readers from the time of its publication. But the author herself said of it, “I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood.” Eliot could not have chosen a time of greater upheaval and change: the death of the powerful Lorenzo de Medici, invasion by Charles VIII of France and the spectacular rise and fall of the charismatic priest Savonarola. Her young heroine Romola journeys from naïve and cloistered daughter to gradual disillusionment with both Savonarola and her unscrupulous and self-serving husband. a b Richard Hutton, The Spectator, 18 July 1863 in George Eliot: Godless Woman by Brian Spittles (Basingstoke, Hampshire; London: Macmillan Press, 1993) ISBN 0-333-57218-1. A dramatic, sometimes melodramatic story unfolds, fluently and persuasively written. Savonarola becomes the dominating presence; around him Eliot has assembled a cast of characters whose lives are influenced in one way or another by him. Central is Romola de'Bardi, who in one sense is the Blessed Damozel of the Pre-Raphaelites and in another, the dutiful daughter trying to define herself in a world of male authority. The key question becomes 'where the duty of obedience ends and the duty of resistance begins' - 'two kinds of faithfulness' that preoccupied Eliot. She draws on all that she had learned from Feuerbach and Auguste Comte on the 'religion of humanity' to make these notions flesh and blood in her characterisations. Arguably the greatest of these is Tito, Romola's husband, a figure of Shakespearean dimensions who can 'smile, and smile, yet be a villain'.

The novelist ‘of the commonplaces of contemporary life,’ whose observations were supported by such a wealth of imaginative thought and insight in Middlemarchand The Mill on the Floss, was not primarily suited by temperament to write a historical novel.The action occurs between the years 1492 and 1498, most eventful years in the history of the Republic of Florence … At the opening of the story Lorenzo the Magnificent, one of the most notable members of the Medici family, is not yet dead. Bratti Ferravecchi – Trader and iron scrap dealer (hence the name). He encounters Tito Melema, who has just arrived in Florence. Various characters in the story often buy and sell various items through him. Why feature Romola in a celebration of the 200th anniversary of George Eliot’s birth? As an historical novel, it is atypical of Eliot’s output, and is the least popular of Eliot’s major works. The psychological and religious introspection seen in Eliot's other novels is also seen in Romola. Richard Hutton, writing in The Spectator, in 1863, observed that "[t]he greatest artistic purpose of the story is to trace out the conflict between liberal culture and the more passionate form of the Christian faith in that strange era, which has so many points of resemblance with the present". [4] The spiritual journey undertaken by the title character in some ways emulates Eliot's own religious struggle. In Romola, the title character has a non-religious and scholarly, yet insular, upbringing. She is gradually exposed to the wider religious world, which impacts her life at fortuitous moments. Yet continued immersion in religious life highlights its incompatibility with her own virtues, and by the end of the story she has adopted a humanist, empathic middle ground. [5] Literary significance and criticism [ edit ]