Romola (Penguin Classics)

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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.

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. His influence has spread in many directions, but as far as the first book of Romola is concerned, its general emphasis is laid on a phase of its influence, most to his renown, the the advancement of Greek learning. The complex Savonarola

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George Eliot herself described her labour in writing the novel as one about which she could "swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood, such as it is, and with the most ardent care for veracity of which my nature is capable". [7] She reportedly spent eighteen months contemplating and researching the novel, [5] including several excursions to Florence. The attention to detail exhibited in the novel was a focus of both praise and criticism. Anthony Trollope, having read the first instalment of Romola, expressed wonder at the toil Eliot must have "endured in getting up the work", but also cautioned her against excessive erudition, urging her not to "fire too much over the heads of her readers". [7]

Spittles, Brian (1993). George Eliot: Godless Woman. Basingstoke, Hampshire; London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 0-333-57218-1. 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. Nello the barber – Florentine barber, who fancies his establishment as a meeting place for the Florentine intelligentsia and a forum for political and philosophical discussion. He is a staunch supporter of Tito Melema. Levine, Caroline, and Mark W. Turner, eds. 1998. From author to text: Re-reading George Eliot’s Romola. London: Ashgate.The title character is the daughter of a scholar, and herself well educated, which was unusual for a women in the late 1400s and early 1500s, when the story takes place. Blumberg, Ilana M. 2013. Sacrificial Value: Beyond the Cash Nexus in George Eliot’s Romola. In Economic Women: Essays on Desire and Dispossession in Nineteenth-Century British Culture, ed. Lana L. Dalley and Jill Rappoport, 60–76. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Photograph: Wordsworth Classics The one to make you laugh out loud To provide you with information requested from us, relating to our products or services. To provide information on other products which we feel may be of interest to you, where you have consented to receive such information. 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. 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.Fearing Baldassare’s revenge, Tito buys a coat of mail to wear under his clothes. He begs Romola to sell her father’s library and leave Florence with him, and when Romola refuses, he secretly sells the library. Betrayed by her husband, Romola flees Florence, only to be met outside the city by Savonarola, who persuades her to honor her marriage vows and return to Tito.

Romola is the fourth of Eliot’s full-length novels. It is set in Florence between the death of Lorenzo de Medici in April 1492 and the execution of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola for heresy in May 1498. Thus, it takes in the first turbulent years of a republican government under Savonarola after 60 years of autocratic government by the Medicis, and Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy in 1494. Romola, the hero and amanuensis of her blind scholarly father, marries an opportunistic rogue and ends up isolated when her love for him turns to contempt and she furthermore loses trust in Savonarola. The discovery of duty in self-sacrifice is her solace.

Savonarola was the overshadowing figure of Florentine life at that time, as he is the overshadowing figure of Romola. Literary scholars have drawn comparisons between the setting of the novel and George Eliot's contemporary Victorian England: "Philosophically confused, morally uncertain, and culturally uprooted, [Florence] was a prototype of the upheaval of nineteenth-century England". [2] Both Renaissance Florence and Victorian England were times of philosophical, religious and social turbulence. Renaissance Florence was therefore a convenient setting for a historical novel that allowed exotic characters and events to be examined in Victorian fashion.