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. 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. 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. Whereas 6,000 copies of The Mill on the Floss had sold within the first two months of publication, it took a whole year to sell 1,714 copies of Romola, and by September 1865, it was being remaindered. Yet the book’s very atypicality renders it interesting.

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'. sceptic, Matteo Franco, who wants hotter sauce than any of us.’‘Because he has a strong opinion of himself,’ flashes out Luigi, Romola (1862–63) is a historical novel written by English author Mary Ann Evans under the pen name of George Eliot set in the fifteenth century. It is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view". [1] The story takes place amidst actual historical events during the Italian Renaissance, and includes in its plot several notable figures from Florentine history. 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.

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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. 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”.) Carlisle, herself an academic philosopher rather than a literary critic, vividly shows how abstract ideas current in Victorian society become incarnate in these dramatic situations. She emphasises the astonishing range of Eliot’s erudition and traces, in particular, her alignment with a trajectory that leads from Goethe to Hegel, Comte and Darwin – all in their different ways exponents of a hopeful vision of growth and development for the human race that could supersede a more rigid Christian theology of earthly sin and heavenly redemption. 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.” But, as the introduction to the 1937 edition states, ‘if Romola is not her greatest achievement it is her greatest tour de force; if it is not perfectly a work of temperament it is a work of striking ability and of absolute sincerity.’

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 novel follows her through several of these post-Medici years in Florence, a tumultuous time further ignited by Savanarola, a Dominican friar, and his preachings.

In his search for a place to stay, Baldassare comes by chance to the house where Tessa and her children by Tito live with a deaf old peasant woman. The deaf woman gives the old man permission to sleep in the hayloft. Tessa eagerly confides in Baldassare, telling him that Tito sent her to live with the old peasant woman, whom he pays well for the care she gives Tessa and his children, and that he has sworn the two women to secrecy. While Baldassare lies in the loft, Tito arrives to see Tessa. Suspecting from her description the identity of the old man, Tito goes to his foster father to ask his forgiveness—he has decided that Baldassare should come to live with him and share his comfort. The old man cannot forgive, however; he lunges at Tito with a knife, which breaks against the chain mail Tito is wearing. He then threatens to expose Tito and ruin him. She began writing on 1 January 1862 and finished on 9 June 1863, having taken some time off to write Silas Marner in the middle. Eliot found the process stressful, not least because (unlike her previous novels) she wrote it for serial instalments in the Cornhill Magazine from July 1862 until August 1863, so had to come to terms with the rhythms of serial publication. 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 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. Political turmoil erupts in Florence. Five supporters of the Medici family are sentenced to death, including Romola's godfather, Bernardo del Nero. She learns that Tito has played a role in their arrest. Romola pleads with Savonarola to intervene, but he refuses. Romola's faith in Savonarola and Florence is shaken, and once again she leaves the city. Meanwhile, Florence is under papal pressure to expel Savonarola. His arrest is effected by rioters, who then turn their attention to several of the city's political elite. Tito becomes a target of the rioters, but he escapes the mob by diving into the Arno River. However, upon leaving the river, Tito is killed by Baldassarre. Tito’s fortune has at last come to him with the sale of all his jewels except a single ring. He recalls that the money properly belongs to Baldassare Calvo, the man who has been almost a father to him and who might now be a slave in the hands of the Turks. If Baldassare is alive, Tito tells himself, he will spend the money for the old man’s ransom, but he is not sure his foster father still lives.Rufus Sewell as Will Ladislaw in the 1994 TV adaptation of Middlemarch. Photograph: Shaun Higson/Culture/Alamy If you only read one, it should be 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. Goodlad, Lauren M.E. 2015. The adulterous geopolitical aesthetic. In The Victorian geopolitical aesthetic: Realism, sovereignty, and transnational experience, 161–207. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skidelsky, William (13 May 2012). "The 10 best historical novels". The Guardian . Retrieved 30 July 2023.

The novel first appeared in fourteen parts published in Cornhill Magazine from July 1862 (vol. 6, no. 31) to August 1863 (vol. 8, no. 44), and was first published as a book, in three volumes, by Smith, Elder & Co. in 1863.Bardo de' Bardi – Blind classical scholar living in Florence. He has one estranged son, Dino, and a daughter, Romola. Bardo is a descendant of the once-powerful Bardi family, but is living in poverty with his daughter, who helps him with his classical studies. He is an ally of the Medici family. He maintains a classical library, and tries to preserve it beyond his own death.