Romola (1863) is a much bolder flight.

Romola is an historical novel, the scene of which is Florence in the 15th century; the Florence of Macchiavelli and of Savonarola.

In a word, Romola is a great moral study and a very interesting book; but the characters are not Italian, and the novel as a whole lacks the strong reality which marks George Eliot's English studies.

Romola is an Italian woman, supposed to represent a learned and noble lady four hundred years ago.

And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily companion and assistant.

Romola is therefore interesting reading, in many respects the most interesting of her works.

Romola is the most thoughtful, the most ambitious, the most philosophical of George Eliot's works; and it is also the most lacking in spontaneity, and more than any other shows the evidences of the artist's labors.

For most people "Romola" is the medium through which Savonarola is visualized; but there he is probably made too theatrical.

* * Romola "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas Marner," which was published in 1861.