Romola

Romola "Romola" was George Eliot's fifth book, and followed "Silas Marner," which was published in 1861. It is a story of Florence in the days of Savonarola, and was largely the outcome of a visit the novelist paid to Italy with her life-long friend, George Henry Lewes. With dim ideas for the story in her mind, she made exhaustive researches in the Florentine libraries, gathering historical and topographical details of the city and its life as they were in the mediæval period which she was setting herself to re-create.