The Italian Renaissance in Nineteenth-century European Historiography and the Victorian Myth of Florence. George Eliot’s Romola and the Origins of Modern Europe

George Eliot’s Romola can be considered as a kind of fresco, representing a phase of civilisation that includes elements drawn from Greek and Roman culture as well as Christian thought and belief. Romola is best read not as a historical novel, with an emphasis on fiction and narrative, but as an exploration of the differing elements at play in the humanist culture of Renaissance Italy.