Eliot, George

(1819–1880)



Pen name of one of the principal English novelists of the nineteenth century whose real name was Mary Ann Evans. Her historical novel Romola, published in 1863, is set in Florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century, the heyday of the famous preacher and social reformer Girolamo Savonarola. Influenced by the doctrines of Joachim of Fiore, he foretold revolutionary change. Joachim, long before, had spoken in fairly general terms of a future “Age of the Holy Spirit.” This was to be an era of peace and liberty and universal enlightenment. During the Middle Ages, enthusiasts expanded his prophecy by adding two semimessianic figures who were to open the way to the good times. A great ruler called the Second Charlemagne would unite Christendom, and an Angelic Pope would restore the Church to holiness. Savonarola had high hopes of the French king Charles VIII, who invaded Italy and was thought by some optimists to be the Second Charlemagne.
Eliot introduces these themes, showing historical insight ahead of contemporary historians. One character in Romola says: “The warning is ringing in the ears of all men; and it’s no new story; for the Abbot Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred years ago, and now Fra Girolamo has got the message afresh. He has seen it in a vision, even as the prophets of old.” In the novel, Charles VIII enters Florence with his army and is hailed as the Second Charlemagne. George Eliot also takes up the companion prophecy. She imagines a Florentine telling how he “heard simple folk talk of a Pope Angelico, who was to come by-and-by and bring in a new order of things, to purify the Church from simony, and the lives of the clergy from scandal.” She remarks: “The sunlight and shadows bring their old beauty… and men still yearn for the reign of peace and righteousness.… The Pope Angelico is not come yet.” Romola treats the prophetic hopes as illusory. Charles VIII accomplishes nothing, and Savonarola is discredited.