George Eliot's exhaustively researched historical novel is the story of a good woman, Romola, who loves an evil man. Set in Renaissance Italy, it is also about Savanarola and his doomed efforts to bring democratic reform to the corrupt city of Florence. When Romola, disappointed on both the personal and the political levels by the failure of her ideals, falls into despair, she is redeemed by others' need of her. George Eliot said of this novel, "I began it a young woman--I finished it an old woman".