We entered the old reading hall, which is almost the only portion of the building still remaining as it was when George Eliot and George Henry Lewes pursued their studies at one of the massive walnut tables. The jeering bust of Magliabecchi is still there; the same volumes, resting upon their ornamental shelves, still await the arrival of another genius to produce another masterpiece—but except for these the Library has become as modernized as its name.
“I was going over some dusty receipts here one day,” my friend explained, “which I found on the top of a cupboard in the office of the archives. It was pure curiosity. I was interested in the names of many Italian writers who have since become famous, but when I stumbled upon a number of receipts signed ‘G. H. Lewes,’ I realized that I was on the track of some valuable material. These I arranged chronologically, and this is what I found.”
Now let me go back a little, before, with Biagi’s help, I fit these interesting receipts into the story of the writing of the book as told by George Eliot’s diary, which I immediately absorbed.
Silas Marner was finished on March 10, 1861, and on April 19 the author and Lewes “set off on our second journey to Florence.” After arriving there, the diary tells us that they “have been industriously foraging in old streets and old books.” Of Lewes she writes: “He was in continual distraction by having to attend to my wants, going with me to the Magliabecchian Library, and poking about everywhere on my behalf.”
Library Slips used by George Eliot in the Magliabecchia Library, Florence, while writing Romola
The first slip signed by Lewes is dated May 15, 1861, and called for Ferrario’s Costume Antico e Moderno. This book is somewhat dramatic and superficial, yet it could give the author knowledge of the historical surroundings of the characters which were growing in her mind. The following day they took out Lippi’s Malmantile, a comic poem filled with quaint phrases and sayings which fitted well in the mouths of those characters she had just learned how to dress. Migliore’s Firenze Illustrata and Rastrelli’s Firenze Antica e Moderna gave the topography and the aspect of Florence at the end of the fifteenth century.
From Chiari’s Priorista George Eliot secured the idea of the magnificent celebration of the Feast of Saint John, the effective descriptions of the cars, the races, and the extraordinary tapers. “It is the habit of my imagination,” she writes in her diary, “to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself.” Knowledge of the Bardi family, to which the author added Romola, was secured from notes on the old families of Florence written by Luigi Passerini.
“See how they came back on May 24,” Biagi exclaimed, pointing to a slip calling for Le Famiglie del Litta, “to look in vain for the pedigree of the Bardi. But why bother,” he continued with a smile; “for Romola, the Antigone of Bardo Bardi, was by this time already born in George Eliot’s mind, and needed no further pedigree.”
Romance may have been born, but the plot of the story was far from being clear in the author’s mind. Back again in England, two months later, she writes, “This morning I conceived the plot of my novel with new distinction.” On October 4, “I am worried about my plot,” and on October 7, “Began the first chapter of my novel.”