“We scarcely know whether to be more struck with the truth or liveliness of these portraits. Savonarola, for example, is something more than the Savonarola of history and tradition. Not only is the character of the man subtly brought out; not only are we made aware, for the first time, adequately, of that devouring egotism which could see nothing but self as God’s instrument, self as the scourge of Florence, self as the inspired prophet; but beneath all this and vouching for it is the consciousness of the reality of the man, the consciousness that his cries of distress are real cries, and his moments of fierce aspiration and black despair genuine experiences. More touching and even more lifelike is the figure of Michael Angelo, a figure in the main familiar to us, but endowed with advancing years with a peace of mind, a lucidity of intelligence, and a breadth of sympathy such as were foreign to its young and stormy epoch. The last scene between Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna is a noble one, and can be read more than once with pleasure.”—_The Morning Post._ “A debt is due to Dr. Oscar Levy for bringing before English readers this translation of that great work of Count Gobineau, in which, through the medium of the drama, he reveals his reverence for the spirit that inspired the Italian Renaissance. The plays constituting the book are five in number, ‘Savonarola,’ ‘Cesare Borgia,’ ‘Julius II,’ ‘Leo X,’ and ‘Michael Angelo,’—and nothing more brilliant has appeared in recent times. In scope we can only compare with it Mr. Hardy’s ‘Dynasts,’ but no more striking contrast could be conceived than the creations of these two geniuses. Through the pages of these plays moves the whole glittering pageant of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a mob of soldiers, priests, artists, men and women, slaying, plundering, preaching, poisoning, painting, rioting, and loving, while out of the surgent mass rise the figures of the splendid three, Borgia, Julius, and Michael Angelo, dominating all by the sheer greatness of their ideas and their contempt for other men’s opinions. They are the great aristocrats of their time, and the five plays—really one in conception—are an assertion of the saving grace of aristocracy, of the glory of race, at a time when the democratic flood, whose source is Christianity, was beginning to pour over Europe, to the overwhelming of all greatness of thought and art. The translation, which is excellent, is by Paul V. Cohn.”—_Glasgow Herald._ LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.