Desiderio an Episode in the Renaissance. By Edmund G. Gardner.
(J. M. Dent and Co. 6s.)—Mr. Gardner's Desiderio is a very beautiful piece of work. It tolls the story of two noble souls, a girl and a boy, whose lives and loves are entangled in a typical maze of Renaissance lust and treachery, and thereby brought to tragic conclusions,—Desiderio, reputed bastard, but in truth lawful, son of Sigismondo, Duke of Cittanova, who dies early in the story, hangs about the Court of the new Duke, Galeazzo, cherishing patriotic dreams of a united Italy free from the Papal dominion, and falling in love with the beautiful Monna Violent°, virgin sorceress of the ducal palaces. Violante's character and developments are extremely interest- ing. Cardinal Cesare, playing upon her half-belief in her supernatural powers, forces her to provoke discords that end in Galeazzo's assassination. With the blood of Desiderio's kinsman on her hands she grows desperate. Passion surprises and over- throws the purer ideals of man and maid, and Desiderio and Violante find themselves involved in the common disaster of ill-regulated love. The setting of Italian fifteenth-century life is well done. The effects are vivid and convincing, detail being kept in due subordination to moral and poetic significance.
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