Agnes of Sorrento — Story, Setting & Ideas

(3 User reviews) 567

In Category - Medieval Stories

Authors: Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2013 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Historical fiction; Savonarola, Girolamo, 1452-1498 -- Fiction; Catholic Church -- Italy -- History -- To 1500 -- Fiction; Papacy -- History -- 1447-1565 -- Fiction; Sorrento (Italy) -- History -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 122,321

Reading time 532 min

Text sections 12

This digital edition of Agnes of Sorrento — Story, Setting & Ideas is described by source-level measurements including 122,321 words, 8 hr 52 min estimated reading time, and 12 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 24.1 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Historical fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #43076

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1862 novel set in 15th-century Italy, where a young woman's piety becomes a lens for examining tensions between personal faith and institutional religion, as seen through the monk Francesco's struggle with earthly love and the looming figure of Savonarola.

Editorial Edition Score 4.8/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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Edition quality

File: pg43076

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here was such an intense earnestness in these sounds, that large tears gathered in the wide dark eyes, and fell one after another upon the sweet alyssum and maiden's-hair that grew in the crevices of the marble wall. She shivered and drew away from the parapet, and thought of stories she had heard the nuns tell of wandering spirits who sometimes in lonesome places pour forth such entrancing music as bewilders the brain of the unwary listener, and leads him to some fearful destruction.

"Agnes!" said the sharp voice of old Elsie, appearing at the door, "here! where are you?"

"Who's that singing this time o' night?"

"I don't know, grandmamma."

Somehow the child felt as if that singing were strangely sacred to her,--a _rapport_ between her and something vague and invisible which might yet become dear.

"Is't down in the gorge?" said the old woman, coming with her heavy, decided step to the parapet, and looking over, her keen black eyes gleaming like dagger-blades into the mist. "If there's anybody there," she said, "let them go away, and not be troubling honest women with any of their caterwauling. Come, Agnes," she said, pulling the girl by the sleeve, "you must be tired, my lamb! and your evening prayers are always so long, best be about them, girl, so that old grandmamma may put you to bed. What ails the girl? Been crying! Your hand is cold as a stone."

"Grandmamma, what if that might be a spirit?" she said. "Sister Rosa told me stories of singing spirits that have been in this very gorge."

"Likely enough," said Dame Elsie; "but what's that to us? Let 'em sing!--so long as we don't listen, where's the harm done? We will sprinkle holy water all round the parapet, and say the office of Saint Agnes, and let them sing till they are hoarse."

Such was the triumphant view which this energetic good woman took of the power of the means of grace which her church placed at her disposal.

Nevertheless, while Agnes was kneeling at her evening prayers, the old dame consoled herself with a soliloquy, as with a brush she vigorously besprinkled the premises with holy water.

"Now, here's the plague of a girl! If she's handsome,--and nobody wants one that isn't,--why, then, it's a purgatory to look after her. This one is good enough,--none of your hussies, like Giulietta: but the better they are, the more sure to have fellows after them. A murrain on that cavalier,--king's brother, or what not!--it was he serenading, I'll be bound. I must tell Antonio, and have the girl married, for aught I see: and I don't want to give her to him either; he didn't bring her up. There's no peace for us mothers. Maybe I'll tell Father Francesco about it. That's the way poor little Isella was carried away. Singing is of the Devil, I believe; it always bewitches girls. I'd like to have poured some hot oil down the rocks: I'd have made him squeak in another tone, I reckon. Well, well! I hope I shall come in for a good seat in paradise for all the trouble I've had with her mother, and am like to have with her,--that's all!"

In an hour more, the large, round, sober moon was shining fixedly on the little mansion in the rocks, silvering the glossy darkness of the orange-leaves, while the scent of the blossoms arose like clouds about the cottage. The moonlight streamed through the unglazed casement, and made a square of light on the little bed where Agnes was sleeping, in which square her delicate face was framed, with its tremulous and spiritual expression most resembling in its sweet plaintive purity some of the Madonna faces of Fra Angelico,--those tender wild flowers of Italian religion and poetry.

By her side lay her grandmother, with those sharp, hard, clearly cut features, so worn and bronzed by time, so lined with labor and care, as to resemble one of the Fates in the picture of Michel Angelo; and even in her sleep she held the delicate lily hand of the child in her own hard, brown one, with a strong and determined clasp.

While they sleep, we must tell something more of the story of the little Agnes,--of what she is, and what are the causes which have made her such.

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Stowe opens her Italian novel not with a grand historical tableau but with the intimate geography of Sorrento: 'The old town of Sorrento lies like a nest of white sea-birds on a cliff that juts into the blue Mediterranean.' This precise, almost painterly description establishes a setting that is both idyllic and precarious. The narrative voice frequently shifts between close observation of domestic life—a dove-cot, a garden, a young woman singing—and broader reflections on the political and religious turmoil of late 15th-century Italy. The excerpts reveal a work deeply concerned with the friction between personal devotion and institutional authority, particularly through the character of Father Francesco, a monk whose spiritual struggles are rendered with psychological detail. Stowe uses the figure of Girolamo Savonarola not merely as a historical backdrop but as a living presence whose reformist zeal casts a shadow over the characters' choices.

The Monk's Divided Heart

The most sustained psychological portrait in the excerpts belongs to Father Francesco, a monk tormented by his attachment to Agnes. Stowe presents his inner conflict through a series of vivid contrasts: he hears Agnes singing a hymn to Jesus, yet the hymn 'was blent with the remembrance of Agnes.' The narrator explicitly states that 'it was only in the heart of a lowly maiden that Christ had been made manifest to the eye of the monk.' This is not a simple love story but a theological dilemma: Francesco's love for Agnes is inseparable from his love of God. Stowe traces this tension through his prayer, where he cries, 'Why, why cannot I find Thee? Oh, take from my heart all other love but Thine alone!' Yet even this plea is 'blent with the remembrance of Agnes.' The excerpts also show a secondary conflict with Father Johannes, who suspects Francesco of lingering 'earthly love.' The monastery becomes a stage for competing interpretations of spiritual purity, with Francesco caught between his own heart and the judgment of his brethren.

Art, Architecture, and the Visible World

Stowe embeds visual art into the narrative as a marker of spiritual decay or possibility. She references Michelangelo's 'fearful painting' in the Sistine Chapel, which she describes as embodying 'that image of stormy vengeance which a religion debased by force and fear had substituted for the tender, good shepherd.' This is a pointed critique of the institutional church's aesthetic—and by extension, its theology. In contrast, the natural beauty of Sorrento and the humble piety of Agnes offer an alternative visual language. The excerpts also mention 'an antique form' of lamp and the 'glimmer of the taper' in Francesco's cell, small details that anchor the story in a tangible, sensory world. Stowe's descriptive style often lingers on light, shadow, and texture, creating a setting that feels both historically specific and symbolically charged. The novel seems to ask whether beauty—in art, in nature, in a human face—can lead the soul toward God or away from Him.

The Weight of History: Savonarola and the Papacy

Though the excerpts focus on personal drama, the catalog subjects and chapter titles indicate a broader historical canvas. Chapters such as 'Florence and her Prophet,' 'The Attack on San Marco,' and 'The Cathedral' suggest that Savonarola's reform movement and the political machinations of the papacy form a crucial backdrop. Stowe, writing in 1862, was herself a product of American Protestant reform culture, and her treatment of Catholic Italy is neither simple condemnation nor uncritical admiration. The excerpts show a nuanced engagement: the monk's crisis is partly a crisis of authority—whose voice speaks for God? The introductory note reveals that Stowe's winter in Italy in 1859-60 provided the material, and that her 'dramatic instinct' worked upon 'the great church so constantly in evidence.' Readers should expect a novel that uses historical figures and events to explore questions of conscience, reform, and the cost of discipleship, all filtered through Stowe's characteristic moral seriousness.

Readers approaching Agnes of Sorrento should attend to the way Stowe balances intimate character study with historical panorama. The novel rewards attention to its descriptive passages, where landscape and interiority merge. The excerpts suggest that the story's emotional core lies not in plot twists but in the slow, painful evolution of Francesco's faith—and in the quiet, steady presence of Agnes, who remains more an idea than a fully realized character in the available text. Stowe's prose, at once ornate and precise, invites the reader to consider how love, art, and religion intertwine in a world on the verge of transformation.

I remembered sitting on my grandmother’s porch, the same way Agnes must have watched the sea—wanting something pure, yet tangled in the pull of others’ expectations. I felt that ache again with The Mad King — Story, Setting & Ideas, where a man’s stubborn ideal collides with a world that won’t bend for him. Both books left me holding my breath, listening for some quiet answer.