The Strolling Saint being the confessions of the high and mighty Agostino

Rafael SabatiniProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
643K words
Chapters
65

Tags

English Originals Historical Fiction Historical AdventureLegendary LivesPower GamesAntiheroJianghu FeudSin and RedemptionMemoir StyleReligious ConflictItalian SettingRenaissance

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Strolling Saint; being the confessions of the high and mighty AgostinoAuthor: Sabatini, Rafael, 1875-1950,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 2002

Editor's review

A historical adventure novel written in the form of a memoir, in which Agostino recounts how a man driven by fate is tossed about amid the intrigue and religious conflict of the Italian city-states. The book continues the author's familiar elements of swordsmen, conspiracy, and mistaken identity, but its narration is more restrained: the protagonist constantly looks back on his choices, with confession and self-justification interwoven, giving the adventure story a layer of moral introspection. For readers familiar with Sabatini's action scenes, the highlight of this book lies in the wavering of the character's inner world and the evocation of the era's atmosphere; for newcomers, it is also an entry point for understanding the author's style of historical romance. As you read, it is worth noting the reliability of the narrator—he is both a participant and a writer defending himself.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the opening section that establishes the narrative situation, and form a judgment about the narrator's stance
  2. Record historical background and the character's choices separately to avoid confusing literary dramatization with historical fact
  3. Slow down when encountering long passages of self-justification and consider why the narrator tells it this way
  4. After finishing, return to the beginning to check whether the narrator's account is consistent

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
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  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65

FAQ

Can I read this directly without having read other works by Sabatini? Yes. This book is a standalone story and does not depend on the plots of other works. However, it uses a first-person memoir structure, and the narrator repeatedly explains his motives, so it takes some patience to adjust to this way of telling at first.
Is the historical background in the book real? The work uses Italian history as a background for literary dramatization, and the characters and events are fictionalized. When reading, treat it as a historical adventure novel rather than a historical source; if you are interested in the relevant era, consult reliable historical works for comparison.
What does “The Strolling Saint” in the title refer to? It refers to the narrator, Agostino himself. In the book he is constantly on the move, his identity wavering between the secular and the religious; the title sums up this state of rootlessness and constant self-examination, and its specific meaning needs to be understood in light of his experiences as you read.

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About the author

Rafael Sabatini Author · Italian-born British · 1875–1950

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) was an Italian-born British novelist. Born in Jesi, Italy, to an English mother, he became a British citizen in 1918. He is known for historical adventure romances, including Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution, Captain Blood and The Sea-Hawk, as well as Bardelys the Magnificent and Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition: A History. The library holds 19 of his works, spanning novels and historical writing, often set amid revolution, piracy and courtly adventure, with tight plots and vivid characters. He wrote more than thirty novels in his lifetime, many of which were adapted for the screen, leaving a lasting influence on adventure fiction and film.