The novel opens with the 1900 Jubilee in Rome, at the height of the diatribe between the Vatican and the Italian state over the temporal power of the Church. Against this backdrop are the social claims of the time, animated by a Christian socialism with which Caine himself was imbued. Davide Rossi is a Leftist deputy who fights for the people and opposes a corrupt prime minister, who will try to prevent the crowning romance between Rossi and Donna Roma Volonna. Caine lingered in Rome for a long time, visiting every place depicted in the novel; the descriptions of Regina Coeli, the Vatican and its ceremonies, the city's fashionable places and its squares teeming with ordinary people restore the climate of the time. The book is imbued with a religious sense of life, and the characters, even the most abject, are described compassionately, as a true investigator of the human soul. Reading this text more than a century after its release one cannot but be struck by the author's visionary ability: he foresaw for Italy, albeit in terms of "fantapolitics," the dictatorship, the abdication of the monarchy and the birth of the Republic, forty years in advance. Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853-1931) wrote some fifteen novels, true best-sellers, which earned him the title of "Sir" in 1917. The Isle of Sin (1894) is the best known of his works, thanks to A. Hitchcock's film adaptation in 1929. The Christian (1897) was the first book to sell one million copies in England. Pietro Mascagni set the stage version of The Eternal City to music in 1902.

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A novel by Daisaku Ikeda set in Hiroshima. "An indomitable spirit, capable of enduring any adversity." This phrase kept echoing in the mind. Life is full of unhappiness and pain. When we know a setback, it may happen that we are overwhelmed by despair. But that suffering is the material with which we build our existence. One can blame fate and resign oneself to defeat, or one can resume life aiming for happiness -- it all depends on whether or not one has "an indomitable spirit, capable of enduring any adversity."  

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A novel by Daisaku Ikeda on the theme of friendship.333 BC. Alexander the Great, aiming to conquer the East, contracts a serious illness. None among the wise men in his retinue can find a cure that can snatch him from death. But in the nocturnal quiet of the camp, as the disease slowly consumes his body, a tormenting doubt tears at his soul. Is the potion prepared for him by Philip, the faithful childhood friend and personal physician, a medicine or a poison? Quick as the wind, sent by one of his generals, a messenger on horseback arrives to deliver to him the letter on which the answer is inscribed: Philip is a traitor. The young and invincible king will then find himself wondering whether to heed the messenger and disown his lifelong friend, or to bring the cup to his lips and risk his life. The classical world meets Buddhist teaching and offers Master Ikeda an opportunity to celebrate, in a compelling and valuable book, the value of loyalty and friendship. True friendship is not based on calculation. Gold and wealth cannot buy it. It makes us better: it brings out our qualities, helps us make each other happy and, as we strive to do so, gives us joy. Therefore, the friend is like a second self; in friendship two people become one, and such a bond we can call it life.

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