8U 



HOSSKTTI 



especial offence to the king ' Che i Sandi ed i 

 Lmclli Nun sono morti ancor' ('For Sands and 

 Lou x el s arc not yet dead ' alluding to the asaaiwina- 

 lion f Kotzebue and of the Due de Herri). Roe- 

 setti had to escape from Naples with the kindly 

 connivance of the British admiral. Sir Graham 

 Mooic. who ship|>t-d him oil' to Malta in the 

 disguise of a British naval officer. In Malta lie 

 was treated with great liberality ami ilistinetion by 

 the governor, Mr Hookhani hrere: and toxvards 

 1824 he came over to London, with good recom 

 nicudations, to follow the career of a teacher nf 

 Italian. In 1826 he married Frances Mary Lavinia 

 1'olidori, daughter of a Tuscan father and English 

 mother; noon afterwards he was elected professor 

 of Italian in King's College, London. They hail 

 four children : ( 1 ) Maria Francesca, born 1827, 

 died 1876 (author of A Shadow of Dante, Sec.) i ; (2) 

 Gabriel Charles Dante (see below); (3) William 

 Michael, born 1829 (critical writer, and editor of 

 Shelley); (4) Christina Georgina (see below). In 

 London Rossetti lived a studious, laborious, and 

 honourable life, greatly respected by bis pupils, 

 and by Italian residents and visitors ; he was a 

 man of strong and stead v affections and vivacious 

 temperament, earnest and single-minded in all his 

 pursuit-. In ]M)litics he was a vigorous liberal, but 

 more inclined to a constitutional monarchy than a 

 republic; in religion he was mainly a freethinker, 

 but tending in his later years towards an undog- 

 matic form of Christianity. Though totally opposed 

 to the papal system and pretensions, he would 

 not openly abjure, in a Protestant country, tlie 

 Unman Catholic; creed of his fathers. His health 

 bc-an to fail uwards 1842, and his sight became 

 dim, one eye being wholly lo-t. After some 

 attacks of a paralytic character he died in Albany 

 Street, London, On 90th April 18.V4. Besides some 

 poems published in Italy. Kossetti pr<Hlueed the 

 following works: Dante. ' (the Inferno 



only was published), with a commentary aiming to 

 show that the poem is chiefly political and anti- 

 papal in its inner meaning ( 1826 ) ; Lo Spirito A nti- 

 paptile die prodnsse la Rifornui ( ' The Anti-papal 

 spirit which produced the Reformation ' an Knghsh 

 translation also was published), reinforcing and 

 greatly extending the same general views (1832) ; 

 li/'lio e I'Uonto, Oalterio ('God and Man, a 

 Psaltery'), poems (1833); // Mistero dell' Amor 

 'ontcoM Media Evo ('The Mysterious Platonic 

 Love of the Middle Ages ), 5 vols., a book of daring 

 and subtle speculation tending to develop the 

 analogy between many illustrious writers as form- 

 ing a secret society of ami ( 'atholic thought, and 

 the doctrines of Gnosticism and freemasonry ( 1840) ; 

 this book was printed and prepared for publication, 

 but withheld as likely to In- deemed rash and sub- 

 ive ; l.n /1,-iitn'rf ili limit* , contending that 

 Dante's Beatrice was a symlnilic personage, not a 

 real woman (1842); II IVi/yo//. m Sulitudine 

 ('The Seer in Solitude'), a speculative and partly 

 autobiographical poem ( 1S4H I ; it circulated largely, 

 though clandestinely, in Italy, ami a medal of 

 KoHHett-i was struck there in coinmemoratioii ; 

 Versi ( miscellaneous poems), 1847; l.'.lr/m Er<m 

 The Kvangelic Harp'), religions poems 

 (1852). The views of Rosseiti regiirding Dante, 

 along with 1'etrarca and many other Italian 

 authors, excited a great deal of controversy, which 

 till continues in various forms and with van ing 

 fortunes. Mis memory is much revered in his 

 native place, where the house of his birth has U-en 

 taught- as public properly, and a theatre and the 

 rlu.-f square have lieen named after him. 



DXMK G.XIIKIKI. KIISSKTTI (or properly ( Jahricl 

 Charles Dante), elder son of the foregoing, was 

 born in Charlotte Street, Portland Place, London, 

 on 12th May 1828. He was educate,! in King's 



College School, London ; but, having from Ins 

 earliest years evinced a wish to become a painter, 

 he was taken from school in 1S43 ami commenced 

 the study of art, entering soon afterwanls the 

 antique school of the Royal Academy, lleie he 

 associated with the young painters John Everett 

 Millaisatid William Dolman Hunt, and the sculptor 

 Thoimis Woollier; along with these three he founded 

 the so-called Pre-Raphaelite lirotlicrhood, which 

 was completed by the addition of three other mem- 

 beis. Tlie chief incentive to the foundation of this 

 society, ami of the school of art which it initiated, 

 was tiie distaste and disrespect felt by the youthful 

 artists for the poverty stricken conceptions and 

 slurred execution which marked most of the art 

 then current in England, mingled with a sincere 

 and reverent delight in those qualities of genuine 

 and spontaneous invention, lofty feeling, and 

 patient handiwork, which had IH-CII developed by 

 the European schools of art preceding the cul- 

 mination of Raphael and his followers. A natural 

 result of this frame of mind was a disposition to 

 realise objective details to the utmost, with a view 

 to the thorough authenticity of the visible means 

 through which ideas are convex ed ; but it wits a mis- 

 take of some olerx'ers, who noticed a scrupulous 

 exactness and sometimes a plethora of details, to 

 suppose that the main concern of the associated 

 artists was really with the details, and not "itli 

 the ideas. The English Pre-Raphaelites xvishcd to 

 exhibit true and high ideas through the medium of 

 true and rightly elal>orated details. Two other 

 mistakes have lieen frequently repeated concerning 

 these artists; first, that thex were an oll'shoot of 

 the 'Troctarian' movement, guided by religious 

 pietism ; and second, that they were set going by 

 Mr Ruskin. Rossetti's earliest oil-pic: 

 hibited iii 1849, was 'The Girlhood of Mary Virgin ;' 

 his next (1850), now in the National Gallery, 'The 

 Annunciation.' After this he withdrew from ex- 

 hibiting almost entirely, and his art developed 

 through other phases, in which the sense of human 

 Iteauty, intensity of abstract expression, and richness 

 of colour xvere leading elements. He produced num- 

 erous water-colours of a legendary or romantic cast, 

 several of them being from the poems of Dante, 

 others from the Arthurian tradition. Among his 

 principal oil-pictures are the Triptych for Llan- 

 datl Cathedral, of the ' Infant Christ adored by a 

 Shepherd and a King,' 'The Beloved' (the Bride 

 of the Canticles), 'Dante's Dream' (noxv in the 

 Walker Gallery, Liverpool), ' Beata Beatrix' 

 (National Gallery), ' Pandora,' ' Proserpine,' 'The 

 Blessed Daniozel ' (from one of his own poems I, 

 'The Roman Widow, '' La Ghirlandiita,' 'Venus 

 Astarte, ' ' The Day-dream.' He designed several 

 large compositions," such as the ' Magdalene at tin- 

 door of Simon the Pharisee,' -Giotto Painting 

 Dante's Portrait,' 'Cassandra,' and the 'Boat Of 

 (from a sonnet by Dante); but these he 

 failed to carry out as pictures on an adequate scale, 

 partly oxving to his receiving constant commissions 

 to execute smaller works, consisting mostly of 

 female half-figures ideal in invention or feeling, 

 and executed in life-size. The early studies of 

 Rometti in art bad not been so steady or systematic 

 as might have been wished. Afterxvanis, licgin- 

 ning in 1848, he had the advantage of some 

 friendly training from his constant intimate, Mr 

 Ford Sladox Brown, the historical painter; hut, 



notwithstanding his passionate impulse as an in- 

 ventive artist, and nis impressive realisation of 

 lieauty in countenance and colour, some short- 



comings in severe draughtsmanship and in technical 

 method, and some degree of mannerism in form 

 and treatment, have often, and not unjustly, IMH-H 

 laid t<> his charge. Kossetti Ix-gan writing poetry 

 about the same time that he took definitely to the 



