ROSSETTI

Dante Gabriel, or, to give him his full christening name, Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, was born on May 12th, 1828, at No. 38, Charlotte Street, Portland Place, and was the second of four children, born in successive years. Gabriele Rossetti, his father, was a native of the city of Vasto, in the province of Abruzzi. He was a man of superior ability and force of character, and was at one time custodian of bronzes at the Naples Museum; but having made himself obnoxious to the Bourbon King Ferdinand during the suppression of the constitution in 1821, he was in consequence proscribed and obliged to fly for safety. Assisted by a British man-of-war in escaping to Malta, Gabriele Rossetti remained there for some time, practising as an instructor in his native language, until further annoyance drove him in 1824 to England. Here he settled, and obtained an appointment as Professor of Italian at Kings College. Meantime, in 1826, he had married a daughter of Gaetano Polidori, for some while secretary to the notable Count Alfieri, and father of that strange being, Dr. John Polidori, who travelled with Byron as his physician, and committed suicide in 1821. Gaetano Polidoris wife, Rossettis grandmother, was an Englishwoman, whose maiden name was Pierce. To his parentage the young Gabriel was indebted for much, but especially to his mother. One can judge of the latters quiet sensible character, and deep religious instincts, from the portraits left us by her son. But, besides these qualities, she possessed good literary and artistic judgement, shrewd knowledge of human nature, and a fund of common sense which was strong enough to prevent the somewhat mystical spirit pervading the thoughts of her young family from deteriorating into morbid and unhealthy channels. Between D. G. Rossetti and his mother the warmest and most affectionate relations prevailed, relations that were only severed by the formers untimely death on April 9th, 1882. Mrs. Rossetti survived her son exactly four years to the very day. Her husband had died in April, 1854, honoured at the last as a patriot in his native land. Their elder daughter, Maria, departed this life in 1876, and in December, 1894, Christina Rossetti also died, leaving as sole survivor of this brilliant family the younger son, William Michael, well known as a literary critic and as the biographer of his more famous brother. Albeit English in its main external features, the environment of the Rossetti family in London remained essentially Italian during their fathers lifetime. Gabriele Rossetti was a commentator on Dante, and himself a writer of verse, mainly in a politico-patriotic vein. To the ears of the young Gabriel, familiarized by habit with the sonorous metres of the "Inferno" and "Paradiso," the name of Dante for many years conjured up no very stimulating thoughts. It was not until he had begun as a young man to read upon his own lines, that the pictorial richness and splendour of the Florentine dawned on him and seized him with its spell. "The Convito," he says, "was a name of dread to us, as being the very essence of arid unreadableness,"—an interesting fact to remember when dealing, as we shall presently have to do, with the influence which Dante was destined afterwards to exert upon two members at least of the family. Reared in this studious atmosphere, however, it is not to be wondered at that the young Rossettis early took to literature. Before they were six years old they had made acquaintance with Shakespeare and Scott, in addition to the usual works of childhood, and were steeped in romance of a more lofty kind than is common at such an age. Of Rossettis early literary efforts it is sufficient to mention two: "The Slave," a bombastic drama in blank verse, which occupied his faculties at the age of five, and "Sir Hugh the Heron," a legendary poem founded on a tale by Allan Cunningham.

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E-boek: 20 november 2019