Explore "Rossetti" by Lucien Pissarro on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Rossetti's family, as his name indicates, was of Italian origin. His ancestors on his father's side belong to Vasto d'Ammone, a small city of the Abruzzi. The original name of the family was Della Guardia. Probably the diminutive Rossetti was given to some red-haired ancestor and retained in spite of the disappearance of that peculiarity. The grandfather of the poet, Dominico Rossetti, was in the iron trade, his son Gabriel Rossetti, born at Vasto, became a custodian of the Bourbon Museum at Naples. He was an ardent patriot and one of the group of reformers who obtained a constitution from Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, in 1820. The return of the King with the Austrian army obliged Gabriel Rossetti, who was compromised by his actions as well as by his patriotic songs, to make his escape from Italy. He did this by the help of the English admiral, commanding the fleet in the bay. Indeed he left Italy disguised in an English uniform.
ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI