Rossetti, Gabriele (gäbrēĕ`lā rōsĕt`ē), 1783–1854, Italian poet and critic; father of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and of Christina Rossetti. Exiled in 1821, he fled first to Malta, where he stayed for three years, and then to England, where he lived until his death. There he wrote patriotic and liberal verse in Italian and a curious study attempting to show that Dante had written as spokesman for a vast, secret, ritualistic society opposed to tyranny. He was professor of Italian at King's College, London, from 1831 until he retired in 1845. His long romantic poem Il veggente in solitudine [the seer in solitude] was published in 1846 and his autobiography in 1849.

Bibliography

See R. D. Waller, The Rossetti Family (1932).

Rossetti, Gabriele (Pasquale Giuseppe)

(born Feb. 28, 1783, Vasto, Kingdom of Naples—died April 24, 1854, London, Eng.) Italian poet, revolutionary, and scholar. A librettist and later curator of a museum in Naples, he was condemned for his spirited verse on contemporary politics and for membership in a revolutionary group. In 1824 he fled to England, where in 1831 he published an eccentric interpretation of Dante, claiming a chiefly political and antipapal meaning in the Divine Comedy. The work led to a post as professor of Italian at King's College, London, from 1831 to 1847. He is best known as the father of four talented children, including Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.