Family History

• When was Rossetti born?

  Christina Rossetti was born in 1830.
• Rossetti’s family was very intellectual and well-educated.
• Rossetti was home educated and read Keats, Scotts, and Dante.
• Rossetti’s father was Italian so she read a lot of Italian literature and poetry.
• Rossetti had a lot of highly influential influences.
• Rossetti’s father suffered from bronchitis and probably TB, and blindness which caused depression.
• Rossetti’s father was the main income earner, and so his illness caused tremendous financial difficulties.
• Due to Rossetti’s father’s illness and subsequent financial difficulties, her mother began teaching and her sister began working as a live-in governess.
• Due to her siblings being away Rossetti became increasingly lonely and isolated.
• At age 14, Rossetti was diagnosed with religious mania after a nervous breakdown.
• Dante Rossetti was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
• Dante Rossetti married Lizzie Sindall and they were both drug addicts with Lizzie later dying of an overdose.
• Rossetti never married but had a very close relationship with her siblings and mother.
• Rossetti remained living with her mother for most of her life.
• Rossetti became very ill in later life, suffering from Graves disease, diminishing her physical appearance for nearly 20 years.
• Rossetti developed Breast Cancer which led to her death in 1894.
• Rossetti died in 1894, and is buried at Highgate Cemetery in London.