Maria Francesca Rossetti

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maria Francesca Rossetti (born February 17, 1827 in London ; † November 24, 1876 ibid) was a British author in the Victorian era and sister of the first Anglican order of the "All Saints Sisters of the Poor" founded by Harriet Brownlow Byron in London in 1851.

Mother Frances with her daughters Maria and Christina around 1855

Life

Her father, Gabriele Rossetti , was a refugee from Naples who had found political asylum in England , and her mother, Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori , was the daughter of Gaetano Polidori . Maria was the eldest of four siblings Dante Gabriel (1828-1882), William Michael (1829-1919) and Christina Georgina (1830-1894). In a household of exceptionally gifted children, all born within four years, Maria was always seen by her parents and siblings as “the brightest spark”. Yet she is the least known of the Rossettis, though like her sister and brothers she was a published author on several very different subjects.

Maria was an inconspicuous child with a round face and was given the rather unfriendly nickname "moon face" (Moony) by her pretty, younger sister Christina. Her father used to call her "ingegnosa Maria", the "wise Maria". By the time she was ten, she had already developed a passion for the works of Homer and thirsted for more knowledge. Although her mother was raised much better than most women of her generation and was a more experienced teacher who taught her daughters at home, she had no access to Latin and Greek. However, Maria was able to study Italian, which she later taught at a high level, under the supervision of her grandfather Gaetano Polidori. For a while she single-handedly tried to master the classics through an impromptu correspondence course with the help of her brothers who were attending school. She could not hold out this beyond her youth and devoted herself to religious devotion with her considerable intellectual energy.

With her mother and Christina, Maria discovered a new movement in the Anglican Church around 1843. By attending services at Christ Church on Albany Street, where the charismatic Rev. William Dodsworth, popular with the early Oxford Movement , Mary and Christina found their job for the rest of their lives.

When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood came into being under the leadership of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848 , Maria came into regular contact with the "brothers" who often met in one of the upstairs rooms on Charlotte Street. Like her mother and Christina, Maria was amused by all of this. Although she showed a brief interest first in Charles Allston Collins , the brother of Wilkie Collins , the novelist, and then in John Ruskin , after the dissolution of his marriage, no relationship developed and Maria remained single.

At seventeen, Maria took up a position as an educator with Gertrude Thynne, a niece of Lady Bath. Because of her father's illness, she too had to help support the family. She didn't like being away from home. A year later, she accepted a similar position with the Read family. The father Gabriele died on April 26, 1854.

Maria Francesca Rossetti around 1874 as a religious sister

For many years she gave private Italian and other lessons at home. In doing so, developed their own system for learning the Italian language. Her two textbooks Exercises in Idiomatic Italian and Aneddoti italiani were published in 1866.

She was almost entirely responsible for the education of the then ten-year-old Lucy Brown , daughter of the artist Ford Madox Brown. Lucy married Mary's brother William in 1874. According to Williams's estimate, Maria made over £ 100 a year from teaching in the mid-1860s.

In 1860, she became a novice of the All Saints Sisterhood, Margaret Street, the first Anglican order founded in 1851 by Rev. Upton Richards and Harriet Brownlow Byron. As a novice she was able to continue living with her family.

Always talented and happy in the practical application of her unwavering faith, she took an active role in pastoral care. Mary taught Bible studies at Christ Church, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge SPCK published their Letters to My Bible Class in 1872, although they were written earlier.

As a scholar, Maria published her book A Shadow of Dante in 1871 , a guide to studying Dante Alighieri's works, which was intended for the general public. She dedicated it to her father Gabriele. The book contains introductory chapters to explain the structure of the poem and also the individual hymns of praise, followed by an annotated anthology containing larger excerpts from the verses. The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), to the Cleansing Mountain (Purgatorio), all the way to Paradise (Paradiso). Maria preferred to translate the passages from the Vita nuova herself than to resort to Dante Gabriel's freer and already famous translation. In a letter, Dante Gabriel described Maria's book as "a summarized and most thoroughly elaborated overview". Even the American editor James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) praised her book as "by far the best commentary that has appeared in English". It is still considered one of the best introductions to Dante's work available today.

Both agnostic brothers regretted the waste of Mary's formidable academic talent which she now devoted to good works and religion. Dante Gabriel later claimed that “she might have outdone us all”. For his translations he was happy to seek advice from Mary on stylistic issues.

Maria exercised a strong influence on Christina with her unshakable strength, which she drew from religion, so that the younger sister often felt weak and inadequate. Christina never seemed to achieve the joie de vivre in faith from which Mary gushed. It was a half-doubting, half-amused Christina who, in a quasi-comical anecdote, told that Maria was afraid to visit the mummy room at the British Museum if Judgment Day should come unexpectedly and cause the mummies to come to life to wake up.

The warm relationship between the two sisters Lizzie and Laura in Christina's famous poem Goblin Market (1862) is interpreted as a representation of the closeness of Christina and Maria. She had dedicated it to Maria.

In July 1873 Maria gave her long-delayed decision to join the All Saints Sisterhood as a full member. William's marriage was imminent, so domestic changes were inevitable. Maria was also aware of the first symptoms of cancer: if she did not take this step now, it would soon be too late. Her health deteriorated from 1875 to 1876 and she stayed several times at the Sisterhood Hospital in Eastbourne.

Maria Rossetti died on November 24, 1876 in the Sorority House on Margaret Street and was buried in the portion of Brompton Cemetery reserved for the convent.

Publications

literature

  • The family letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti . Edited by William M. Rossetti. Publisher: Brown, Langham & Co., London 1908
  • "Some Reminiscences" of William Michael Rossetti. Vol. II. Publisher: Charles Scribner's & Son, New York 1906

Source

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JR Howard Roberts, Walter H. Godfrey (Eds.): Christchurch, Albany Street. In: Survey of London: volume 21: The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & neighborhood. London, 1949, pp. 150–152 , accessed December 29, 2019 .
  2. ^ Religious Orders: All Saints Sisters of the Poor. In: Ss Mary & John Churchyard. Retrieved December 29, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Poems and Translations by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Including Dante's La Vita Nuova and the Early Italian Poets. Kessinger Pub Co, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4286-1875-6 .
  4. ↑ Christina Rossetti's “Goblin Market”. In: Victorian Web. May 8, 2009, accessed December 29, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rossetti, Maria Francesca
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rossetti, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author and sister of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor (Anglican Order)
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1876
Place of death London