The Roman Widow

Rossetti, the son of an Italian patriot and political refugee and of an English mother, was born in England. He was raised in an environment of cultural and political activity that, it has been suggested, was of more importance to his learning than his formal education. This latter was constituted by a general education at King's College from 1836 to 1841 and, following drawing lessons at a school in central London at the age of fourteen, some time as a student at the Royal Academy from 1845 onwards. Here he studied painting with William Hollman Hunt and John Everett Millais who, in 1848, would set up the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.