Gabriele Rossetti

Poet, scholar, and revolutionary, born in Vasto, SE Italy. He is best known as the father of four exceptionally talented children: Maria Francesca (1827–76), Dante Gabriel (1828–82), William Michael (1829–1919), and Christina (1830–94). Besides writing poetry he was a close student of Dante, whose Inferno he maintained was chiefly political and anti-papal. After the restoration of Ferdinand I to Naples, he joined the Carbonari secret society, and greeted the constitution demanded by the patriots in 1820 with a spirited verse, which heralded his death sentence. He fled first to Malta for three years, and then to London (1824), where he became professor of Italian at the new University of London.

Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti (28 February 1783 - 24 April 1854) was an Italian poet and scholar who emigrated to England.

Born in Vasto in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, his support for Italian revolutionary nationalism forced him into political exile in 1821, and he lived in Malta for three years before settling in London in 1824. He held the post of Professor of Italian at King's College London from 1831, as well as teaching Italian at King's College School, until failing eyesight led to his retirement in 1847.

He married Frances Polidori, daughter of another Italian exile Gaetano Polidori, and they had four children:

Maria Francesca Rossetti Dante Gabriel Rossetti William Michael Rossetti Christina Georgina Rossetti