Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in London on December 5th 1830. She was the fourth child of Gabriele and Frances Rossetti, who already had two sons and a daughter. Gabriele Rossetti had been exiled from Italy for his support of revolutionary nationalism and was now a professor of Italian and a Dante Scholar at King’s College in London. His wife, born Frances Polidori, was the English-Italian daughter of John William Polidori, an author and Lord Byron's physician. Although Gabriele was a Roman Catholic, he allowed his wife to raise their children in the Anglican church.
All four Rossetti children developed artistic and literary inclinations; Maria Francesca wrote about Dante...
