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Jan Marsh
University of Sussex

'I am an Italian who has never seen Italy' - D.G. Rossetti

'Wherefore art thou strange and not my mother?' - C.G. Rossetti

As children born in Britain to a Neapolitan political exile and a half-Italian mother, the four Rossetti siblings inherited a dual national identity at a time when both being 'English' and being 'Italian' had specific resonances. If Italy was their father('s) land, was Britain their motherland? Or was it the other way round, given the political positions of the era?

Sibling Cultures: England, Italy and the Rossettis, explores the interlocking familial meanings of 'Italy' and 'England' in the lives of the Rossetti siblings, and the ways in which these are expressed in their works.