ROSSI EOSSINI 445 "Dante's Dream on the Day of the Death of Beatrice." His " Fair Rosamond " was exhibited at the Scottish academy in 1860. He has published " The Early Italian Poets," translations from Dante and his predecessors (London, 1861 ; revised ed., " Dante and his Circle," 1874), and a volume of "Poems" (1870). III. Christina Gabriella, an English poet- ess, sister of the preceding, born in London in December, 1830. Her publications are : "Gob- lin Market, and other Poems" (1862); "The Prince's Progress, and other Poems" (1866); "Commonplace, and other short Stories in Prose " (1870) ; " Sing-Song, a Nursery Rhyme Book" (1872); and "Speaking Likenesses" and " Annus Domini " (1874). ROSSI, Giovanni Battista de', an Italian archae- ologist, born in Rome, Feb. 23, 1822. He be- came celebrated by his discoveries in the cata- combs, an account of which he is publishing in two works. The first is to be a complete col- lection of all the Christian inscriptions, amount- ing to more than 11,000, of which a folio vol- ume, containing 1,374, appeared in 1861, enti- tled Inscriptiones Christian Urbis Roma sep- timo Sceculo antiquiores; the other is a gen- eral work called Roma sotteranea cristiana, of which vol. i. appeared in 1866. He is also editor of the Bollettino di Archeologia. ROSSI, Pellegrino, count, an Italian statesman, born in Carrara, July 13, 1787, assassinated in Kome, Nov. 15, 1848. Until the overthrow of the French rule in Italy he taught law. at Bo- logna. Removing to Geneva in 1814, he be- came professor of law there, and a member of the council and of the diet, where he advocated centralization. While on a mission in Paris he found a patron in Guizot, and in 1834 received the chair of political economy in the college de France and of public law in the faculty of law. Louis Philippe made him a peer in 1839, and in 1845 sent him as ambas- sador to Rome. He first favored and then, by order of Louis Philippe, endeavored to check the reformatory policy of Pius IX. During the revolution of 1848 the pope appointed him prime minister (Sept. 16), and he aimed to es- tablish a confederation of Italian states. While going to attend the opening of parliament, he was surrounded by a crowd, and killed with a stiletto. His principal work is a Traite du droit penal (3 vols., Paris, 1829). ROSSINI, Gioacchino, an Italian composer, born in Pesaro, Feb. 29, 1792, died in Paris, Nov. 13, 1868. His parents were members of a strolling operatic company, and at 10 years of age he played the second horn in the orchestra, his father playing the first. Soon afterward he was placed with Angelo Tesei, a music teacher in Bologna, under whose instructions he devel- oped a soprano voice of great purity and com- pass ; and at 14 he was able to sing at sight any piece of music placed before him. After being for several years a chorister in the Bo- lognese churches, and occasionally chorus mas- ter in provincial theatres, he was induced in 1807 by the breaking of his voice to enter the lyceum of Bologna, where he was instructed in counterpoint by the abbate Mattei. Hear- ing his master say that simple counterpoint would suffice for ordinary stage composition, he left the school, studied the works of the principal opera writers, giving especial atten- tion to Mozart, and at 18 years of age, having tried his hand at some minor pieces, produced his first dramatic work, La cambiale di ma- trimonio, an operetta performed with moder- ate success at the theatre San Mose in Venice. His Demetrio e Polibio, produced in Rome in 1811, is said to have been written two years earlier. In 1812 he composed five operas, all of which, with the exception of Ulnganno felice, speedily sank into oblivion. In the succeeding year he appeared before the Vene- tians with three operas, one of which, Tancredi, excited an enthusiasm almost without a parallel in the history of music, and within three years found its way into every musical theatre of Europe and America. Of the remaining operas composed in 1813, ISItaliana in Algien was almost equally successful, and with Tancredi still holds possession of the stage. In the fol- lowing year he produced at Milan Aureliano in Palmira and II Turco in Italia, the latter of which is still frequently performed; and in 1815 Elisabetta regina d* Inghilterra for the San Carlo theatre of Naples, where he also accepted an engagement as musical director. In 1816 his Barbiere di Siviglia, probably the most admirable specimen of the Italian opera buffa in existence, was performed in Rome du- ring the carnival with a success which, after the lapse of more than half a century, has suffered no diminution. According to Manuel Garcia, for whom the Barbiere was written, the great- er part of it was composed in eight days. In 1816-'l7 he composed for the San Carlo and other theatres seven or more operas, three of which, Otello, La Cenerentola, and La gazza ladra, - are yet standard favorites the first a striking example of his forcible style, and the second of his skill in producing florid embel- lishments. His Mose in Egitto (1818) ranks among the author's finest serious compositions. Within the next few years were produced La donna del lago, Maometto Secondo, Zelmira, and a number of minor works, showing a gradual increase of power in harmony and instrumen- tal effects, with no loss of melodic beauty. In 1821 he married Mile. Colbran, prima donna at the San Carlo, for whom many of his parts were written. With her he went the same year to Vienna to direct the production of his Zelmira, in which his wife took part. Re- turning to Venice in 1823, he took leave of the Italian stage with the opera Semiramide, the most elaborate of his works up to that period. In 1824 he visited London with his wife under an engagement to compose an opera for the king's theatre. An indolent careless- ness now took the place of his former activity, he neglected his duties, failed to produce his
