Editing Dante Gabriel Rossetti (section)

===Dante and Medievalism===
In 1850, Rossetti met [[Elizabeth Siddal]], an important model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Over the next decade, she became his muse, his pupil, and his passion. They were married in 1860.<ref name="Treuherz33">Treuherz et al. (2003), p. 33.</ref> Rossetti's incomplete picture ''[[Found (Rossetti)|Found]]'', begun in 1853 and unfinished at his death, was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted from the street by a country drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones.<ref name="Treuherz19">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 19, 24–25.</ref>

For many years, Rossetti worked on English translations of Italian poetry including [[Dante Alighieri]]'s ''[[La Vita Nuova]]'' (published as ''The Early Italian Poets'' in 1861). These and [[Sir Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'' inspired his art of the 1850s. He created a method of painting in watercolours, using thick pigments mixed with gum to give rich effects similar to medieval [[illuminated manuscript|illuminations]]. He also developed a novel drawing technique in pen-and-ink. His first published illustration was "The Maids of Elfen-Mere" (1855), for a poem by his friend [[William Allingham]], and he contributed two illustrations to Edward Moxon's 1857 edition of [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s ''Poems'' and illustrations for works by his sister [[Christina Rossetti]].<ref name="Treuherz175">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 175–76.</ref>

His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired [[William Morris]] and [[Edward Burne-Jones]].<ref name="Treuherz39">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 39–41.</ref> Neither Burne-Jones nor Morris knew Rossetti, but were much influenced by his works, and met him by recruiting him as a contributor to their ''Oxford and Cambridge Magazine'' which Morris founded in 1856 to promote his ideas about art and poetry.<ref name="DNB1909">{{cite DNBSupp|wstitle=Burne-Jones, Edward Coley|volume=3}}</ref><ref name="DNB">{{cite DNBSupp|wstitle=Morris, William (1834-1896) <!--NB dash not ndash on wikisource--> |display=Morris, William (1834–1896)|volume=3}}</ref>

[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Ecce Ancilla Domini! - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Ecce Ancilla Domini!]]'', 1850, a depiction of the [[Annunciation]]]]

In February 1857, Rossetti wrote to [[William Bell Scott]]:

{{blockquote|Two young men, projectors of the ''Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,'' have recently come up to town from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned artists instead of taking up any other career to which the university generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones's designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything unless perhaps [[Albert Dürer]]'s finest works.<ref name="DNB1909" />}}

That summer Morris and Rossetti visited Oxford and finding the [[Oxford Union murals|Oxford Union]] debating-hall under construction, pursued a commission to paint the upper walls with scenes from ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' and to decorate the roof between the open timbers. Seven artists were recruited, among them [[Valentine Prinsep]] and [[Arthur Hughes (artist)|Arthur Hughes]],<ref>Watkinson, Ray, "Painting" in Parry (1996), p. 93.</ref> and the work was hastily begun. The [[fresco]]es, done too soon and too fast, began to fade at once and now are barely decipherable.  Rossetti recruited two sisters, Bessie and [[Jane Morris|Jane Burden]], as models for the [[Oxford Union murals]], and Jane became Morris's wife in 1859.<ref name="Parry">Parry, ''William Morris'', pp. 14–16.</ref>