James Collinson, the Campo Santo and the Birth of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Abstract:     
No single work is more often cited as the spark that ignited the Pre-Raphaelite movement than Carlo Lasinio's folio of engravings depicting the frescoes adorning the walls of the Camposanto in Pisa. In this paper, the author draws on substantial circumstantial evidence to argue that James Collinson, one of the lesser members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was th source for the transformative Lasinio engravings, and that he was drawn to them via Henry Newman's popular novel "Loss and Gain", which presaged Collinson's own conversion to Catholicism.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 8

Keywords: Collinson, Pre-Raphaelite, Rossetti, Lasinio, Engraving, Campo Santo

Accepted Paper Series