Ross, John Indian name Tsan-Usdi ("Little John") (b. Oct. 3, 1790, near Lookout Mountain, western district of N.C., U.S.—d. Aug. 1, 1866, Washington, D.C.) American Indian chief. The son of a Scottish father and part-Cherokee mother, he grew up as a Cherokee. He fought in the Creek War under Andrew Jackson (1813-14). He later became presi¬ dent of the National Council of Cherokees (1819-26). As principal chief of the Cherokee Nation (1828-39), he resisted government attempts to seize Cherokee farms and lands in Georgia and unsuccessfully petitioned Jackson to defend the Indians’ rights. In 1838 he was forced to lead his people on the infamous Trail of Tears to the Oklahoma Territory. There he became chief of the new United Cherokee Nation (1839-66).
Ross, Martin See Somerville and Ross
Ross, Sir Ronald (b. May 13, 1857, Almora, India—d. Sept. 16, 1932, Putney Heath, London, Eng.) British bacteriologist. After earning a medi- _ cal degree, he entered the Indian Medical Service and served in the third
Anglo-Burmese War (1885). He studied bacteriology in London, then wm returned to India, where he discovered the Plasmodium parasite (cause of
M malaria) in the gastrointestinal tract of the Anopheles mosquito in 1897.
He used infected and healthy birds to learn its entire life cycle, including wm its presence in the mosquito’s salivary glands, showing how it is trans¬ it mitted by a bite. He received a 1902 Nobel Prize.
Ross, Sir William David (b. April 15, 1877, Thurso, Caithness, Scot.—d. May 5, 1971, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.) Scottish moral phi¬ losopher. He served many years as provost at Oriel College, University of Oxford (1902-47), and later as Oxford’s vice chancellor. A critic of utilitarianism, he maintained a form of ethical intuitionism. He held that the terms “good” (which pertains to motives) and “right” (which pertains to acts) are indefinable and irreducible (see naturalistic fallacy) and that cer¬ tain commonsensical moral principles (e.g., those requiring promise¬ keeping, truth-telling, and justice) are knowable by mature reflection. His writings include Aristotle (1923), The Right and the Good (1930), Foun¬ dations of Ethics (1939), Plato’s Theory of Ideas (1951), and Kant’s Ethi¬ cal Theory (1954).
Ross Ice Shelf World’s largest body of floating ice. It lies at the head of the Ross Sea, which forms an enormous indentation in Antarctica. Its area is estimated to be about the size of France. The great white barrier wall of the shelf’s front, first seen in 1841 by British explorer Capt. James C. Ross, rises in places to 200 ft (60 m). The ice shelf has been an impor¬ tant gateway for explorations of the Antarctic interior, including expedi¬
tions (1911-12) to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott and Richard E. Byrd’s expeditions (1928-41). It is the site of sev¬ eral permanent research stations.
Rosse, William Parsons, 3rd earl of (b. June 17, 1800, York, Eng.—d. Oct. 31, 1867, Monkstown, County Cork, Ire.) Irish astronomer. His “Leviathan,” 54 ft (16.5 m) long, was the largest reflecting telescope of the 19th century, and its mirror had a diameter of 72 in. (183 cm). With it Rosse discovered the spiral shape of many objects then classed as nebu¬ lae, now recognized as galaxies, and he studied and named the Crab Nebula. He was also the first to discover binary and triple stars. As Lord Oxman- town, he sat in the House of Commons (1821-34); on inheriting his father’s earldom in 1841, he joined the House of Lords.
Rossellini \,r6s-sal-Te-ne\, Roberto (b. May 8, 1906, Rome, Italy—d. June 3, 1977, Rome) Italian film director. He directed his first feature film, White Ship, in 1941. During World War II he made Fascist propaganda films but also secretly filmed anti-Fascist activities. He used the docu¬ mentary footage in Open City (1945), acclaimed as one of the first examples of Italian Neorealism. The screenplay was written with Federico Fellini, who also collaborated with him on Paisan (1946). He made sev¬ eral films starring Ingrid Bergman, beginning with Stromboli (1949), but the scandal of their adulterous affair and marriage damaged their careers. He later directed General della Rovere (1959) and works for the stage and television, including a series of didactic historical works. His daugh¬ ter Isabella Rossellini (b. 1952) appeared in films such as Blue Velvet (1986) and Big Night (1996).
Rossellino \,r6s-sal-Te-no\, Bernardo (b. 1409, Settignano, Repub¬ lic of Florence—d. Sept. 23, 1464, Florence) Italian architect and sculp¬ tor. Influenced by Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Luca Della Robbia, he developed a moderately Classical style. His tomb for Leonardo Bruni (1444-50) in Santa Croce, Florence, was one of the greatest achievements of early Renaissance sculpture and inaugurated a new type of sepulchral monument. Its fine balance between sculpture and architecture, figure and decoration, made it the prototypical niche tomb of its time. He also designed the apse of St. Peter's Basilica and the cathedral and Piccolomini Palace in Pienza (1460-64). He presumably trained his brother Antonio (1427-79), who regularly assisted him.
Rossetti \ro-'ze-te\, Christina (Georgina) (b. Dec. 5, 1830, Lon¬ don, Eng.—d. Dec. 29, 1894, Lon¬ don) English poet. The youngest child of Gabriele Rossetti and the sis¬ ter of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she found her highest inspiration in her deep religious faith. The collections Goblin Market (1862) and The Prince’s Progress (1866) contain most of her finest work. Her best poetry is strong, personal, and unforced; her success arises from her ability to unite the devotional and the passionate sides of her nature. Her Sing-Song (1872; enlarged 1893), a collection of nursery rhymes, is among the most outstanding chil¬ dren’s books of the 19th century.
After the onset of a thyroid disorder in 1871, she wrote mainly devotional verse.
Rossetti \ro-'zet-e, ro-'set-eV,
Dante Gabriel orig. Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (b. May
12, 1828, London, Eng.—d. April 9, 1882, Birchington-on-Sea, Kent) British painter and poet. Son of Gabriele Rossetti and brother of Christina Rossetti, he trained at the Royal Academy but vacillated between paint¬ ing and poetry. As an informal pupil of Ford Madox Brown, he absorbed Brown’s admiration for the German Nazarenes. In 1848, with several friends, he formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters treating religious, moral, and medieval subjects in a naturalistic style. Rossetti expanded the Brotherhood’s aims by linking poetry, painting, and Social Idealism and by treating “Pre-Raphaelite” as synonymous with a romanticized medieval past. When his oil paintings were severely criti¬ cized, he turned to watercolours based on literary works, which he could
Christina Rossetti, chalk drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1866; in a pri¬ vate collection
REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION FROM HAROLD ROSSETTI; PHOTOGRAPH, J.M. COTTERELL
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Rossetti ► Roth I 1645
more easily sell to acquaintances, and became very successful. The group broke up in 1852, but Rossetti revived it in 1856 with Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.
After the death of his long-ailing wife in 1862, possibly by suicide, lit¬ erary themes gave way to pictures of women, particularly Morris’s wife,
Jane. His poetry, including the son¬ net sequence “The House of Life,” was widely admired. He broke with Morris in 1875 over his love for Jane and spent his later years as an alco¬ holic recluse.
Rossetti, Gabriele (Pasquale Giuseppe) (b. Feb. 28, 1783,
Vasto, Kingdom of Naples—d. April 24, 1854, London, Eng.) Italian poet, revolutionary, and scholar. A libret¬ tist and later curator of a museum in Naples, he was condemned for his spirited verse on contemporary poli¬ tics and for membership in a revolutionary group. In 1824 he fled to England, where in 1831 he published an eccentric interpretation of Dante, claiming a chiefly political and antipapal meaning in the Divine Comedy. The work led to a post as professor of Italian at King’s College, London, from 1831 to 1847. He is best known as the father of four talented chil¬ dren, including Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.