Early life

Janet Duff Gordon was the daughter of Sir Alexander Duff-Gordon and Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon

Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon

Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon was an English writer. She is best known for her Letters from Egypt and Letters from the Cape. She had TB and in 1851 went to South Africa for the 'climate' which she hoped would help her health, living near the Cape of Good Hope for several years before travelling to Egypt...

. Her father held a number of government positions, including Commissioner of Inland Revenue and her mother wrote the classic Letters from Egypt. She had a brother, Maurice and a sister, Urania.

She was the granddaughter of Sarah Austin, a famous translator, and the influential legal philosopher John Austin

John Austin (legal philosopher)

John Austin was a noted British jurist and published extensively concerning the philosophy of law and jurisprudence....

.

She grew up in a highly cultured atmosphere among England's leading intellectual and literary figures. Her parents' friends and regular visitors to her home included: William Thackeray, Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, Thomas Macaulay, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Caroline Norton, Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...

, and Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...

.
Janet's first years were spent at her family home located at No. 8 Queen Anne's Square (now Queen Square), Bloomsbury, London. Her parents subsequently moved to Esher

Esher

Esher is a town in the Surrey borough of Elmbridge in South East England near the River Mole. It is a very prosperous part of the Greater London Urban Area, largely suburban in character, and is situated 14.1 miles south west of Charing Cross....

. Her memoirs do not reference formal education aside from mentioning some tutors. She did travel to Paris and Germany for extended periods of time to learn French and German. She makes it clear that she preferred the company of adults and their conversation from a very young age.

Her family's connections certainly augmented her education. For example, Dickens encouraged her reading early on and gave her one of her first books. She remembers her fifth birthday party, sitting on the knee of Thackeray while he drew a sketch on the frontispiece of her copy of his novel Pendennis

Pendennis

Pendennis is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray. It is set in 19th century England, particularly in London. The main hero is a young English gentleman Arthur Pendennis who is born in the country and sets out for London to seek his place in life and society...

. Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...

, the inventor of the difference engine

Difference engine

A difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...

, a precursor to the modern computer, invited her to his office to show her his newest calculator. The French philosopher Jules Barthelemy-Saint-Hilaire

Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire

Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire was a French philosopher, journalist, statesman, and possible illegitimate son of Napoleon I of France.- Biography :...

 tutored her in French and became a lifetime correspondent. She likewise befriended Sir Austen Henry Layard

Austen Henry Layard

Sir Austen Henry Layard GCB, PC was a British traveller, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, author, politician and diplomat, best known as the excavator of Nimrud.-Family:...

 and began an adolescent correspondence with him that continued through her life. She recalls Tennyson telling her that her mother had inspired him to write The Princess

The Princess (poem)

The Princess is a serio-comic blank verse narrative poem, written by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1847. Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 to 1892 and remains one of the most popular English poets....

. Alexander Kinglake, author of Eothen, would take her riding, and likewise became a correspondent. At the age of thirteen, her knowledge of German was such that Kinglake asked her to translate a German book for him.

Life in Egypt

In 1860 she married a banker, Henry Ross, who was aged 40 to her 18. In 1861, they moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where Henry was a partner in a British bank, Briggs and Co., located in Cairo. While in Egypt, she continued cultivating relationships with learned and influential people. Early on she befriended Said Halim Pasha

Said Halim Pasha

Said Halim Pasha , Ottoman Empire Grand Vizier from 1913-17. Born in Cairo, Egypt, he was the grandson of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, "founder of modern Egypt". The "Pasha" in his name is an honorific that translates in English to "Lord", or "Lord Said Halim".He was one of the signers in Ottoman-German...

 who gave her a wedding present of a Bay horse. Halim was the son of Muhammed Ali of Egypt, who is regarded as the father of modern Egypt. He had inherited his father's palace at Choubra where he kept a harem of five hundred women. Halim later became Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. Janet also made the acquaintance of Hekekyan Bey, an Armenian civil engineer employed by the Egyptian government to conduct excavations in the Nile valley for archaeological purposes. In 1861 Janet was visited by Sir James Outram. She also befriended Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand de Lesseps

Ferdinand Marie, Vicomte de Lesseps, GCSI was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East.He attempted to repeat this success with an effort to build a sea-level...

 who took her on an early tour of the construction of the Suez Canal

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

. Sir Henry Bulwer, former British ambassador to Istanbul, visited her in 1863. Janet's "many social connections and essential nosiness positioned her as an ideal observer of foreign affairs" and she was briefly the Egyptian correspondent for The Evening Mail before becoming the Egyptian correspondent for The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

. There is, however, speculation that it was not her but her husband Henry who was The Times correspondent. Janet travelled extensively in Egypt. She sailed up the Nile to Luxor

Luxor

Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...

, toured the temple Medinet Habu

Medinet Habu

Medinet Habu is an important Egyptian archaeological and tourist locality on the West Bank of the modern city of Luxor.Somewhat ambiguously, the toponym Medinet Habu can refer to either:...

, and the Theban temples at Denderah. She made an excursion to the tombs of the Mamluk Sultans

Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)

The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt was the final independent Egyptian state prior to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in 1805. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. The sultanate's ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, Arabised...

. In 1863, she travelled by camel to Tall al Kabir

Tall al Kabir

Tall al Kebir or Tel-el-Kebir is 110 km north-north-east of Cairo and 75 kilometres south of Port Said on the edge of the Egyptian desert at the altitude of 29 m...

 to see the fete of Abou Nichab. While on the trip she dressed in bedouin garb, lived in a tent, and went hawking.

Life in Italy

In 1867 the Egyptian banking system underwent a crisis that diminished Henry Ross's investments and ended his banking career. Given their reduced circumstances Henry and Janet decided against returning to England because of the high cost of living. Instead they explored living on the continent, looking initially at an estate in France. Henry and Janet eventually moved to Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Italy, leaving their only child, Alexander (Alick) to be educated in England.

They initially lived in a couple of apartments in Florence, on the Lungarno Acciaivoli and the Lungarno Torrigiani. They tried to buy Fenis Castle

Fénis Castle

Fenis Castle is an Italian medieval castle located in the town of Fénis, not far from Aosta. It is one of the most famous castles in Aosta Valley, and for its architecture and its many towers and battlemented walls has become one of the major tourist attractions of the region.-History:The castle...

  near Aosta

Aosta

Aosta is the principal city of the bilingual Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, north-northwest of Turin. It is situated near the Italian entrance of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, at the confluence of the Buthier and the Dora Baltea, and at the junction of the Great and Little St. Bernard routes...

, Italy, but could not afford it. They ultimately rented Villa Castagnolo seven miles west of Florence in Lastra a Signa

Lastra a Signa

Lastra a Signa is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 12 km west of Florence.-References:The hospital building was...

 from its owner: Marchese Lotteringo della Stufa. The capital was relocating to Rome, and the Marchese moved with it to take a government position. The Marchese was extremely knowledgeable about agriculture and taught Janet much about farming. In turn, Janet also began implementing more modern agricultural methods at the villa especially in the areas of viticulture and cheese-making. One year she supervised the making of olive oil, an experience she would find useful when she later purchased her own villa. Henry, essentially retired at this point, occupied himself by raising orchids. Janet also befriended a local sculptor, Carlo Orsi, who resided at Orsi Villa. Henry encouraged Orsi do do more sketching, and Janet ultimately used him to illustrate many of her books. While at Castagnolo Janet had a falling out with the British novelist Marie Louise Rame, who wrote under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Ouida

Ouida

Ouida was the pseudonym of the English novelist Maria Louise Ramé .-Biography:...

. Ouida was wooing the Marchese and believed Janet's relationship with him was more than platonic. In her novel Friendship she included an unflattering portrait of a character transparently based on Janet. Janet responded by placing a copy of the novel, sans covers, in the bathroom for appropriate use.

In 1884, the Rosses travelled to Puglia in Southern Italy, where they stayed with Sir James Lacaita

James Lacaita

Sir James Lacaita K.C.M.G was Anglo-Italian politician and writer.Lacaita was born at Manduria in southern Italy he practised law in Naples, and having come in contact with a number of prominent Englishmen and Americans in that city he acquired a desire to study the English language...

 at his estate near Taranto

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

. Lacaita was an Italian scholar and politician. While there, Janet travelled extensively throughout Puglia. The trip inspired her 1899 book Land of Manfred which she dedicated to Lacaita.
In 1888, the Rosses acquired Villa di Poggio Gherardo outside Florence, near Settignano

Settignano

Settignano is a picturesque frazione ranged on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy, with spectacular views that have attracted American expatriates for generations...

. The villa had been in the Gherardo family for some 450 years, and purportedly was the one famously referenced by Boccaccio in the Decameron. It came with three attached farms (poderes) and operated under the mezzadria system whereby the tenant farmers (contadini) paid rent to the padrona consisting of half their production. Janet Ross was a capable businesswoman who managed the estate well and sold its produce at an adequate profit. She imported fortified white wine from Sicily, added sugar and a number of herbs, producing a vermouth

Vermouth

Vermouth is a fortified wine flavored with various dry ingredients. The modern versions of the beverage were first produced around the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Italy and France...

 that was in considerable demand in England. She claimed the vermouth recipe was a secret one handed down to her by the last of the Medicis.

She was also an occasional dealer in art. She discovered the painting The School of Pan by Luca Signorelli

Luca Signorelli

Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening...

 and later sold it at a substantial profit. She purchased a drawing by early Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 painter Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...

 that was a study for his painting Deposition From The Cross. She also acquired a painting that Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

 identified as being Madonna and Child by the Renaissance painter Alesso Baldovinetti.

Janet conducted a salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

 of sorts on Sundays at the villa, entertaining numerous writers and artists including: Edward Hutton

Edward Hutton (writer)

Edward Hutton was a British author of travel books and various Italian subjects.-Life and Work:Edward Hutton was born on April 12, 1875 in Hampstead, London, his father being a businessman with interests in Sheffield...

, George Meredith

George Meredith

George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...

, John Addington Symonds

John Addington Symonds

John Addington Symonds was an English poet and literary critic. Although he married and had a family, he was an early advocate of male love , which he believed could include pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships. He referred to it as l'amour de l'impossible...

, Augustus Hare

Augustus Hare

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare was an English writer and raconteur.He was the youngest son of Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, East Sussex, and Gresford, Flintshire, Wales, and nephew of Augustus William Hare and Julius Hare...

, Marie Corelli

Marie Corelli

Marie Corelli was a British novelist. She enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Corelli's novels sold more copies than the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G...

, Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896 upon the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.-Life:...

, and Norman Douglas

Norman Douglas

George Norman Douglas was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.-Life:Norman Douglas was born in Thüringen, Austria . His mother was Vanda von Poellnitz...

. In 1892 she located the nearby Villa Viviano for Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 and his wife to rent for a year, during which time they became good friends. While there, Twain completed the bulk of his draft of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Pudd'nhead Wilson

Pudd'nhead Wilson is a novel by Mark Twain. It was serialized in The Century Magazine , before being published as a novel in 1894.-Plot:...

. In her autobiography, Janet remarks: Twain also arranged shipment of watermelon seeds and maize seeds to Janet, claiming that there was no corn to be found in all of Italy. A young Iris Origo

Iris Origo

Dame Iris Margaret Origo, Marchesa of Val d'Orcia, DBE , née Cutting, was an Anglo-Irish writer, who devoted much of her life to the improvement of the Tuscan estate at La Foce, near Montepulciano, which she purchased with her husband in the 1920s.-Origins and upbringing:Origo was the daughter of...

 was a nearby neighbour at Villa Medici

Villa Medici

The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French...

 and spent much of her time with Janet. The British writer Violet May, who wrote under the pseudonym Vernon Lee

Vernon Lee

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget . She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she also wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel.-Biography:She was born at Château...

, lived at the neighbouring Villa Palmerino, and shared many acquaintances with Janet.

In 1890, Janet's sister-in-law, Frances Gordon died. At her death, Frances' sixteen-year-old daughter Carolina (Lina) was attending school in a convent in Paris. Frances had been separated from her husband Maurice for some time. Maurice was getting remarried and was not interested in raising his daughter. Lina likewise did not want to live with him and his new wife. Janet therefore became Lina's "ward". Lina left the convent and moved in with the Rosses. In her autobiography, Lina describes Janet as stern in outward comportment, but with a loving heart. Perhaps because she had long been estranged from her son, she welcomed Lina as her own child. Lina ultimately married Aubrey Waterfield, and they moved to Aulla

Aulla

-History:Traces of Roman and Etruscan civilizations found in the Church of Saint Caprisio indicate that there were settlements in Aulla long before the 8th century CE, when margrave Adalbert I of Tuscany founded a village and castle to accommodate pilgrims traveling the via Francigena. Here, at...

, Italy, where they purchased a castle - the Fortezza Brunella.

Janet also helped art historian and writer Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

 find and purchase a neighbouring villa, I Tatti. She wrote for literary journals, including Fraser's Magazine

Fraser's Magazine

Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely directed by Maginn under the name Oliver Yorke until about 1840...

, Macmillan's Magazine

Macmillan's Magazine

Macmillan's Magazine was a monthly British magazine from 1859 to 1907 published by Alexander Macmillan.The magazine was a literary periodical that published fiction and non-fiction works from primarily British authors. Thomas Hughes had convinced Macmillan to found the magazine. The first editor...

, Longman's Magazine

Longman's Magazine

Longman's Magazine was first published in November 1882 by C. J. Longman, publisher of Longmans, Green & Co. of London. It superseded Fraser's Magazine...

, Cosmopolis: A Literary Review

Cosmopolis: A Literary Review

Cosmopolis: A Literary Review was a multi-lingual literary magazine published between January 1896 and November 1898. The lead edition of Cosmopolis was published in London, but local editions of the magazine were also published in Berlin, Paris, and Saint Petersburg.Each edition of Cosmopolis...

, Temple Bar

Temple Bar

Temple Bar may refer to:* The Temple Bar, a spot in London* Temple Bar, Dublin, a cultural quarter in Dublin city* Temple Bar, Ceredigion, a village in Wales* Temple Bar Magazine, British literary magazine published 1860 to 1906...

, and Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. Her publishers encouraged her to select and publish some of her previous writings as Italian Sketches, which became a big success. She followed that book with Early Days Recalled (1891), and her memoir Three Generations of English Women, which dealt with her grandmother and mother, as well as her great-grandmother, Susannah Cook Taylor.
Janet Ross wrote the classic cookbook Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen, or, How to Cook Vegetables, which is a collection of recipes supplied by the Rosses' chef, Guiseppi Volpi, at Poggio Gherardo. The book is still in print, with the latest edition revised by her grand-grand nephew Michael Waterfield. She also wrote Florentine Villas (1901) and other books related to Italy, Florence and Tuscany, including: Terra De Manfredi (1899); Florentine Palaces And Their Stories (1905); Lives Of The Early Medici As Told In Their Correspondence (1910); The Story Of Pisa; and The Story Of Lucca (1912).

On 19 May 1895, a severe earthquake struck Florence. Poggio Gherardo was severely damaged. The tower collapsed, and stones from it fell through the ceilings in the cook's room and in Lina's room. The cost of repair was quite expensive, and the Rosses were required, inter alia, to sell their painting School of Pan to help pay for repairs.

In 1902 Henry Ross died. During World War I, Lina Waterfield's castle was requisitioned for military purposes. Lina, her husband and daughter moved in with the Rosses during this period. In her autobiography, Lina's daughter Kinta also portrays Janet as somewhat intimidating in appearance, but very kind and loving. As had her mother, Kinta found Poggio Gherardo a magical place to be as a child.

In 1912 Janet Ross published her autobiographical memoir The Fourth Generation. The book was a sequel to her Three Generations. It largely incorporated the text from Early Days Recalled and brought it current. It incorporated many letters from, inter alia, Kinglake, Layard, Meredith, and Hillaire. Janet died from cancer in 1927. She was cremated and buried in the Florence City Cemetery.

Janet Ross originally had intended to leave her villa to her son. Alick, however, had led a dissolute life, and was experiencing serious financial difficulties. To keep the villa out of his creditors' hands, she changed her will to leave the villa as a life estate to her niece Lina (Caroline) Waterfield, and then to Lina's son on Lina's death. Lina sold her castle in Aulla and moved to Poggio Gherardo on Janet's death. Lina and her husband Aubrey thereafter operated an English girls' boarding school in the villa to help defray expenses.

Lina left the villa for England in 1940. During World War II the villa was requisitioned by a prominent fascist leader and later occupied by American troops. When Lina returned after the war, she found most of her personal goods gone, and some damage to the villa. She briefly tried to restore the villa; however, after her son's death she sold it to a developer in 1952. The developer split off the three podere and sold the villa to a religious order, Istituto Antoniano which has since operated an orphanage there.

Books

• Italian Sketches (K. Paul Trench & Co. 1887)
• Three Generations of English Women (J. Murray 1888)
• Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen, or, How to Cook Vegetables (J. M. Dent 1900), rev'd ed. ISBN 9781904943624
• Terra De Manfredi (J. Murray 1899)
• Florentine Palaces And Their Stories (J. M. Dent 1905)
• Lives Of The Early Medici As Told In Their Correspondence (Chatto & Windus 1910)
• The Story Of Pisa (J. M. Dent 1909)
• The Story Of Lucca (J. M. Dent 1912)
• The Fourth Generation (Charles Scribner's Sons 1912)
• Old Florence and Modern Tuscany (J. M. Dent 1904)
• Fyvie Castle and its Lairds (Aberdeen 1884)
• Early Days Recalled (Chapman And Hall 1891)

Translations

• Cosimo De Medici, Poesi Volgari (J. M. Dent 1912)
• Generale Enrico della Rocca, The Autobiography of a Veteran, 1807-1893 (The Macmillan Co. 1898)

External links