A group of mid-nineteenth-century London artists led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti who sought to emulate painters earlier than Raphael (1483–1520), one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. Rossetti at first used only the initials PRB, and when it became known that these stood for ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’ the group was attacked as being part of the Oxford Movement and secret Romanists. However, they were supported by the essayist John Ruskin and gained wide popularity. While the Brotherhood soon separated, one of them, Holman Hunt, continued in style and theme to maintain the original ideas.