RINUGGINI, FAMIGLIA. – A noble Florentine family which, in the fourteenth century, engaged in profitable banking activities with the Commune and the papal Court. Until the extinction of the family in the first half of the nineteenth century, the R. included among its members military men, diplomats, and men of letters.
Among the ecclesiastics was GIOVANNI BATTISTA R., born on 15 September 1592 in Rome and died at Fermo on 13 December 1653. Secretary of the Congregation of Rites under Gregory XV, he was appointed archbishop of Fermo in 1625.
After refusing the archbishopric of Florence in 1631, R. was sent as nuncio to Ireland in 1645. R. found himself caught between the Party of the old Irish and that of the Catholic Anglo-Irish, who feared having to restore the ecclesiastical goods usurped during the schism if the Catholic Church were publicly recognized in Ireland. R. attempted, but in vain, to safeguard the rights of Catholics in the face of the various religious sects and the Anglican Church. R.’s attitude, opposed in principle to any negotiations with the Protestants, irritated the Supreme Council, in which the Anglo-Irish were in the majority. On 2 March 1649 the nuncio left Ireland after declaring that the Holy See did not intend to be represented by nuncios before Protestant powers.
GIOVANNI R. (1743–1801), after having been vice-legate of Bologna and consultor, was promoted by Pius VI in 1789 to governor of Rome and vice-chamberlain, and was then created cardinal deacon on 21 February 1794. Forced to leave Rome because of the French invasion, he took part in the Conclave of Venice of 1799–1800.